“It is critical that national security matters of such importance be shared with the American people in a timely matter,” Schumer and Menendez wrote in their letter to Trump.
The two lawmakers called on Trump to declassify his January 4 notification to Congress regarding the missile strike on a convoy exiting Baghdad’s international airport that killed Soleimani and a top leader of Iraq’s Shia militias.
“An entirely classified notification is simply not appropriate in a democratic society, and there appears to be no legitimate justification for classifying this notification,” the senators wrote.
The letter noted that US military and civilian law enforcement officials spent much of the weekend preparing for retaliatory strikes promised by Tehran following the assassination of Soleimani.
Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Abu Mahdi Muhandis, a senior member of Iraq's Iranian-backed Shia Popular Mobilization Forces, were killed by the US airstrike in Baghdad on Friday.
