One of President Trump’s closest congressional allies is ready to strip him of certain emergency powers in response to the administration sidestepping lawmakers to secure 22 arms sales benefiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“Do away with the emergency exception,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday. Doing so, he added, would prevent the executive branch from repeating such a move in the future. “I would not have agreed to that before, but after this maneuver by the administration, count me in.”
Graham is one of several leading lawmakers conferring over how to change the rules governing congressional oversight of arms sales to prevent end runs around Congress, after Democrats and Republicans objected to the administration citing an unspecific threat from Iran to expedite more than $8 billion worth of weapons sales.
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