Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez are calling on the White House to declassify the formal notification Donald Trump finally provided to Congress about the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
"It is critical that national security matters of such import be shared with the American people in a timely manner," Schumer and Menendez write in their letter to Trump. "An entirely classified notification is simply not appropriate in a democratic society, and there appears to be no legitimate justification for classifying this notification." Since the notification is classified, it's unclear whether it includes legal justification for the attack, which is murky. A Democratic source who received a White House briefing on Friday told CNN that the administration's evidence of an imminent threat from Soleimani was "absolutely unconvincing." Sen. Tom Udall, Democrat from New Mexico, reinforced that. "My staff was briefed by a number of people representing a variety of agencies in the United States government and they came away with no feeling that there was evidence of an imminent attack," Udall said.
On the House side, Rep. Adam Schiff agrees, telling The Washington Post's Greg Sargent, "I'm certainly not satisfied that the intelligence supports the conclusion that the killing of Soleimani was going to either prevent attacks on the United States or reduce the risk to American lives." He also said, "I think there should be open hearings on this subject. […] The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That requires the Congress to fully engage."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will vote on a war powers resolution "similar to the resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine in the Senate." The resolution "reasserts Congress's long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration's military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days." That resolution from Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, is privileged, meaning that the Senate will be forced to vote on it.