OPINION | Pompeo is trying to make another arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Congress must stop it.

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Editor's Note: Bob Menéndez represents New Jersey in the United States Senate, where he is the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. The opinions expressed here are his. Read more opinion pieces at CNNe.com/opinion

(CNN) - The American people have a right to know that while the Trump administration does not seem to bother building a political coalition to combat the largest pandemic in a century, the administration has recently managed to find a way to duplicate the president on Donald Trump's disgusting hug to the murderous regime of Saudi Arabia. And as usual, it involves weapons. Currently, the administration is trying to sell thousands of guided precision bombs to the President's "friend", Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Before entering confinement for the pandemic, I received a draft of documentation from the State Department that it is now carrying out this previously undisclosed sale, the details of which have not yet been released, despite the fact that the Saudis apparently want emerge from their failed and brutal war in Yemen, and despite the fact that a bipartisan majority in Congress rejected previous sales of these weapons. The administration has refused to answer our fundamental questions to justify this new sale and articulate how it would be consistent with American values ​​and national security goals.

This is not an isolated problem. The administration's attempt to carry out this arms deal comes immediately after Trump fired State Department inspector general Steve Linick, who was reportedly investigating the special treatment by the Saudi Arabian administration for the US $ 8,000 million agreement, among other matters. The IG investigation allegedly focused on last year's decision by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to declare what a bipartisan majority in Congress rightly condemned as a false emergency to avoid congressional oversight of a US arms sale $ 8 billion to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Linick's firing makes the first anniversary of that multi-million dollar mistake clear in stark contrast. The president has not only admitted to removing the IG at Pompeo's urging, but the administration is also trying to get Congress to seal another massive sale of ammunition to the Saudis. Congress has the ability to disapprove the sale unless an emergency is declared, as happened last year.

Last year's “emergency” arms sales debacle should serve as a warning to prevent history from repeating itself.

To review, as the Senate Democrat with jurisdiction over arms sales in the United States, I initially stopped the sale of $ 8 billion until the administration could prove that Saudi Arabia had stopped bombing Yemeni markets, funerals, school buses full of children and hospitals. After the Washington Post columnist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi was brutally assassinated by what US intelligence agencies concluded were on orders from the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the campaign to justify the sale came to an abrupt halt.

Instead, the administration attempted to circumvent Congress' legal oversight role to finalize the sale. In May 2019, Pompeo relied on the deception to declare that 22 arms sales were an "emergency," including nearly 60,000 precision guided bombs that the Saudis had previously dropped on innocent Yemeni civilians. The emergency call? To "further deter Iranian adventurerism."

Unfortunately, subsequent Iranian attacks on oil facilities in Abqaiq and aggression in the Arabian Gulf confirmed that these sales had little to do with deterring Iran and with everything to placate Bin Salman. Indeed, Iran's continued aggressive behavior and advances in nuclear technology development confirm its evil intentions in the region.

There was no emergency. It was a story made up to reward an eager and unpleasant customer for American weapons.

As a result, I led a bipartisan coalition that passed 22 Senate resolutions disapproving of the sales. The House of Representatives did the same. While we weren't able to override Trump's veto, we made it clear that Congress strongly rejected America's moral and security principles for sale by the administration. Today, a year later, there is still no justification for the United States to sell bombs to Saudi Arabia.

That is why I am particularly concerned that the State Department has again refused to explain the need to sell thousands of more bombs to Saudi Arabia in addition to the thousands that have yet to be delivered from last year's “emergency”. The secretary of state needs to answer our questions. What is your reasoning for continuing to sell arms to the Saudi Arabs? Why should Congress allow Trump to continue asking for personal favors with a whimsical Saudi despot who believes he can kill his critics without consequence?

Ironically, that's why Inspectors General exist. They are key to a functioning democracy and their independence is essential to carry out effective supervision of our federal agencies. Not by chance, Pompeo drowned out that accountability mechanism when he made Inspector General Linick silence himself. We still don't know exactly why Pompeo did it, but we do know that Linick was looking for answers to these questions. That's why I joined forces with the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Eliot Engel, to open a bicameral investigation into what appears to be a politically motivated act of retaliation designed to protect Pompeo.

Although the President and Secretary may find it difficult to supervise Congress or the Inspectors General, we will continue to do our job. The question remains: why are the President and his top diplomat working so hard to shore up one of the worst despots in the world? Until we have a response, Congress must reject this new multi-million dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

Mike Pompeo