Senator Bob Corker (R-Boeing) is at it again. This time he's using the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to troll Trump.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., announced Wednesday that he would convene a hearing to examine the president's authority to use nuclear weapons.
The announcement of the Nov.14 hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Corker chairs, amounts to a significant escalation of what has so far been a war of merely words between the powerful Republican and his party's standard-bearer.
"A number of members both on and off our committee have raised questions about the authorities of the legislative and executive branches with respect to war making, the use of nuclear weapons, and conducting foreign policy overall," Corker said in a statement Wednesday.
Sure. Let's undermine North Korea's perception of the first strike authority of the President of the United States.
That's the only conceivable thing these hearings can accomplish. That and annoying Trump. And that seems to motivate Corker as much as any Democrat.
But can the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have a hearing on the role that domestic financial and political interests played in creating an echo chamber that allowed Iran to continue developing its nuclear program? I'm sure Senator Corker would have something to say about that.
The Constitution’s treaty procedures would have required Obama to win the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, which would have been impossible. The Corker legislation flipped this, allowing Obama to prevail unless there was two-thirds’ opposition in both houses of Congress – meaning blocking Obama would be impossible.
I suggested one reason: top GOP donors like Boeing stood to cash in big-time if the Iran deal was consummated. Boeing had ingratiated itself with Tehran when Obama granted some sanctions relief for Iran’s crippled aviation sector in order to keep the mullahs at the negotiation table. Boeing leapt in to provide Iran Air, the regime’s national carrier, with all manner of assistance – notwithstanding that Iran Air, basically an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, was best known for providing material support to Hezbollah and the Assad regime. Indeed, in 2011, the Treasury Department designated Iran Air as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.
By helping Iran at a key point in the negotiations, I pointed out, Boeing stood to win huge Iranian contracts once the Iran deal was approved and sanctions were lifted. Well I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but Iran has just announced a huge deal to buy aircraft from Boeing!
Yes, let's have that hearing. Please.