Questioning President Donald Trump's authority to strike an Iranian commander, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg lamented those close to Trump were more informed than those who have impeached him for abuse of power.
"It seems like more people at Mar-a-Lago heard about this than people in the United States Congress who are a co-equal branch of government with the responsibility to consult," Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told CNN's "State of the Union." "Which of our allies were consulted?
"The real world effects of this are going to go far beyond what we are debating today and we need answers quickly."
CNN host Jake Tapper asked Buttigieg, a presidential candidate, if he agreed with other Democratic candidates who considered the killing of Qassem Soleimani an "assassination."
"I am not interested in the terminology," Buttigieg, a former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve in Afghanistan. "I am interested in the consequences. I'm interested in the process.
"Did the president have legal authority to do this? Why wasn't Congress consulted?"
The Democrat-controlled House impeached the president before Christmas, despite some Democrats not voting for impeachment on the articles of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The articles have been withheld from the Senate, where Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. resides, and said he was told of the potential Soleimani strike beforehand.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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