Cotton accuses Pentagon of ‘conscious decision’ to withhold info from Congress to influence vote

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., on Tuesday accused Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of withholding information from Congress about a military incident in Syria in order to avoid influencing a vote to end two congressional authorization for use of military force overseas.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Cotton confronted Austin about claims that the Biden administration failed to inform lawmakers of last week’s Iranian-linked drone attack that killed one American and wounded five members of the U.S. military in Syria until more than 12 hours after it occurred.

Cotton claimed the delay was a “conscious decision” to influence the Senate as it was voting on repealing the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs) in Iraq. Cotton implied that because the Biden administration wants to revoke the AUMFs, it wanted to delay news that might give lawmakers a reason to maintain them.

Cotton noted that on the day of the drone strike, senators were considering language that could have kept the AUMFs active if attacks from Iran were still active.

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“I believe that your office specifically withheld notification of this deadly strike against Americans,” Cotton said. “Because the [Sen. Marco] Rubio amendment, on which we voted midday, directly touched on exactly this scenario – not repealing these use of force resolutions if the president couldn’t certify that Iran was no longer attacking us in Iraq and Syria.“

“That’s what I believe, nothing you can say is gonna change my belief about that,” the senator added.

Austin countered that his claim was “absolutely not true.”

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, right, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testify during a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill March 23, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“Maybe you didn’t personally do it,” Cotton persisted. “But I believe entirely that people in your office did that.”

He again cited Senate debate on Sen. Marco Rubio’s amendment to the AUMF repeal as a likely reason why the Pentagon may have delayed providing news of the drone strike to Congress.

“I believe there was a conscious decision made not…