United States President Donald Trump said Monday that it "doesn't really matter" if U.S. authorities did not have clear evidence that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was an imminent threat to the country because the leader's military history was enough for his team to make the decision to kill him on Jan. 3.
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Through his Twitter account, Trump wrote that media and Democrats are "working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was ‘imminent’ or not and was my team in agreement," adding that “the answer to both is a strong YES., but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past!”
Congress Democrats, who are trying to pass legislation to reduce Trump's war powers to avoid a direct confrontation with Iran, strongly disagreed.
"You can't take military action against another nation without the consent of Congress unless it's to defend against an imminent attack," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on Twitter.
"It is now clear that this was an illegal action. It's also made America less safe," he said, pointing to an NBC News report that said Trump had authorized Soleimani's assassination seven months ago.
Last week, Trump stated in an interview, before Soleimani was killed, that Iran was prepared to attack four U.S. embassies.
But on Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he saw no specific evidence that Iran was planning an attack.
"What the president said was that there could probably be more attacks on embassies. I shared that view," Esper said. But he added that "the president did not cite any specific evidence.”