Lawmakers attempted to use the rare hearing to extract answers from senior Trump officials on the expanding U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Several senators pressed them during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Worldwide Threats" on whether Iran posed an imminent "nuclear" threat to the U.S., one of the justifications the president and other top Republicans referenced when asked why the decision was made to attack Iran.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) asked Gabbard if the assessment of the intelligence community (IC) was that there was an "imminent nuclear threat" posed by the Iranian regime.
Gabbard said the IC assessment was that Iran "maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment capability."
When asked again, Gabbard said the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat to the country is the president.
"Here's the problem. It is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States," the Georgia Democrat said.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked if either Gabbard or Ratcliffe was in the room with Trump when he was making the final decision to strike Iran on Feb. 28.
Ratcliffe said he was in "dozens" of briefings with the president in the lead-up to the strikes and added that, "I don't know if there was a single meeting where there was a single time where a decision was made."
Gabbard confirmed she was present in those discussions.
Earlier this week, Trump claimed he was surprised that nobody briefed him ahead of time that Iran might retaliate against Gulf nations, although experts have publicly warned about the possibility in the past, including that Tehran could try to choke off the Strait of Hormuz.
When King asked about Trump's comments, Ratcliffe said he had not heard them and stated that Iran had "specific" plans to hit U.S. interests in "energy sites" across the Middle East region and that is why the Pentagon and State Department "took measures for force protection and personnel protection in advance" of Operation Epic Fury.
Gabbard said "yes" when asked if the intelligence community assessed if Iran's nuclear enrichment program was "obliterated" when the U.S. struck the nation's three premier sites in June and that there have been no efforts since then to try to rebuild the enrichment capability.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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