- The Washington Times - Thursday, January 9, 2020

Republican Senator Mike Lee on Thursday stepped up his criticism of a closed-door intelligence briefing on the fatal airstrike last week that killed the commander of a key Iranian military force, calling the meeting with top Trump administration security officials “an unmitigated disaster.”

The Utah lawmaker slammed fellow Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who emerged from the meeting confident in the intelligence behind the strike on Qassem Soleimani and said President Trump “appropriately responded” to impending threats from Iran.

“I think [Mr. Rubio] must have been in a different briefing than I attended,” Mr. Lee said in an interview with NPR.

“I literally find it difficult to imagine how my friend Marco [Rubio], who is smart, who listens carefully, who cares about these things, how he could emerge from that meeting at say that it was good. It was terrible. It was an unmitigated disaster.”

Following the 75-minute briefing, Mr. Lee broke with his GOP colleagues and announced he would support a resolution curbing President Trump’s ability to wage war on Iran with congressional authorization. The House is voting on a comparable measure Thursday.

Immediately after the briefing, Mr. Lee dubbed the briefing “probably the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate.”

The criticism quickly drew the attention of Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who accused Mr. Lee and libertarian Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, of “empowering the enemy.”

• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.

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