It would appear that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) isn’t fully on board with the consensus that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is responsible for the recent chemical attack on Douma.

Showing up on CNN this afternoon, the libertarian lawmaker who is well-known for his anti-hawk positions on foreign policy reacted to the Trump administration backtracking on Russian sanctions related to Syria by expressing skepticism over the Douma attack.

“I think before you talk about sanctions we ought to talk about what evidence was there that Russia was complicit in this attack,” Paul said. “In fact, for that matter, I still look at the attack and say Assad must be the dumbest dictator on the planet or maybe he didn’t do it.”

He added, “I have yet to see evidence he did do it. The agency claims they have that evidence, but think about it, does it make any sense, he’s been winning the war for the last couple years. The only thing that would galvanize the world to attack Assad directly is a chemical attack.”

The Kentucky lawmaker continued to sow doubt that Assad would have attacked his own people with chemical weapons, stating the Douma attack “killed relatively few people” compared to what could have been accomplished with tanks or machine guns.

“So before we get to Russia, we have to determine that Syria was implicated and then we have to determine the connection between Russia and Syria,” Paul noted.

Anchor Wolf Blitzer pointed out that both the UK and France joined the United States in the military strike on Syria’s chemical sites before asking the senator if President Trump had “bad intelligence” over the chemical attacks.

“I don’t know,” Paul responded. “I haven’t seen the intelligence. We have a briefing this afternoon where I may see some of this, but the difficulty is, these things are not a slam-dunk.”

This isn’t the first time the Republican has suggested Assad may not have been responsible for the Douma attack. Last week during a Fox News appearance, Paul wondered aloud why Assad would do that while stating it “doesn’t make sense” and one could kill more people with “semiautomatic gunfire with five shooters than they can kill with chemical weapons.”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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