There’s no need for Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky to get their constitutions in a twist because they couldn’t get immediate answers to complicated legal questions from administration officials.
The lines of authority and power when it comes to armed conflict abroad are exceedingly unclear. But what do you know — we might be heading to war with Iran, making now the perfect time to bring some of those blurred lines into focus!
Senators on Wednesday were debriefed by administration officials on the recent missile attacks from Iran. Attending the briefing were Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Lee said they would not provide answers as to when the administration would be legally required to obtain consent from Congress in the event of additional military strikes against Iran.
“We repeatedly asked them: Under what circumstances you would need to come back to us to get authority from Congress before taking action against Iran,” Lee said. “For example, what if you decided you wanted to take out the supreme leader? Would you, in that circumstance, need to come back to Congress for a declaration of war and authorization for the use of military force?”
He said, “Astoundingly, they refused to answer that question.”
Give me a break. Lee is a lawyer and knows that no one should blurt out answers off the top of his head when it comes to legal questions that are, at best, a boiling hot mess, thanks in large part to Congress itself. Administration officials, who answer to the president, would be stupid to think they could decide for themselves the extent of the president’s legal authority to do anything when it comes to using our military.
Lee even seemed to acknowledge the problem, saying, “We’ve been drifting for decades away from the constitutional separation of powers in which congress only wields the power to declare war.”
True!
There are both natural and legal reasons for that “drifting” Lee is talking about. Geopolitical shifts and the evolution of armed conflict have raised new questions about how much authority the president has on his own to defend the United States from harm. And every Congress for the last seven decades has been all too eager to either look the other way or retroactively grant authority when a president uses military force abroad. The last time Congress actually declared war was almost 80 years ago.
But Lee said it was “insulting and demeaning to the Constitution of the United States” that some officials couldn’t settle complicated legal questions on the spot. Here’s an idea: Why don’t Lee and Paul use the authority they have and craft a bill that would make it explicitly clear when President Trump would need to seek authorization from Congress with regards to future military action against Iran?
Lee does know he has that power, doesn’t he?
It’s a good time for him to use it.
