Jeff Atwater Rips Senate's Handling of Iran Deal

Florida CFO Jeff Atwater came out swinging at President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran over its nuclear program but also took aim at the U.S. Senate for not doing more to stop it. 

Atwater had mulled over running for the U.S. Senate in 2012 but did not enter the race to take on U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. 

“This week, I have watched the actions of the United States Senate in bitter disappointment,” Atwater said on Thursday. “In what has become its characteristic clamor to do something--anything--the Senate postured and balked, quibbled and retreated, and ultimately evaded its duty to act on one of the most consequential foreign policy crises of our time. 

“For all of the back-room deals and arrangements that purportedly occur inside the beltway, this national emergency was met with disjointed pronouncements and a frenetic scramble to evade a difficult decision,” Atwater added. “All of this was after ample time to strategize and compromise on procedure, but what could've been civilized debate resulted in inaction because of a Senate that refused to even come to a vote. 

“To impede so much as a vote on the deal, a group of senators demonstrated a most detestable form of cowardice in banding together to filibuster,” Atwater continued. “Like several reincarnations of Pontius Pilate, they acknowledged the difficulty of the decision at hand but ultimately chose to wash their hands of the responsibility of making it. 

“Each of these men and women campaigned for the honor of representing free Americans in the United States Senate,” Atwater said in closing. “Each of them was granted that honor, and I cannot begin to understand how they have tendered that honor in exchange for a procedural escape. They chose to shield themselves from responsibility, and history will remember them as the cowards who abdicated their duty to vote on one of the most important issues of our time. These senators have reduced themselves--and arguably an entire branch of government--to the insignificance of white noise. With their audacious avoidance, they have become the elevator music of government: electing irrelevance, eliciting ridicule, embracing triviality. Americans deserve discourse, debate, and decisions from those who were elected to represent us.”