CONTACT: Cavan Kharrazian, [email protected]
WASHINGTON — A group of 42 organizations, led by Demand Progress, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Project On Government Oversight (POGO), sent a letter to the Biden Administration expressing concerns over President Biden’s signing statement on the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
You can read the full letter here.
Particularly, the letter challenges the constitutionality of the President’s use of the signing statement to express his authority to withhold national security information that the executive branch is mandated to report to Congress through several provisions in the legislation. This includes Sec. 1048 of the NDAA, which imposes a funding limitation until the executive branch provides Congress with complete reports on the military’s execute orders and civilian casualty policies.
The following statement can be attributed to Cavan Kharrazian, Progressive Foreign Policy Campaigner, Demand Progress:
“Congress is completely within its rights to mandate and receive reporting on national security information, which is key to its constitutional oversight prerogatives and ability to legislate on matters of war and the military.
If we have any hope to end our disastrous, endless wars, Congress’s access to all relevant national security information must not be impeded by unlawful executive roadblocks.”