Pat Toomey: Iran Nuclear Deal In Violation Of The Law
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In response to Democrats thwarting the efforts of Senate Republicans to reject the Iranian nuclear deal, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey asserted that party leadership should pursue other measures to stop the agreement from going forward.
Toomey, talking with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, accused the President of making an end run around the Senate to complete the pact curtailing Iran's nuclear program.
"This President should've treated this agreement as a treaty, but we don't have a mechanism to force that. So, he decided he would circumvent us altogether and simply lift the sanctions under the power he has to temporarily allay them and he can do that in compliance with the law and then just keep renewing these temporary waivers. He basically confronted us with the reality that said, look guys, I don't really care you think. I'm going to do this my way."
He contends there are violations of the law that the White House has committed and disagrees with the way the Senate leadership are confronting them.
"Mitch McConnell can be very effective. He's a master tactician. He and I don't always agree about what tactic we ought to deploy. One of the things, frankly, I think we should take a more aggressive stand when the President is in violation of the law. I think that's really a problem. In this agreement, this Corker-Cardin legislation, this mechanism that we've been discussing, among other things, it explicitly requires the President to hand over all documents to Congress before the clock starts on the window of opportunity for us to reject the deal. We discovered that the President has not handed over all the documents."
Toomey does see a legal strategy to defeat the deal, but it is not sure it will ever come to fruition.
"What's the best tactic to maximize the chance that a court will come in and rule that the President actually has to comply with the law here? Courts are reluctant to do that when there's a battle between the Executive and the Legislative Branch. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a constitutional lawyer. But, it seems to me that having the House pass a measure that clearly states that the President has not complied with the law [and] has not handed over all the documents."
