Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, was heavily questioned in the Senate regarding the U.S.-Iran conflict. This hearing was particularly critical for her: the official who had long criticized U.S. overseas military interventions has now defended and praised the Trump administration's military actions against Iran. In her prepared written testimony, Haines stated that Iran "had not yet recovered from the U.S. strikes last year" in terms of uranium enrichment, but during her live testimony she removed this statement and instead said that Iran had been trying to recover from the attacks. This more restrained statement created some discrepancy with the recent frequent emphasis by government officials on the Iranian threat. This deletion immediately drew attention from Democratic senators. Senator Mark Warner, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a senator from Virginia, immediately asked for the reason. Haines responded that she had removed the content because "there wasn't enough time." She also did not answer questions about whether President Trump had previously known about Iran's possible attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz. The day before the hearing, Joe Kent, Haines' senior aide and director of the National Counterterrorism Center, had just announced his resignation, and in a sharp resignation letter he questioned whether Iran posed an imminent threat. In response, CIA Director John Ratcliffe explicitly refuted this during the hearing, stating that the intelligence showed "the exact opposite."
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Original: toutiao.com/article/1860059886532746/
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