Washington– The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warned Thursday that increasing efforts by the Trump administration to exclude Democrats from national security conferences could put troops at risk and withhold critical information from the public.
“I don’t know how you can begin to rebuild trust,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said after Democrats were not invited to a news conference this week about U.S. military strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs. “This goes against every standard of how national security policy works.”
It’s a must-read for every senator, Warner said, “and when you politicize decision-making about putting service members in harm’s way, you make them less safe.”
Representatives from both parties They had questions About US strikes on boats in the waters off South America – 14 strikes so far that have killed 61 people – and the legal justification for them, given that Congress did not authorize military action. President Donald Trump’s administration is also building an unusually large force of warships in the region, raising speculation that the moves are aimed at… Overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The Senate could have a say next week with an expected vote on a Democratic-imposed war powers resolution that would ban strikes in or near Venezuela, unless Congress approves. Several Republicans considered potential swing votes in favor of the resolution were part of the briefing this week.
One Republican senator, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said he and others requested the briefing. He said that helped alleviate some of his concerns, but he would “continue to consider” the decision.
Tillis said he didn’t see anything wrong with Republicans having their own briefing because the issue had become “politicized.” Tillis said Democrats “should be entitled to a briefing” as well.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham also said Democrats should hear from the administration. Asked if he was concerned about the precedent of their exclusion, Graham replied that “they will be informed.”
This is “the bull—–,” Warner said.
“Someone has to be held accountable for this,” he added. “Some ‘oops’ make-up sessions don’t do the trick.”
Warner has criticized the Trump administration for months as military and intelligence officials increasingly move away from the long tradition of giving bipartisan briefings at the Capitol and crack down on access to national security information.
Trump officials only contacted Republicans in Congress, not Democrats, before launching the project Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities Earlier this year. They too He canceled a routine secret meeting Which Warner had identified with career intelligence staff at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency after he criticized it Laura LemireThe far-right conspiracy theorist.
Congress’s national security committees have long been among the most partisan, and lawmakers in both parties closely guard their access to information because power can shift quickly in Washington. But Warner directly criticized fellow Republicans for their “blind loyalty” to Trump and failure to speak out.
“Someone had to walk out of the meeting,” Warner said.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, another Republican who attended the convention, said he did not know until he arrived that the convention would be so partisan. He said he received a phone call from the White House on Thursday morning asking if he had concerns.
I said: Yes. “Since Intel and the armed services, we do things on a bipartisan basis when it comes to this, we want to keep it that way,” Rounds said.
The administration held a separate classified briefing for the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that included Democrats. But Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who attended the meeting, said the Pentagon withdrew its lawyers without warning. The lawyers were “the specific people who would provide legal justification for these strikes,” Moulton posted on X.
Trump did Justify the attacks On boats when necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, he confirmed that the United States was involved in the operation “Armed conflict” with drug gangs.
The administration says it is relying on the same legal authority that the Bush administration used when it declared a war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But lawmakers said they want more details about that rationale as the frequency of attacks increases.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said excluding Democrats from the briefing was “extremely poor judgment.”
“It’s about this administration’s mentality that they don’t have to deal with Congress unless there’s an emergency, and that’s usually what Republicans try to galvanize,” Reed said.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Konstantin Torobin contributed to this report.