On Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said he is worried about the “integrity of the information” given by the Trump administration to justify the killing of former Quds force commander Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Host Jake Tapper said, “We have heard mixed messages and conflicting stories about the reason for the attack, whether it’s the existential threat that Soleimani posed, vs. imminent attacks, vs. an attack on one embassy, vs. an attack on four embassies. You and I have sat through this movie before, conflicting, changing information, intelligence juiced in order to justify certain actions. How worried are you about the integrity of the information we’re being told?”
Lee said, “Well, I’m worried. And as a United States senator and as a voter and citizen, I have learned not to simply take the federal government’s word at face value.”
He added, “I mean, look, we were lied to about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We were lied to for a couple of decades about what was happening in Afghanistan. We have been lied to about a lot of things. It’s not to say that the government is always lying or that the people who run it are inherently evil. It’s just that they’re human. And these things do happen. And so that’s important to ask these questions, to make sure that we know the details. And insofar as we’re dealing with the inherent tension between the Article 2 commander in chief power enjoyed by the president and the Article 1, Section 8, declaration of war power on the other hand controlled by Congress, members of Congress do need to be apprised of the information underlying a particular decision.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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