Appears Defense Officials Withheld Info from Congress Because Some Reps Can't Be Trusted: Rep. Brooks
Rep. Mo Brooks said that in the classified briefing about the airstrike that took out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, it seemed defense officials withheld important details on the attack because some representatives can’t be trusted.
“USA kills Sulaimani. Kudos! After 40 years, about time USA fights back against Iran terrorists,” the Alabama Republican tweeted Thursday.
“In classified briefing, it appeared defense & intelligence reps held back info out of concern too many Congressmen can’t be trusted to keep classified info from USA enemies. Sad!”
USA kills Sulaimani. Kudos! After 40 years, about time USA fights back against Iran terrorists.
In classified briefing, it appeared defense & intelligence reps held back info out of concern too many Congressmen can’t be trusted to keep classified info from USA enemies.
Sad!
— Mo Brooks (@RepMoBrooks) January 9, 2020
Brooks’ assertion came on the same day the House of Representatives approved a war powers resolution meant to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to engage in military operations against Iran by forcing him to obtain congressional approval before doing so, Fox News reported.
After the airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport that killed Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have complained that Trump failed to consult them before launching the attack.
But Brooks and members of the Trump administration have since said that there was a concern about representatives leaking classified information to the news media, thus allowing vital intelligence to fall into the hands of the country’s enemies.
Brooks described the meeting in which he said officials withheld information in an exclusive interview with The Daily Wire.
“There were questions asked for specific information and the people on the dais simply did everything they could to get around providing the specific information, which allowed the inference that they had reservations about sharing that classified information with Congress in that kind of setting,” he said.
“Which in turn leads to the inference that they had a reasonable amount of distrust as to whether shared classified information would in turn be shared by members of Congress with the news media or our enemies.”
Vice President Mike Pence appeared Thursday on “Fox & Friends” to respond to criticism of the briefing, saying that the airstrike prevented “an imminent attack” by Iran and that congressional leadership has seen the intelligence.
“To protect sources and methods, we’re simply not able to share with every member of the House and Senate the intelligence that supported the president’s decision to take out Qassem Soleimani,” Pence said. “I can assure your viewers that there was a threat of an imminent attack.”
Brooks told The Daily Wire that Pence’s response to congressional criticism of the attack and the briefing is “very consistent with the concern that Congress cannot be trusted to keep classified information classified.”
“[It’s] also consistent with that concern is what you just got done seeing with Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee during the impeachment proceedings wherein that information that was collected in a SCIF was invariably leaked to the news media,” he said.
“So if you just had that experience where members of Congress are quite clearly leaking information that was collected in a SCIF environment, how can you trust them not to leak classified information regarding Iran that could lead to the deaths of our intelligence sources, or empower terrorist organizations to avoid American retribution for the killing that they have done?”
Trump said during a Thursday rally that he didn’t inform Congress of the attack before it happened because Democratic represenatives would leak it to the mainstream media.
Brooks concluded, “Quite clearly, there are some more visible members of Congress that caused greater concerns that others, but I’ll leave to you and the general public to figure out which ones those are.”
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