A bipartisan group of key congressional staffers are meeting with Trump administration officials Monday for a briefing on the latest developments on Iran, sources told The Daily Beast.
The House and the Senate requested briefings Friday after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Iran was behind not only attacks on two petrochemical tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but was also a car bombing that injured four U.S. service members in Afghanistan. The meeting will be attended by staff from congressional leadership offices as well as those affiliated with key committees, according to two Democratic aides.
Lawmakers told The Daily Beast that Pompeo is also expected to make an appearance on Capitol Hill this week to answer questions about the intelligence that lead him to make those claims, including a video published by U.S. Central Command. That video, officials said, showed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boat pulling up to the side of a tanker and removing an alleged unexploded limpet mine from the hull.
Members of Congress are particularly eager to hear from the State Department after being left in the dark last month as the administration took an increasingly aggressive stance toward Iran. In May, Washington sent B-52 bombers and tankers to the Persian Gulf in a show of force against Tehran after the Trump administration claimed there were new “threat streams” that called for the deployment.
