OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: McConnell postpones Iran vote

by Martin Matishak and Kristina Wong - 03/05/15 6:55 PM ET

THE TOPLINE: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday postponed a vote that had been expected next week on legislation allowing Congress to weigh in on any Iran nuclear deal.

“It is clear that Senate Democrats will filibuster their own bill — a bill they rushed to introduce before the White House cut a deal with Iran,” Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesperson, said in an email.

{mosads}”So, instead, the Senate will turn next to the anti-human-trafficking legislation while Democrats decide whether or not they believe they and Congress as a whole should be able to review and vote on any deal the President cuts with the leaders of Iran,” he said.

The bill was backed by five Democrats and one Independent, but they pulled their support after McConnell announced on Tuesday after an address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would bring the bill for a procedural vote next week.

They told McConnell on Wednesday they would block it from being taken up if the legislation didn’t go through the Foreign Relations Committee or was brought up before March 24.

Negotiators face a March 24 deadline to reach an agreement with Iran on a framework for a final deal.

Under the legislation, Obama would have to submit any deal with Iran to Congress for review. The administration wouldn’t be able to roll back sanctions while lawmakers debated the deal.

Democrats quickly backed McConnell’s move. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the decision was the “right thing.”

“As leaders we should seek to build and cultivate bipartisan support for Israel, not try to score cheap political points,” Reid said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested that by trying to vote on the legislation next week the majority leader was “injecting politics into the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

“The relationship between the United States and Israel is at its strongest when both parties are working in tandem, and those of us that value that relationship are glad that Leader McConnell backed off,” he said.

DEMS TRY TO LIMIT CLINTON DAMAGE: Democrats began to dig in on Thursday to limit the damage from the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email accounts while she was secretary of State.

With their party’s presidential frontrunner now the subject of congressional subpoenas, Democrats highlighted Clinton’s statement late that she wants her emails released to the public as soon as possible.

Rep. Elijah Cumming (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Clinton is going to above and beyond the call of duty with her pledge.

“As far as I am aware, no other Cabinet secretary in history has ever called for the release of his or her emails — in their entirety and throughout his or her tenure,” he said in a statement. “I commend Secretary Clinton’s decision.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Clinton “provided 55,000 pages of emails” to the State Department last year, and urged those documents to be released to the public as soon as possible to silence the Benghazi “conspiracy theorists.”

The GOP, though, is moving quickly to capitalize on the controversy.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) asked the State Department to open an independent investigation into whether Clinton broke the law.

“The American public deserves to know whether one of its top-ranking public official’s actions violated federal law,” RNC chief counsel John Phillippe wrote in a letter to the State Department Inspector General.

Meanwhile, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), a member of the Benghazi panel, compared Clinton’s use of private emails to the secrecy that pervaded President Nixon’s administration.

“The last time we saw a high government official seeking to edit their own responses was President Nixon, and at least then he enjoyed the benefit of executive privilege,” he said in a statement.

REPORT FINDS DETAINEES WILL RETURN TO FIGHT: A new report predicts a number of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison will return to terrorism if they are transferred.

The report could hurt President Obama’s hopes of closing Guantanamo by the end of his presidency, which would fulfill a campaign pledge.

The report said transfers to countries with ongoing conflicts and internal instability as well as active recruitment by insurgent and terrorist organizations “pose particular problems.”

“Based on trends identified during the past eleven years, we assess that some detainees currently at GTMO will seek to reengage in terrorist or insurgent activities after they are transferred,” concludes the bi-annual report released Wednesday by the Director of National Intelligence.

The report said that while there are some ways to deter and delay reengagement, some detainees “who are determined to reengage will do so regardless of any transfer conditions.”

The rate of those confirmed to have “reengaged” in terrorist activities after their release has increased slightly. Twelve more former detainees are confirmed to have returned to the fight in the last year, according to the report.

Overall, the number of those confirmed and suspected of reengaging in terrorism has dropped to 28.6 percent from 29 percent. However, the ratio could be down partly due to the 33 prisoners released by the Obama administration within the last year, which is a relatively large number.

There are 122 detainees left at the facility, after Obama begun a major push late last year to transfer more detainees.

While the Defense secretary has the final say in transferring detainees, last month Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would make those releases more difficult. The bill, introduced by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.

Ayotte said in a statement Thursday that the report “confirms what history and common sense suggest — if we release hardened terrorists, especially to unstable countries, some of them will return to terrorism.”

“Especially when most of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are the worst of the worst terrorists who pose a high risk for reengagement in terrorist activities, the DNI’s assessment further demonstrates the danger posed by the administration’s rush to empty and close Guantanamo,” she added.

HOUSE LEADERS TO OBAMA: ARM UKRAINE. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and a bipartisan group of key lawmakers became the latest to urge President Obama to supply Ukraine’s military with weapons.

“In the wake of a cease-fire agreement that appears only to have consolidated Russian and separatist gains since the first Minsk agreement, we urge you to quickly approve additional efforts to support Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereign territory, including through the transfer of lethal, defensive weapons systems to the Ukrainian military,” the group, made up of eight Republicans and three Democrats, wrote in a letter to Obama.

The other signatories include House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Appropriations committees.

The document notes that Kiev has “long-standing requests” for military assistance from the administration.

“In the face of Russian aggression, the lack of clarity on our overall strategy thus far has done little to reassure our friends and allies in the region who, understandably, feel vulnerable. This needs to change,” lawmakers wrote.

Both the House and Senate last year approved a bill that would give the president the authority to provide defensive and “lethal” military support to Ukraine, but Obama has not sent any out of concern it would further provoke Moscow.

The U.S. has provided around $100 million in nonlethal assistance to Kiev.

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Please send tips and comments to Kristina Wong, kwong@digital-stage.thehill.com, and Martin Matishak, mmatishak@digital-stage.thehill.com.