The first public intelligence meeting in two years will happen after they were hidden to protect Donald Trump
For the first time in two years, the United States will hold a House and Senate worldwide threats hearings, Axios reported Tuesday.
The meetings are supposed to be annual so the American people can hear about threats facing the United States. During President Donald Trump's administration, he refused to allow the meetings to proceed. While it was never revealed why, Trump attacked the intelligence team in 2019 because they said that technically, Iran was following the rules set out in the treaty with the United States. Trump was so furious, he attacked them saying they should "go back to school."
Last year, in 2020, the Republican-led Senate asked for the meeting to be held secretly, behind closed doors, instead of allowing for public transparency. The fear, reportedly, was that the intelligence officials might contradict Trump publicly right before his reelection.
"The House Intelligence Committee, home to some of the Trump era's most intense partisan battles, has not held such a hearing since 2017," said Axios.
The report cited Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves as the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, who said that the hearings "particularly timely." He explained that "rapidly evolving threats" include the "rising great power competition with China, an increased threat from domestic violent extremism, nuclear dangers arising from nations like Iran and North Korea, and destabilizing impacts of cross-border threats like climate change and pandemic disease."
"Over the last four years, the Trump administration discarded the tradition of open hearings on worldwide threats, when it displeased the former president to have his preferred views of rival nations contradicted by agency heads," Schiff added.