Withholding information on North Korea

Dem chairmen accuse Trump of withholding information on North Korea

By ANDREW DESIDERIO

Just a week before President Donald Trump is set to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, key Democratic House chairmen accused the president on Thursday of withholding information about his administration’s negotiations with North Korea.

“Our ability to conduct oversight of U.S. policy toward North Korea on behalf of the American people has been inappropriately curtailed by your administration’s unwillingness to share information with Congress,” Reps. Eliot Engel, Adam Smith and Adam Schiff — who chair the foreign affairs, armed services and intelligence panels, respectively — wrote in a letter to the president.

Their letter comes as Trump is preparing to meet for a second time with Kim next week in Vietnam. The lawmakers said the Trump administration has yet to fully brief Congress about the president’s first summit with Kim, which took place last June in Singapore. They demanded that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brief House members about the Vietnam summit within seven days.

“It is unacceptable that the administration is planning for a second meeting with Chairman Kim before Congress has been briefed by Secretary Pompeo on the June 2018 Singapore Summit,” the chairmen said. “There is no legitimate reason for having failed to provide regular, senior-level briefings to the relevant committees of jurisdiction on a matter of such significance to our national security.”

The White House did not immediately respond for comment.

Engel, Smith and Schiff also highlighted Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats’ recent public statements, which appeared to contradict Trump’s confidence that the Kim regime will fully denuclearize.

Coats testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that North Korea “will seek to retain its [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.” Senior Pentagon officials have backed up Coats’ assessment, telling lawmakers that full denuclearization was unlikely.

Their statements appeared to undercut Trump’s stated goal of achieving full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — a major priority for the president — and his belief that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat to the United States.

“We are perplexed and troubled by the growing disconnect between the Intelligence Community’s assessment and your administration’s statements about Kim Jong Un’s actions, commitments, and intentions,” the chairmen wrote, adding: “A summit that amounts to little more than spectacle will further erode the public confidence and the credibility of the United States, an outcome that we all wish to avoid.”

Trump is reportedly considering ousting Coats over the public contradictions, prompting lawmakers from both parties to rally behind the intelligence chief.

The House chairmen also said the administration has not complied with a provision in the defense authorization bill, which requires the Defense secretary to send Congress a report by last October about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Engel, Smith and Schiff said Congress “has still not received the report.”