Impeachment is serious business, but the folks in Congress who advanced the most recent impeachment agendum are anything but.
The man to be impeached is President Trump, of course. And it was Rep. Al Green (D.-Tx.) who formally filed the paperwork. Trump, Rep. Green accused, had failed to “notify or seek authorization from Congress before the U.S. launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend,” explains Sarah Fortinsky of The Hill.
The resolution, dated June 24, 2025, is limited to a single article: “Abuse of Presidential Powers by Disregarding the Separation of Powers — Devolving American Democracy into Authoritarianism by Unconstitutionally Usurping Congress’s Power to Declare War.”
The bit about authoritarianism is the real stretch.
“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” — that part is certainly arguable.
But the rest, which alludes to “January Sixth” and criticizes that Trump “called for the impeachment of federal judges,” is mere partisan foolishness.
Rep. Green must have known it would go nowhere. One hundred twenty-eight Democrats sided with all 216 Republicans, leaving a mere 79 Democrats voting to move forward with impeachment.
Meanwhile, Republicans and the Administration are calling the bombing strike a success, a grand example of Trump’s “peace through strength” game-plan.
An impeachment might be believable, even commendable, if it came from a member of his party, or — if from Green or another Democratic supporter of the move, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — had been brought against a sitting Democrat president, such as Obama or Biden.
As it is? Just another partisan ploy.
The kind of thing Americans are rightly sick of.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “Unserious Resolution”
I noted in a comment to your primary entry of yester-day that Trump’s launching of an attack on Iran was indeed unconstitutional but employed power previously seized by President Obama.
As you say, Democrats’ moving now to impeach Trump over the exercise of this unconstitutional power would not seem absurd had any of them sought to impeach President Obama over the 2015 attack that deposed Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya, or over Obama’s bombings of Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan. Many of the very same Democrats who moved this time to impeach President Trump were in the House in 2015 and in 2016.
The best move for those seeking to take from the President the power to initiate war would be both to pursue a repeal of the the Acts of Congress that delegated any such rights to the President, and to pursue a case in the courts against delegation, leaving exercise of undelegated war power all the more terribly exposed. But the Democrats want their own Presidents to have the war powers that Obama seized and that he and Biden exercised along with Trump, and a case against the delegation of war powers would establish precedent that could undermine delegation more generally, potentially leading to the end of the administrative state to which the Democrats are wed.
Although Green’s resolution was decidedly partisan, the conversation in the proper context is an important one to have. Congress, who has subrogated its powers to make war since Korea (a police action via the UN) has fearfully given away its check against an out of control executive. An AUMF, passed passed by congress after 911, was a neutered approach to avoid the responsibility of getting on the dotted line of its war making reposibility.
Impeachment has become a democrat sport.
Trump did not usurp Congress’s power to declare war. On the other hand, Al Green is trying to usurp the president’s authority to conduct foreign affairs and to command the military. This was a preemptive strike, not a war. It is legal under international law. The INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY reported that Iran had enriched uranium to about sixty percent. They warned it was a matter of weeks before enrichment could reach weapons grade. Iran was in violation of the NPT. How does Al Green define an imminent threat? Is the US supposed to wait until Iran actually deploys a nuclear weapon?