Republicans in the House are considering a lawsuit against the Obama administration for what they say is its failure to follow a law detailing how it must present the Iran nuclear agreement to Congress.
Conservative Republicans have argued for weeks that the administration has failed to produce a copy of the inspection arrangements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Without those agreements, they say, Congress can’t assess the deal in its entirety.
Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., led the charge this week to pass a resolution saying Obama broke the law by not sharing all relevant documents with Congress. That prompted GOP leaders to settle on a similar “sense of the Congress” resolution that is expected to pass the House by Friday.
That resolution is non-binding, so passage wouldn’t force Obama to hand over the IAEA documents. But Republicans are hoping its passage can set up a legal challenge later.
A spokesman for Roskam told the Washington Examiner Thursday that while the details of a possible suit haven’t been worked out, the option is being looked at.
“It seems clear to us that President Obama broke the very law he signed by failing to turn over the Iran-IAEA side agreements,” said Michael Shapiro, a spokesman and policy advisor for Roskam. “We believe this does set up a potential lawsuit, and members are seriously considering this possibility.”
“What that may look like remains to be seen,” he said, adding that “a lot” of members are mulling this possibility.
The resolution the House is considering this week lays out what is likely to be the arguments of any legal action against Obama. It finds that the two inspection arrangements between Iran and the IAEA are “side agreements,” and that the law passed by Congress earlier this year requires the government to hand over all side agreements to Congress, so it can review the deal.
“[T]he president has not subsequently transmitted to the appropriate congressional committees and leadership the text of the separate agreements,” it said.
As a result, the resolution finds that Obama “has not complied” with the law, and that the congressional review period therefore “has not commenced yet.”
Read a copy of the House resolution being considered this week:
