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Progressive champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other Democrats quickly floated the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump for launching a military strike on Iran without Congressional authorization.
“The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” the four-term congresswoman from New York wrote on social media Saturday night, soon after the president announced the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Ocasio-Cortez charged that Trump “has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
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Democrat Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois also argued that the president’s order to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites without seeking Congressional approval could be considered an “unambiguous impeachable offense.”
Casten, a four-term representative whose district covers southwestern Chicago and surrounding suburbs, wrote Saturday night on social media that “this is not about the merits of Iran’s nuclear program….to be clear, I do not dispute that Iran is a nuclear threat.”
WATCH PRESIDENT TRUMP’S FULL ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON THE IRAN STRIKE
But he highlighted that “no president has the authority to bomb another country that does not pose an imminent threat to the US without the approval of Congress. This is an unambiguous impeachable offense.”
“I’m not saying we have the votes to impeach,” Casten added. “I’m saying that you DO NOT do this without Congressional approval.”
The calls for impeachment are the most visible, and furthest reaching, representation of the party’s anger with Trump for taking unilateral action against Iran.
PENTAGON GIVES DETAILS ON HOW THE U.S. MILITARY CARRIED OUT THE STRIKE ON IRAN
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the chamber, wrote that the president had “failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.”
“Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action,” Jeffries added in a statement.
While the executive branch technically doesn’t have the legal authority to order a foreign military attack without the approval of Congress, previous presidents, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Trump during his first term, launched comparable military actions in Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran.
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, in an interview Sunday morning on “Fox and Friends,” criticized impeachment calls by Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats.
“For my colleagues that are now demanding impeachment, it is absolutely absurd,” Lawler argued. “Barack Obama attacked Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen during his tenure and never once did they call for impeachment. So, these folks are truly reaching new levels of Trump derangement in the aftermath of yesterday’s decision.”
Congress has not actually declared war since 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, and legal scholars have long been divided on whether the president has the authority to unilaterally launch a military strike.
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