Senator Mark Warner (00:00):
Well, thank you all for being here. And let me just start by saying in an administration, in a world where it feels like every day a new boundary is broken, a new law is overridden and a classic procedure is ignored. But we hit a new low, and let me be blunt. What the administration did in the last 24 hours is corrosive not only to our democracy but downright dangerous for our national security.
(00:36)
Yesterday, the administration convened a briefing for Republican senators, and only Republican senators, on the recent US military strikes in the Caribbean. Along with that briefing, they shared the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion that tries to lay out legal justification for those strikes. Again, they didn't share it with Congress, they didn't share it with the Gang of Eight, which is their responsibility. They didn't share it with the Senate, they shared it with one political party. That is not how the system is supposed to work. That is not how national security decisions are supposed to get made.
(01:19)
Matter of fact, just last week in a very classified secure meeting with National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he looked me in the eye and personally promised that we would have that Office of Legal Ethics position laid out. He said he hoped it had been delivered that day. Now, I'm not blaming Secretary Rubio because I know he left for the Middle East the next morning.
(01:52)
But instead of honoring that promise, this administration chose to give this sensitive legal document to a select group of more than a dozen Republican senators. Not all on intel, not all, I think even on armed services, on a purely partisan basis. Now, only when they got caught, only when word got out and senators started asking questions did they scramble to try and make things work. They said, "Okay, we'll give it just to Democratic members in that Gang of Eight." This is not how the law works. This is not how Congress is supposed to act. Try to cover your tracks after this malfeasance still falls short of what the Constitution demands. And I'd say in any normal administration, somebody would be fired for this kind of abuse.
(02:55)
So now this Office of Legal Counsel opinion should be shared with every member of the Senate, not just the Gang of Eight. Every Senator. Democrat, Republican, independent has a constitutional role to play when the United States uses military force and to make that review. It's not optional, it's our freaking duty. When administration decides it can pick and choose which elected representatives get the understanding of their legal argument of why this is needed for military force and only chooses a particular party, it ignores all the checks and balances. We've seen this in other attributes. The one area that I thought we could maintain some level of comity, C-O-M-I-T-Y, was around national security. But not from this crowd.
(03:53)
This is not about procedure or process or even precedent. When you politicize decision-making about putting our service members in harm's way, you make them less safe. When it becomes a question of whether America's going to go to war and use military forces become simply a tool for partisan back and forth, you not only weaken the bond with our troops, but you completely continue to weaken the credibility with our allies. Which has been weakened so many times you've got countries like the Dutch acknowledging they're not sharing information with us as much as they used to in a public forum because they can trust the Americans now.
(04:43)
When you deny Congress the access, the legal rationale for military action, you also do huge erosion of trust from our public. And again, as I've mentioned, you do real harm for the people that serve. The truth is our troops, when they're going into an area that's such a gray zone at best and you've seen officers already appear to be fired because they've raised concerns, they deserve to know with clarity the legal reasoning of why they're being put in harm's way. And again, Congress has an oversight role here, this is US Government 101. And frankly not to be divided and used as political pawns. And the truth is as well, my Republican colleagues bear responsibility as well.
(05:40)
Every senator, regardless of party, should have a say on how military force is used, and frankly Congress has a right and obligation to understand the legal basis. My proudest tenure has been on the Intelligence Committee and I'm proud of its record. I've served under Democrats, Republicans, I've been chair of the committee. I can tell you, Saxby Chambliss, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Burr would've never allowed this to happen.
(06:13)
So the question I got from my Republican senators, if you're sitting in this room getting clearly what had been prior Gang of Eight level classified information, didn't somebody raise their hand and say, "Well holy crap, where are the Democrats?" Who was willing to say isn't there a constitutional obligation here? It is about separation of powers. For the folks who wave their constitution around, read the damn thing and then explain why you would sit through that briefing and not call foul.
(06:46)
So I call on this administration to immediately provide not only the OLC opinion, but as well as the secret target list was briefed my understanding yesterday as well. And this ought to go to every senator, not Gang of Eight, not just the Intelligence Committee members, now that they have already broken the seal. Everybody needs to be read in. That is what Americans deserve, that's what every senator deserves, not this cherry-picking for political purposes. The country deserves better. And we'll see if anyone is willing to stand up and push back. Take your questions.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Senator, two questions. It's obvious why a target list is classified, why is the legal rationale classified?
Senator Mark Warner (07:37):
I don't have any freaking idea. If you've got a valid legal opinion, wouldn't you want to share it with every member? If you believe, and I think the administration does, that we know these guys are bad guys, wouldn't you want to catch them and show the world the drugs and show their history of bad activities? The idea that they were afraid of a War Powers Act and they're going to cherry-pick Republican senators and share it only with them? Come on, we've been doing this for a while. It's never worked this way. And if we allow this foul to take place, what happens the next time? We've already seen… Just one last comment on this. I guess I shouldn't be shocked. Only Republicans were called before the strike on Iran. So we are starting a pattern now that says national security, which has always been the province of bipartisanship, that has been the province where particularly in the Senate, we keep our secrets classified, they're blowing that all up.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And just a quick follow up. You said you met last week with Secretary Rubio. Do you believe that that classified briefing had less information than the briefing that the Republicans got yesterday?
Senator Mark Warner (09:03):
I presume it did, the most secretive briefings because it had supposedly this target list. Now, and again, let me be clear, I've worked well with Marco over many, many years. I was proud to support him for Secretary of State. He looked me in the eye and promised me this. I hope that he assumed that promise would be carried out before he left the country, and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and until proven otherwise. But if some lackey in the White House said "No, we can't share that. We can't open ourselves up to actual congressional oversight." In any administration, including Trump One, that person would be fired.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
On the military strikes themselves, I'm wondering if there's anything that the Trump administration could tell you, if and when they do tell you, and I know [inaudible 00:09:59], that would lend your support to what's been going on, what we've seen been going on with these strikes in national law.
Senator Mark Warner (10:07):
Well, first of all, we've got to make clear that we're frankly not putting our service members in harm's way. That means you got to see the underlying legal opinion. And let me acknowledge, Maduro is a bad guy. The drug gangs are awful. But if we have all of the evidence that I think the administration is representing, they ought to share that. Now you got to protect sources and methods, I get that. But the idea that they're going to arbitrarily pick a dozen Republican senators to share this with and throw this into a partisan scrum, where in the hell are my Republican colleagues who are willing to stand up and say, no, this is wrong?
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Yes, sir. According to the US justice, these cartels that operate in the Caribbean Sea have a relation with the Maduro regime. So do you think it's important to end the Maduro regime and what do you think is the best way to do that?
Senator Mark Warner (11:17):
I would simply say this, two things. I wish the American government, frankly under President Biden, would've pushed much stronger when the Venezuelan people in an enormously courageous move voted in overwhelming numbers close to 65% to throw Maduro out. And we missed an opportunity there. I would also say I'm going to accept the analysis of our top intelligence professionals, who at least earlier this year said Tren de Aragua, bad guys, Maduro, bad guys, but did not see that linkage and they were fired because they wouldn't bend their analysis to political purposes. And I can tell you major allies of America took note of that and basically said to me, I meet with them regularly, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 6 (12:11):
Senator, it seems like you reached out to the Trump administration yesterday when this news broke. Did they give you the documents as a member of the Gang of Eight?
Senator Mark Warner (12:18):
No, I've not gotten any… They supposedly are going to make them available now, bullshit.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
And did they say anything else?
Senator Mark Warner (12:24):
No, they know they screwed up. But saying they screwed up, if they acknowledge they screwed up, fire someone. But the question I've got is this is a pattern. This is not a one-off. And where in the hell were my Republican senators who we have worked on everything in a bipartisan fashion? Why didn't they say, "Isn't this a little bit weird that we don't have any Democrats in the room?" We're going to go through everybody.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
You sent a letter along with Representative Himes last week to DNI Gabbard requesting more information on the strikes. Have you received a response to that? And then secondarily, I'm wondering if you can tell us more about what you understand the rationale to be behind yesterday's briefing. Was it just sway holdouts on the War Powers resolution?
Senator Mark Warner (13:09):
The White House doesn't clue me in on their political strategy. They don't have to do that. They do have to follow the law. And I don't think, we did not receive a response from Gabbard, I'm not sure we received response from Gabbard on any [inaudible 00:13:27] since she's been in that office.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So you have not received an explanation why Democrats were excluded from the briefing yesterday?
Senator Mark Warner (13:34):
We got a ham-handed oh, maybe you're right, whatever. I say bullshit.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Did you ask-
Senator Mark Warner (13:42):
I say this is so outrageous. And it's not, again, when we sit in our… We generally, I've been in hundreds and hundreds of these meetings and almost all the time you can't tell who's Republican or Democrat because this is about our country's national security. This ought to be our shared responsibility. The idea that we're going to selectively give on a partisan basis only information about putting troops in harm's way. You allow this precedent to stand? And not only are troops made less safe but our country's made less safe and who in the heck around the world is going to really trust us? Yes ma'am.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Senator Rounds said this morning that he did reach out to the White House afterwards and asked where the Democrats were after he went into the briefing and didn't see anybody there. Have you spoken with him or other Republicans?
Senator Mark Warner (14:39):
I have spoken briefly with Mike Rounds. I have a lot of faith in Mike Rounds. But the question I got to ask everybody is with all the focus on issue, with everyone knowing that we've been jointly asking for this information, and we all jointly asked Secretary Rubio from the Gang of Eight meeting and Senator Rounds wasn't in the meeting last week, but why in the heck wouldn't somebody have said, "You know what? This is a little weird. What's going on here?" Yes ma'am.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Two quick questions. The first being, have you heard of any of the information? Have any of your Republican colleagues shared with you anything that was in that briefing? And then the second question is just now in the House Armed Services committee briefing that was given, one of the representatives came out and said that they were told that as of now, only cocaine has been retrieved, no fentanyl thus far. Is that something that you've heard as well?
Senator Mark Warner (15:43):
I have no information about that and no, I've not been shared with any of the information.
Speaker 7 (15:52):
Based on the information that you've got so far, are you concerned at all about US troops being put in a situation where they're acting on illegal orders? And then also if you could just speak briefly to any thoughts you have on a direct attack on Venezuela, which President Trump has threatened repeatedly, how you think that might impact things?
Senator Mark Warner (16:11):
I went to law school, I never claimed to be a lawyer. Smarter members than me on legal opinions have raised concerns if these strikes violate international law, could they be in jeopardy? That's why you have an Office of Legal Counsel that's supposed to give the rationale. And dragging your feet, we've been asking for this not for days or weeks, but it's been for months since they started. Not sharing that is frankly unprecedented, promising it and then only sharing it with Republicans, when will there be such an abuse that people will say enough? I don't know. Yes ma'am, then we'll go to the back row.
Speaker 8 (17:00):
Last month you said that you had a visit to an intelligence agency booked and rescheduled. Was it rescheduled? Did you ever hear back and have you attempted to go to any other agency?
Senator Mark Warner (17:11):
I am scheduling with another agency that is in Virginia a meeting in terms of my normal course of oversight. And again, this was the case again of Ms. Loomer who was so out of the mainstream that couldn't even get a job in the Trump administration yet seems to pull Hegseth and Gabbard's strings. Again, it was a case after they got caught on this, they tried to cook up a response that was baloney. We talked about the intelligence committee and all of my Republicans senate friends said I'm not going to make a prerequisite that I got to bring a Democrat every time they do their oversight responsibility. Under the rules that the White House proposed, when you're on a Code L, you couldn't visit a CIA station to buck up morale if you didn't bring a bipartisan to it.
(18:07)
It was again, such a obvious effort to try to clean up the mess. And I look forward to my visit. I'll invite anybody else that wants to go along. I don't expect anybody else to go along. But if I'm not able to do oversight… And remember the intelligence committee for all, there's only 17 of us in the Senate. There's 27 in the house. If we don't do this job, no other senator, no other congressperson gets the right to do the same oversight. You take that away and this is how, without oversight, this is how the intelligence community gets in trouble.
(18:47)
And I know the intelligence community, they want the oversight. This was not a pushback from any of the professionals because they want to have, frankly all of us reinforce the fact that they need to be independent and speak truth to power. And I got to tell you they are under such pressure at this point. I've never seen anything like this. And again, this makes America less safe.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Senator, do you believe that one of the objectives of this operation is to remove Maduro from power?
Senator Mark Warner (19:19):
I don't know what the final objective is. And again, I'm not going to… I go back to what I said at the front. Maduro is a bad guy. He's bringing down the Venezuelan people. But if there is an effort, if there is a United States policy to try to remove him, it sure as hell ought to at least be shared with the Gang of Eight. If not, the Intelligence Committee is writ large and any level of trust by these antics is totally destroyed. On this Office of Legal Counsel opinion and frankly on the targeted list, every senator needs to get it and we're going to keep pushing until it happens. Yes sir.
Speaker 9 (20:09):
In terms of the notification that reportedly the administration's already given to Congress in which-
Senator Mark Warner (20:15):
Well, what notification are you talking?
Speaker 9 (20:16):
Well, so at the start of this month reportedly there was a notification that said the administration regarded these as unlawful combatants, non-state armed groups whose actions constitute an armed attack against the United States. Do you accept that assertion that what they're doing-
Senator Mark Warner (20:30):
Listen, I can't make that judgment. It will be a stretch, but I would give them the courtesy of saying show me your legal reasoning on how you got there. They have drugged their feet, drugged their feet, drugged their feet. Promised we'd get it, didn't deliver, and then they share it with a select group of Republican senators only. This is not the way the system's supposed to work.
Speaker 9 (20:55):
Can I just follow up very quickly on congressional approval. Presumably your opponents will point to previous presidents who have acted without congressional approval, for example, President Obama and Libya. Do you see a distinction between that action and what's happening now?
Senator Mark Warner (21:09):
We have seen actions done by presidents which are like a single strike, single action that circumstances warrant. And generally speaking, Congress defers to the president in a moment in time. But this is not some single action. This appears to be a policy that is being carried out over weeks and potentially months. There is no legitimate reason not to share at least the legal opinion, what the goals are with the American people, frankly, not just the Senate. And I don't think that basic criteria has been met. Yes ma'am.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Some of your Republican colleagues in the Senate, like Senator Rand Paul, have always been outspoken about this issue. Do you know if they were also including the briefing or if it was only people that were on the edge? And do you have a list of people that were included?
Senator Mark Warner (22:03):
I don't know if he was.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Based on what you do know right now, do you see parallels between what this administration is trying to do in Venezuela and what previous administrations tried to do in the Middle East?
Senator Mark Warner (22:15):
Well, I don't want to say this. It couldn't be more night and day between Trump One and Trump Two. I remember when President Trump in Trump One, when it appeared there had been a drone shot down, the administration was considering a strike on Iran. When President Trump, to his credit, went way beyond what was required. He had the senior leadership of the House and the Senate, not just from intelligence and the speaker and minority leader, he had 25 of us in the room and went through, he followed the law. He recognized that if we're going to put Americans in harm's way, it is required that Congress at least get a particularly a long-term campaign. All that is obviously out the window right now. And this makes America less safe. And frankly, it further deteriorates relations with our allies. Because if they're saying, hold it, you're telling me Congress gets no oversight on the actions of this President, particularly when it appears to be a many week-long, maybe month-long campaign. And how do we question on anything?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Republicans who have been asked about this this morning are saying, you're hearing there's going to be another briefing for Democrats.
Senator Mark Warner (23:31):
Bullshit.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Have you heard about that?
Senator Mark Warner (23:35):
Listen, somebody needs to be held accountable for this. And Trump One and Biden, and again, following up on what happened with the Iran strike in the first place, this is to cover your tracks. Try to damage the fallout. Yeah.
(23:57)
What do I tell people in Virginia? Because we got a heck of a lot. The carrier that has just been dispatched is home port in Norfolk. I had questions this week from folks in Hampton Road. "Senator, tell us what's going on. What's our goal? What's our objective?" We've seen how this administration treats the safety of our sailors with the stupidity around Signalgate and not even treating classified information appropriately. The fact that we are putting potentially those sailors in harm's way right now, and they're not even going to say what their legal justification is, let alone their policy justification.
(24:38)
Is there no line that gets broken that people won't say enough? How much blind loyalty to this administration versus obligation to the American people, will our Republican Senators be willing to push back? And I give Mike Rounds credit, but somebody should have walked out of the meeting yesterday. I can tell you this, I would've never participated in a meeting like that.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
These questions that you're raising about your Republican colleagues, have you raised these directly with any of them since yesterday?
Senator Mark Warner (25:18):
I have raised the undermining of the independence of the IC for months in a skiff, in place where we are confidential with each other. And frankly the reaction I get is I get a lot of, "You're right, Mark", and a hang-dog look. Well, this is more than a response of, well, this guy's the present, we're just going to go along. This is against every norm of how national security policy has worked. And when we make it a partisan affair, bad things happen.
Speaker 8 (26:05):
Sorry, just one last question. Was there a sense in any of the conversations with your Republican colleagues in the intelligence committee that they had seen anything in any of the briefings that they had gotten that satisfied their own?
Senator Mark Warner (26:21):
I have no idea. That was just yesterday. I can tell you this. There was enormous bipartisan concern and that's why they tried this political ploy to try to give assurance to their team. It's just the American people deserve better. Now, frankly, members of the Senate should expect better and some oops makeup session doesn't cut it. My understanding is they want to simply offer this to the Gang of Eight. That doesn't cut it. Every United States Senator ought to be read in and until that happens, I don't know how you even begin to rebuild trust. Thank you very much.