![\"Senator](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/c-2025-12-09t222633z-1757635900-rc27diau1xy9-rtrmadp-3-usa-congress.jpg?c=original&q=w_1280,c_fill\/f_avif\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Republican Sen. James Lankford, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the administration should have notified the Gang of Eight before the operation in Venezuela over the weekend, citing previous major operations where they were kept in the loop.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Gang of Eight consists of the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and vice chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. They are receiving a briefing this evening.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYeah, there should have been notification,\u201d said Lankford.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing for Maduro to be gone and him to be in federal prison,\u201d he noted, adding \u201cbut the Gang of Eight should have been notified.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey haven\u2019t leaked in the past, they were notified when they were getting ready to be able to drop ordinance on Iran. So there\u2019s a normal process,\u201d said Lankford.\n <\/p>\n
\n Another Intel Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds, said he wants to know why the Gang of Eight was not notified ahead of time.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think one of the questions that will be asked by others will be, at what point does the Gang of Eight have a role to play in receiving advanced notice?\u201d he said, adding \u201cyeah\u201d he wants to know the answer.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ll just simply say, with regard to the Gang of Eight, we will, we will let them answer it themselves.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that she wants \u201cclarification\u201d on President Trump\u2019s claim that the US will \u201crun\u201d Venezuela moving forward.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think it needs clarification. And I think you see the Secretary of State, Rubio, working to clarify it, others,\u201d she said. \u201cI think what it means is that we will have our hand on the till of what\u2019s going on in this successional \u2014 as a succession government, legitimate government, there and prevent any kind of reenact\u2014 reincarnation of a narco terrorist, cartel-loving, illegitimately elected president.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n However, several Republican senators were comfortable with the Gang of Eight not being notified before the operation, arguing that the risk of a leak was too high, despite the group not having a history of leaking.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have done it. I mean, it would have leaked,\u201d said Sen. John Kennedy. \u201cManu, come on, this place leaks like the Titanic, and it gets worse every day,\u201d he added, noting, \u201cCongress brought it upon themselves.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Sen. Thom Tillis agreed. \u201cIt only took 1\/8 of that group to potentially compromise the operation, and American soldiers\u2019 lives are more important than me or any other member knowing at the moment. They did inform leadership shortly thereafter, and I\u2019m ok with that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Sen. James Lankford, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the administration should have notified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,26791,165702,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-390710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-hnk","10":"tag-intl","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}