Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) filed an article of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday, accusing the president of failing to notify or seek authorization from Congress before the U.S. launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend.
The resolution alleges “abuse of presidential powers by disregarding the separation of powers—devolving American democracy into authoritarianism by unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war.”
“President Trump’s unilateral, unprovoked use of force without congressional authorization or notice constitutes an abuse of power when there was no imminent threat to the United States, which facilitates the devolution of American democracy into authoritarianism,” Green’s resolution reads.
Congress has the sole power to “declare war” under the Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. Presidents of both parties have struck adversaries without approval from the legislature.
I mean I’m all for impeaching Trump but this is a pretty poorly thought out reason to do it. Every president has exercised the war powers act like this. What Trump did with Iran was not unique or special, other than of course how unbelievably stupid it was. He exercised a power that many presidents before him have as well - many took it way further.
I guess I’m just wondering what makes this act different from the many times presidents have done it in the past? If somebody has a good answer I really am all ears here. It just strikes me as unfortunately standard fare for a president to do this at this point.
Pretty easy to argue this comes under ‘official duties’ too. Surely there’s a thousand other reasons he could be impeached that would stick.
I agree they’ll never get the votes to pass anything, but they should keep doing it anyway. Flood the zone back at these arseholes and put them on the back foot.
I’m definitely not opposed to impeaching the guy. I just think there are things he has already done that probably have a stronger footing than bombing sovereign nations we aren’t at war with, which every American president has done for over half a century.
By all means flood the zone, impeach him over and over again. I guess I’m just a little surprised this is what triggered it and not something over the last six months