Sen. Lee lashes out

Pence defends administration after GOP Sen. Lee lashes out over Iran briefing

By QUINT FORGEY

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday defended the Trump administration from forceful criticism by Sen. Mike Lee, after the Utah conservative called a classified briefing on President Donald Trump's decision to kill an Iranian general "the worst" he had seen in his tenure on Capitol Hill.

Sprinting across morning television news programs to defend the White House’s outburst of violence with Iran, Pence was questioned repeatedly about Lee’s fiery remarks Wednesday following the briefing for lawmakers, which included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

While Pence said he had “great respect” for Lee and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who joined with his Utah colleague in critiquing the briefing, “the truth is both of them have voted against the military action that’s been taken by this administration in self-defense in Yemen and in the region, and we respectfully disagree with them,” the vice president told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Wednesday’s briefing focused primarily on the targeting last week of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite paramilitary Quds Force, in an overnight U.S. drone strike near Baghdad’s international airport. That strike prompted a missile assault from the Iranian military on two Iraqi air bases housing U.S. troops.

Although senior administration officials have claimed that Soleimani’s removal from the battlefield prevented an imminent threat that could have endangered as many as hundreds of American lives in the region, congressional Democrats have evinced skepticism regarding the intelligence behind the strike.

Lee appeared to echo those concerns, calling Wednesday's session “the worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in my nine years” in the Senate.

He fumed that the administration officials in attendance warned against even debating legislation to restrict Trump’s authority to attack Iran, blasting those comments as “un-American” and “unconstitutional.”

“They had to leave after 75 minutes while they’re in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public,” Lee said. “I find that absolutely insane.”

Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” Pence praised Lee as a “great conservative and a great leader,” and said the administration had “honest differences of opinion” with the senators regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East.

“But let me assure your viewers, I was there every step of the way,” Pence continued. “And while to protect sources and methods, we’re simply not able to share with every member of the House and Senate, the intelligence that supported the president’s decision to take out Qassem Soleimani. I can assure your viewers that there was a threat of an imminent attack.”

Pence was also pressed Wednesday by NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie on “Today” as to why administration briefers could not, in a secure Capitol Hill setting, share with lawmakers the nature of the threat Soleimani posed.

“Well some of that has to do with what's called sources and methods, Savannah,” he responded. “That if we were to share all of the intelligence — and, in fact, some of the most compelling evidence that Qassem Soleimani was preparing an imminent attack against American forces and American personnel also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have — it could compromise those sources and methods.”