WASHINGTON — The Trump administration snubbed Senate Democrats this week with a secret GOP-only Venezuela briefing on Wednesday in what a lawmaker is calling "an effort to hide the facts from the American people."
Democrats are now calling on Republicans to come forward, demanding that someone be held accountable for barring Democrats from the exclusive meeting.
"I have no explanation why it was a Republican-only briefing, but it's an effort to conceal and hide the facts from the American people," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-NY) told Raw Story. "If the law and facts were on their side, they would be disclosing all this information to us and to the American people. And Americans should be asking why have they engaged in a policy of concealment and deception?"
"We need an all-Senate briefing on the executions that they are mounting day after day that apparently have no justifications," he added.
President Donald Trump has implied there could be ground strikes in Venezuela. It's unclear what will happen next — but Democrats are upset by the move to exclude them from the important conversation.
"Apparently that was a series of missteps, which many of my colleagues have complained about,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said.
Reed confirmed that several of his Republican colleagues have apologized.
"It was in very poor judgment. I think it involved not a deliberate attempt, but they made no effort to reach out, which is what you have to do on these national security issues, and I think, you know, it goes to the mindset of this administration is that, you know, they don't have to deal with Congress unless there's an emergency and that's usually trying to rally the Republicans to the president," Reed said.
"A lot of my Republican colleagues really sort of felt that this was a mistake, that there should be a full briefing with all members," Reed added.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said he was invited and later shared his concerns that Democrats were not invited to the briefing.
"I've already shared with my Democrat[ic] colleagues that I got a call from the White House this morning saying, 'We understand that you were concerned about this,' and I said, 'Yup, because intel and Armed Services, we do things on a bipartisan basis, when it comes to intel, we want to keep it that way.' And they said it was not the briefing it was intended for Armed Services or intel on it," Rounds said.
Rounds claimed the White House is aware and plans to address what happened.
"How they address it, I don't know, but they're aware of it," Rounds said. "And I talked to a number of my Democrat[ic] colleagues and told them this was not the Armed Services briefing that a number of us had requested but the information I hope is the same because it was a very good briefing and it explained a lot of stuff and I'm hoping that they are very quick to allow for an Armed Services briefing to be conducted."
Some Republicans did not mind excluding Democrats.
"I think it's appropriate to have two separate meetings and maybe we have one together. So I don't see any problem with it. I don't think it was anything nefarious. And they should be entitled to a briefing, and if they don't get one, I'll be one of the first ones to say the same people should be in the room and give them a briefing," Thom Tillis (R-NC) said.
Some of the information eased his concerns, Tillis added.
"I do think there are some things that are rightfully classified that we should work to declassify if we can," Tillis said. "We're going to continue to look at it because you have to be mindful that it becomes a continuous operation and that war powers question needs to be raised. I felt more comfortable coming out of the hearing. I'm not completely satisfying — I've got a lot of other questions — but they were forthcoming and I appreciated it."