Just a few months ago, House Republicans were talking about suing the Obama administration over its nuclear deal with Iran, but now, they are proposing legislative efforts in hopes of preventing sanctions against the Middle Eastern nation from being lifted.
There was never a definite plan to file a lawsuit while former House Speaker John Boehner was in office,
reports The Hill. But once he left office, talk about filing a lawsuit that could have taken months or years to settle were left behind and critics instead began looking at other ways to undermine the deal.
"There’s a whole legislative package that we’re going to try to cobble together in the next couple of weeks," David Pasch, a spokesman for Illinois GOP Rep. Peter Roskam commented. He noted that Roskam still supports legislation but is leaving the issue up to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Ryan's office is not commenting, but the office of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other lawmakers say they do not know if there is an effort to draft a lawsuit.
The House voted this week 191-106 to make it difficult to the United States to lift the sanctions, but more than 130 lawmakers missed the vote, so it will likely come up again this month.
However, by that time, the U.S. will likely have lifted the sanctions, and the White House is threatening to veto the bill.
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