White House officials are offering forceful pushback on a report from CNN stating that key members of Congress were not given prior notice of President Donald Trump’s decision to unleash fury on Iran by dropping a dozen “bunker buster” bombs on nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran.
The operation, which we now know was called “Midnight Hammer,” took place after advance warning was given to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Sunday. She stated that both Democratic leaders were notified before the first bombs struck Iran.
However, CNN issued a report saying that House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-LA) along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) were briefed about the operation, but their Democratic counter parts were not.
In a social media post published on Sunday, Leavitt referred to the report as “fake news.”
“This is Fake News. The White House made bipartisan courtesy calls to Congressional Leadership and spoke to @SenSchumer before the strike. @RepJeffries could not be reached until after, but he was briefed. @CNN please retract,” Leavitt said of CNN’s report.
CNN also stated in the report that Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) along with Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT), both ranking members of the intelligence committees in the Senate and House, were allegedly also not consulted.
Strangely, none of the Democratic leadership who were mentioned in the report confirmed to Fox News if they had been briefed by the administration before the strike took place. Schumer posted on social media that he wanted Congress to enforce the War Powers Act before going on to accuse Trump of acting “unilaterally.”
“No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy,” Schumer wrote.
During an appearance on Fox News early Monday morning, Leavitt gave Trump credit for doing “what other presidents dreamed about” by destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
“This is an operation that presidents of the past have dreamed about, but no president had the guts to actually do it, but President Trump did, not just to the state of Israel, but to the United States and the rest of the world,” she told Fox.
His accomplishment was still at the forefront of the president’s thinking on Monday when he started floating the idea of “regime change” in Iran, as senior officials in their government say they are now open to considering removal of the supreme leader as part of their response to the attack.
During an interview on CBS on Monday, Leavitt made it clear the White House has confidence that all three Iranian nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated.”
“We are confident, yes, that Iran’s nuclear sites were completely and totally obliterated, as the president said in his address to the nation on Saturday night, and we have a high degree of confidence that where those strikes took place is where Iran’s enriched uranium was stored,” she stated on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
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