On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered his aides to come up with a justification for an emergency order expediting a controversial Saudi arms deal.
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered officials in the State Department to find a justification for the emergency authorization he had already decided to invoke to speed up an $8 billion arms deal with several Middle Eastern nations and conceal it from scrutiny, CNN reports," wrote Blake Montgomery.
"The May 2019 authorization was a problem in search of a solution, as department personnel had to assume that the secretary would make the emergency authorization and then devise a reason he was allowed to do so," continued the report. "Arms deals without emergency authorization require 30 days for congressional review and may not go through."