Democratic lawmakers are not buying the White House’s excuse that classified briefings on President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran have been postponed due to scheduling conflicts.
Originally separate briefings for the House and Senate were scheduled to be held on Tuesday, but now they’ve been pushed back to Thursday for the Senate and Friday for the House.
The official reason for the delay is so Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—both of whom are attending the NATO summit in The Hague with Trump—can attend, but some Democrats think it’s because reports have emerged that the strikes weren’t as successful as Trump originally claimed.
“There is a legal obligation for the administration to inform Congress about precisely what is happening,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “What are they afraid of? Why won’t they engage Congress in the critical details?”
Other Democrats accused the administration of overstating the mission’s success and drew parallels to the Iraq War.
“I’m very concerned about [Trump] distorting, manipulating, and even lying about intelligence,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Axios. “We’ve been here before. We went to war in Iraq under false pretenses.”
“I think we might be less worried about that had we not seen an administration lie us into a war in Iraq in 2002,” Sen. Tim Kaine also told the outlet.
The president announced on Saturday night that American warplanes had dropped massive “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear sites, marking the U.S.’s entry into the Israel-Iran conflict.
“I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,” Trump said in a weekend address. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
But a leaked initial report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, found that Iran’s uranium stockpile was not destroyed during Saturday’s attack and its centrifuges were left largely intact. That would mean the strikes only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months.
The administration also carried out the strikes without congressional approval, which the Constitution requires except in cases of an imminent threat to the U.S.
The last intelligence lawmakers received was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s March testimony that Iran was not building a nuclear bomb, according to the AP.
The Trump administration has denied the preliminary intelligence assessment and fumed at the news outlets that reported on it.
“FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY,” Trump wrote in a late-night post on Truth Social.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote in a post on X, “This is a preliminary, low confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available. We are working with the appropriate authorities to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the assessment “flat-out wrong.”
Democrats, however, aren’t convinced.
“The real reason [for the delayed intelligence briefing]?” Rep. Pat Ryan told Axios. “He claims he destroyed ‘all nuclear facilities and capability.’ His team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS.”
The post Dems Call BS on Secret Briefing Being Canceled After Bombshell Iran Leak appeared first on The Daily Beast.
