President Obama violated the law by failing to brief Congress on the counterterrorism operation that thwarted an attempted underwear bombing two weeks ago, according to the House Intelligence Committee chairman.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Obama did not “play [it] straight” with him. “They [did] not notify Congress, which is, by the way, law, under the National Security Act of 1947,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “They’re obligated to do it.”
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The Obama administration followed the law during the Osama bin Laden raid, on the other hand. “We were brought in briefed, and we were briefed regularly on the all the operational developments right up to the phone call saying, ‘Hey, we’re– we’re going,'” Rogers said.
The obligation to brief Congress strenghtens national security, he added. “There’s a reason you do that, so you can have that third-party independent eye on these kinds of operations because they are serious, dangerous and classified,” Rogers explained.
