The Rise and Fall of Congressional Oversight

Historians may well mark February 28, 2026 as an important turning point — the day that the modern era of Congressional oversight aimed at checking executive branch overreach in foreign affairs ended. That day, President Donald Trump launched an air war against Iran. He said he was aiming at decapitating the despotic Iranian theocracy, and giving the Iranian people a chance at freedom, the first two of several subsequent shifting explanations.

There had been no pretense of serious Congressional consultation — and no pushback from Republican Congressional leaders, who essentially stood up and saluted, foregoing yet again an opportunity to exercise their constitutional authority.

As a young Congressional aide who ran investigations a half-century ago, I participated in some of the initial history and development of modern Congressional oversight. It happens that two of the key players, then and now, have been Senators from Arkansas, each of whom brought impressive credentials to his position.

Sixty-two years ago, J. William Fulbright, a Democrat who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee stood up to a president of his same party who lied about important national security affairs. Conversely, Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican Senator, whose background in serving his country certainly suggests he knows better, averted his eyes

Modern oversight began on August 7, 1964. That’s the day that Congress, with Fulbright’s enthusiastic backing and following serious consultations with President Lyndon B. Johnson, a fellow Democrat, passed the so-called Gulf of Tonkin resolution that escalated into America’s protracted, bloody war in Vietnam. Johnson had assured Fulbright he was only seeking a limited military response to what he (falsely) said had been an unprovoked North Vietnamese attack on a US destroyer in Vietnamese waters. That “limited” action dragged on to 1975, costing more than 58,000 American deaths, and an estimated 1.3 million Vietnamese lives.

Fulbright had trusted the President’s words, and those of Robert McNamara, LBJ’s Secretary of Defense. When the Senator realized he had been lied to, he launched a decade-long series of investigations, reports, and public hearings which brought the tragedy home to the American public.

The protracted checks-and-balances battle essentially boiled down to a series of struggles between the legislative- and executive branches involving access to classified information.

In 1968, for instance, Senator Stuart Symington, a prominent Missouri Democrat who chaired a Foreign Relations subcommittee, was asking questions about American overseas military operations. But McNamara’s Pentagon refused the lawmaker, a former Air Force secretary at that, access to details concerning deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons. Symington had to join the Joint Atomic Energy Committee and obtain a so-called special “Q” nuclear weapons clearance to get the information.

Six years later, in 1974, I was a 29-year old aide to a rank-and-file House Appropriations Committee member. I got the same Q clearance, and, without a struggle, the same information from the Pentagon that Symington had to fight so hard for. Our committee appropriated $80-plus million to tighten security operations, in the wake of concerns stemming from the 1972 terrorism incidents at the Munich Olympic Games. (Privately, an Air Force general told me how pleased he was that Congress was paying attention.)

I moved to the House Intelligence Committee staff the next year. We obtained highly classified information from a reluctant President Gerald Ford, a Republican, detailing every White House-authorized CIA covert operation during the previous decade. Our Republican members supported the investigation, including insistence upon subpoenas for the documents.

Those Republicans were crucial in setting the precedent for bipartisan Congressional oversight of sensitive intelligence matters that, while significantly degraded during recent years of hyper-polarized politics, has persisted. Until Trump 2.0.

This important story is one of real impact with negative consequences for the balance of power. Before he courageously opposed his President on Vietnam, Senator Fulbright had been no angel, voting with racist Southern Democrats of that era against civil rights legislation (the political price of keeping his seat). But he understood, championed, and strengthened the Constitutionally mandated role of Congressional oversight.

Today, Republicans like Senator Cotton have accelerated the demise of real oversight. Cotton’s intelligence committee has approved conspiracy theorists and dissemblers to key positions in the CIA and ODNI while remaining complicit in the ensuing politicization of US intelligence. The Arkansas Republican has been essentially a passive onlooker of Trump’s aggressive actions in Venezuela and Iran, striking a potential death blow to the concept of Congressional oversight.

Cotton’s resume, including distinguished academic, legal, and military credentials, is that of a politician who should understand the necessity of honest, non-partisan oversight. He rebuffed Trump’s pressures to steal the 2020 Presidential election, voting to certify the Electoral College tally. And he’s been seen in Langley, quietly honoring the service of fallen CIA officers who are honored with stars on the Memorial Wall.

Those of us who also cherish the memory of those honorees are beyond perplexed by Senator Cotton’s dereliction of duty.

Greg Rushford is a former senior congressional aide (defense & intelligence) and a former Washington, D.C.-based journalist who specialized in the nexus between national security and global trade politics. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 390 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.