Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress and they want to know more about the intelligence that Trump relied on when he authorised the attacks.
“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who said on June 24 that it was “outrageous” that the Senate and House briefings were postponed. A similar briefing for House members was pushed to Friday (June 27).Read more: Trump signals US may ease Iran oil sanction enforcement to help rebuild country
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are expected to brief the senators on June 26. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was scheduled to be at the June 24 briefing, but will not be attending, according to a person familiar with the schedule.
The briefing could be contentious as questions have swirled around Trump’s decision to strike Iran and whether the attacks were successful. A preliminary U.S. intelligence report found this week that Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back only a few months, contradicting statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to two people familiar with the report. The people were not authorised to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
On Wednesday (June 25), Gabbard and Ratcliffe sent out statements backing Trump’s claims that the facilities were “completely and fully obliterated.” Gabbard posted on social media that “new intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.” She said that if the Iranians choose to rebuild the three facilities, it would “likely take years to do.”
Ratcliffe said in a statement from the CIA that Iran’s nuclear programme has been “severely damaged” and cited new intelligence “from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”
Most Republicans have staunchly defended Trump and hailed the tentative ceasefire he brokered in the Israel-Iran war. House Speaker Mike Johnson even went as far as to question the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, which is intended to give Congress a say in military action. “The bottom line is the commander in chief is the president, the military reports to the president, and the person empowered to act on the nation’s behalf is the president,” Johnson told reporters.
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But some Republicans — including some of Trump’s staunchest supporters — are uncomfortable with the strikes and the potential for U.S. involvement in an extended Middle East conflict. “I think the speaker needs to review the Constitution,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “And I think there’s a lot of evidence that our Founding Fathers did not want presidents to unilaterally go to war.”
Paul would not say if he is voting for the resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would require congressional approval for specific military action in Iran. The resolution is likely to fail as 60 votes would be needed to pass it and Republicans have a 53-47 majority. But Kaine says it’s important to put the Senate on the record.
“You have a debate like this so that the entire American public, whose sons and daughters are in the military and whose lives will be at risk in war, get to see the debate and reach their own conclusion together with the elected officials about whether the mission is worth it or not,” Kaine said.
While he did not seek approval, Trump sent congressional leaders a short letter on Monday (June 23) serving as his official notice of the strikes, two days after the bombs fell. The letter said that the strike was taken “to advance vital United States national interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel, by eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme.”
