Top intelligence officials are scheduled to brief members of the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, days after an Iranian-backed drone attack killed three U.S. service members over the weekend.
CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines are set to brief lawmakers at the Capitol, two sources told The Hill. The briefing — which was previously scheduled — will cover Israel, the Middle East and Ukraine, but the sources said they expect it to also focus on the weekend drone strike in Jordan.
The briefing is scheduled to take place in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST, one source said, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will join the group between 3:30 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.
It comes days after an Iranian-backed drone strike at a military base near the Syrian border in Jordan killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 others. The Pentagon identified the three casualties as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Ga.; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross, Ga.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah, Ga.
President Biden said in a statement Sunday that the U.S. “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.”
The briefing also comes as wars in Israel and Ukraine drag on, and amid a heated debate on Capitol Hill over the White House’s national security supplemental request.
The president unveiled a roughly $100 billion emergency funding request in October, including about $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, almost $14 billion for personnel and operations at the U.S.-Mexico border, $10 billion in humanitarian aid and $2 billion for Indo-Pacific security assistance.
Republicans had insisted on pairing any Ukraine funding with border security legislation, prompting a bipartisan group of senators to begin negotiations on a package to unlock aid for the embattled U.S. ally. Negotiators have said they are putting the final touches on the deal, but conservatives are now slamming the impending agreement, arguing its reported details do not go far enough to address the situation at the southern border.
They have also said Biden should use tools at his disposal to curb the situation before lawmakers pass more border security legislation. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week wrote in a letter to GOP lawmakers that “If the rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”
Additionally, former President Trump has urged Republicans to reject any compromise unless GOP lawmakers get everything they want in the negotiations, putting pressure on conservatives to torpedo the agreement.
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people,” he wrote on Truth Social earlier this month.