Senior officials advised against Trump emergency arms sales to Saudis
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/mike-pompeo-trump-emergency-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-271943
Senior officials advised against Trump emergency arms sales to Saudis
The dispute is now at the center of an inspector general's probe into whether the deal was conducted legally.
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo disregarded the advice of high-level officials at the State Department, Pentagon and within the intelligence community in invoking an emergency waiver last year to circumvent congressional review of billions of dollars in arms sales to the U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf region, according to two former administration officials and three congressional sources.
That decision was under investigation by a government watchdog who was fired last week at Pompeo’s urging, and it
has fueled renewed accusations from lawmakers that the Trump administration bucked the will of Congress and even violated the law when it fast-tracked the weapons sales.
The secretary of state is facing intense scrutiny over the inspector general’s ouster, which has unleashed a flurry of negative stories and a torrent of criticism on Capitol Hill.
SNIP
“There is nothing going on right now that we could point to that would say it was any different than the month before,” the former official said.
Further,
some of the weapons included in the sale — $8 billion worth of guided missiles for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, bombs for Jordan, and other items — would not come online for at least a year.
“
Our conclusion was, ‘Nobody supports this being an emergency, so we think that the declaration wouldn’t have any grounds and we shouldn’t do it,’” the ex-official added. Details of the meetings, including a May gathering of the National Security Council Deputies Committee, later made their way to Capitol Hill, reinforcing concerns among lawmakers about the arms sales and prompting legislative action to reverse the transactions.
Pompeo decided to go ahead with the emergency invocation anyway after consulting with then-acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan
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Well well well.
the
Trump administration bucked the will of Congress and even violated the law when it fast-tracked the weapons sales.
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