Schiff Demands Open Hearings On Trump’s Iran Strike, Claims “We May Be At War With Iran”

Here's what Schiff had to tell Washington Post:

The deliberations that went into President Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian general Qasem Soleimani are looking more slapdash and reckless by the hour. What we’re now seeing will require House Democrats to make a serious and sustained effort to get to the bottom of it all.

And guess what: We may soon get just such an effort.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told me in an interview that he wants to see the House hold open hearings on multiple aspects of this spiraling situation.

“I think there should be open hearings on this subject,” Schiff told me. “The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That requires the Congress to fully engage.”

Here’s the latest. New reporting has revealed deep internal skepticism over the intelligence underpinning the assassination’s stated rationale. Iran just announced it will no longer abide by restrictions in the Iran nuclear agreement, revealing the profound folly of Trump’s withdrawal from the deal, given that Iran had previously been complying with it

Meanwhile, Trump is firing off deranged, Dr. Strangelovian tweets threatening to strike Iranian cultural targets — a war crime — while blithely asserting zero obligation to inform Congress of any future attacks.

On Trump’s unhinged threat of war crimes, Schiff offered an interesting but overlooked point. He noted there is no chance Trump’s threats to bomb Iranian cultural sites, or his related threat of “disproportionate” military responses to future Iranian attacks, reflect any actual planning in the Pentagon.

“None of that could come out of the Pentagon,” Schiff told me. “Absolutely no way.”

That Trump is threatening to deploy our military to commit war crimes in a manner entirely severed from real-world military planning is deeply abnormal and must not be allowed to slide by as just Trump being Trump.

CNBC also said:

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is wading into the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s Middle East military action by calling for Congress to hold open hearings.

Schiff, who led the way during Trump’s impeachment in the House, told Washington Post opinion writer Greg Sargent that the president’s surprise decision to authorize the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani could have dire consequences.

“I think there should be open hearings on this subject,” Schiff told Sargent in the interview published Monday.

“The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That requires the Congress to fully engage,” Schiff said.

If the House follows through on Schiff’s call for open hearings, Trump administration officials could be brought forward to testify about the planning and timing behind the airstrike.

Schiff told Sargent that he’s “not satisfied” that intelligence he’s seen so far “supports the conclusion that the killing of Soleimani was going to either prevent attacks on the United States or reduce the risk to American lives.”