(CNN) Senate Democrats -- and two key GOP senators -- slammed a classified briefing Wednesday on the strike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, charging that administration officials failed to provide evidence to show the attack was imminent and dismissed the role Congress should play in deciding to take military action.

The sharpest of the criticism came from two of President Donald Trump's Senate allies: Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Lee said after the briefing that it was the "worst briefing I've had on a military issue" during his nine years in the Senate.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" on Wednesday, Paul said the briefing was "an insult to the Constitution."

"In the briefing and in public, this administration has argued that the vote to topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 applies to military action in Iraq. That is absurd," Paul told Blitzer. "Nobody in their right mind -- with a straight face, with an ounce of honesty -- can argue when Congress voted to go after Saddam Hussein in 2002 that (they) authorized military force against an Iranian general 18 years later."

Paul later added, "There was no specific information given to us of a specific attack. Generality -- stuff that you read in the newspaper. I didn't learn anything in the hearing that I hadn't seen in a newspaper already."

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