Rep.-elect Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, leaves after attending orientation for new members of Congress, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Democrats have been trying to raise questions about the claim by the Trump administration that there was an “imminent threat” against the U.S. from IRGC terrorist leader Qasem Soleimani.

Some were unhappy with a briefing that they got on the subject from the administration.

But as we reported, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) and Vice President Mike Pence observed, there are obviously concerns about things leaking or sources being compromised if they say too much.

There has been a history of things said in Congressional hearings and briefings sometimes having an unhappy coincidence of showing up in the media shortly thereafter.

According to the Daily Wire, Brooks specifically referenced concerns about leaks out of House Intel Chair Adam Schiff’s impeachment hearings.

“To protect sources and methods, we’re simply not able to share with every member of the House and Senate the intelligence that supported the president’s decision to take out Qassem Soleimani,” Pence told Fox News. “I can assure your viewers that there was a threat of an imminent attack.”

Responding to Pence’s statement, Brooks said, “That’s very consistent with the concern that Congress cannot be trusted to keep classified information classified.”

“[It’s] also consistent with that concern is what you just got done seeing with Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee during the impeachment proceedings wherein that information that was collected in a SCIF was invariably leaked to the news media,” Brooks continued. “So if you just had that experience where members of Congress are quite clearly leaking information that was collected in a SCIF environment, how can you trust them not to leak classified information regarding Iran that could lead to the deaths of our intelligence sources, or empower terrorist organizations to avoid American retribution for the killing that they have done?”

So it was perhaps ironic that Schiff attacked the idea that there was an “imminent threat.”

I’ve been a member of the Intel Committee for over a decade.

Been briefed hundreds of times on threats — some imminent, some not. When targeting a top gov’t official for killing:

“We don’t know precisely when and we don’t know precisely where,” does not constitute “imminent.” https://t.co/1sL8uEVDWI

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 10, 2020

So many things wrong with that. First, scary that Schiff has been on the committee that long. But if you know that a terrorist who has previously attacked Americans is planning a bomb attack on Americans but you don’t know exactly where or when, you shouldn’t take him out? That’s truly problematic, if Schiff wouldn’t, given Soleimani’s history.

You have a guy who was already behind multiple attacks for months on U.S. forces, one of which resulted in the death of one American and wounding several others, as well as the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. You already have information that he’s compromised the security in the Green Zone where the embassies are. I don’t know what other information they may have had, but that alone would be enough to be extremely concerned, which is why I wrote about it, saying it was something to which Trump really had to pay attention. Soleimani had already killed hundreds of Americans, he wasn’t going to be stopping his attacks.

Plus, notice how Schiff calls him a “government official,” is he dismissing his terrorist actions? Since Schiff has been on the committee for ten years, where were his objections when Barack Obama was bombing Libya without Congressional approval and strafing Muammar Gaddafi’s convoy? You know, the leader of the country? The man who wasn’t any kind of an imminent threat to Americans.

But Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) finished him off on Twitter.

Let me fix it for you:

Replace “top government official” with “world’s top terrorist.”

I stand with our CIA, DNI, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who told you directly this was unambiguous intelligence of an imminent attack. I was there when they told you. https://t.co/xpzPH1tY3Z

— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) January 11, 2020

Now that’s a takedown.