The late Sen. John McCain repeatedly called Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI-08) “totally unqualified” to serve in a national security position in President Barack Obama’s administration.
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in national security positions under President Obama and President George W. Bush, was selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week to sponsor a War Powers Resolution. That resolution, which requires President Donald Trump to acquire congressional approval before engaging in further military actions against Iran, passed the House Thursday in a vote of 224-194.
The Michigan representative made rounds on cable news to promote her bill ahead of Thursday’s vote.
Today, we're voting on a resolution I introduced to make it clear that if the President wants to take us to war, he must get authorization from Congress.
If our loved ones are going to fight in any protracted war, the President owes the American people a public conversation: pic.twitter.com/zBFzU6wHMd
— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 9, 2020
According to The Daily Caller, Slotkin was a vocal supporter of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal while serving as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 2014-2017.
During a 2014 hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. McCain criticized Slotkin for her testimony on Iran and called on her to resign from the Obama administration, saying she was “totally unqualified.”
“Ms. Slotkin, we learn more from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal than we do from any briefing that we’ve ever had with you,” McCain said during the hearing.
McCain opposed Slotkin’s nomination to serve in a national security position and numerous articles from 2014 quote the late senator describing Slotkin as “totally unqualified,” such as a 2014 article from The Hill and another from Roll Call.
Tori Sachs, executive director of Michigan Rising Action, a local branch of the America Rising PAC, was highly critical of Pelosi’s decision to select Slotkin to sponsor the bill in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.
“While serving in the Obama admin, Slotkin supported a deal that sent Iran billions in cash that they openly admitted would fund terrorism,” said Sachs. “Now Pelosi has Slotkin leading the disparaging of President Trump for taking decisive action that kept Americans safe.”
Slotkin said in a statement released Thursday that her resolution makes clear that “if the president wants to take us to war, he must get authorization from Congress.”
“This is simply what our Constitution requires. If our loved ones are going to be sent to fight in any protracted war, the president owes the American people a public conversation about why and for what ends,” she continued. “As a former Shia militia CIA analyst who has served multiple times in Iraq, I have lived Iran’s destabilizing activity in Iraq up close and personal. I have watched friends and colleagues get hurt or killed by Iranian rockets, mortars and explosive devices. And Qasim Soleimani was the architect of some of the worst destabilizing activities in the Middle East. But his behavior does not mean that the Administration can disregard the Constitution by engaging in a wider war, without consulting first with Congress.”
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
