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war powers
Echoes of Obama Libya Strikes as Trump Argues Boat Bombings Are Immune From War Powers Law
"It is a power grab in the service of killing people outside the law based solely on the president's own say so," said one expert.
Nov 03, 2025
The Trump administration reportedly told members of Congress that the president's deadly, unauthorized airstrikes on vessels in international waters can continue indefinitely, deploying a rationale that the Obama administration applied to its 2011 bombing of Libya.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that "T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Trump administration's Office of Legal Counsel, made his remarks to a small group of lawmakers this week amid signs that the president may be planning to escalate the military campaign in the region, including potentially hitting targets within Venezuela."
Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president has 60 days to terminate military operations not approved by Congress. The 60-day clock starts when the president notifies Congress of military action.
Monday marks the 60th day since Trump informed Congress of his first strike on a boat in the Caribbean in early September. The strike killed 11 people whom the administration accused without evidence of trying to smuggle drugs from Venezuela to the United States.
Trump has since authorized more than a dozen other strikes on boats in international waters, killing more than 60 people in what human rights organizations and United Nations experts have described as blatant violations of US and international law.
The Trump administration has told lawmakers that the US is engaged in "armed conflict" against drug cartels that the president has designated as "terrorist organizations."
But the White House is insisting that Trump's military actions in international waters are not constrained by the War Powers Resolution, claiming the operations "do not rise to the level of 'hostilities'" because the administration says American troops are not likely to be put in danger.
Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department who now works at the International Crisis Group, observed Monday that the Trump administration's narrow definition of hostilities echoes "arguments made by the Obama administration in 2011 with respect to the military intervention in Libya."
"The Obama administration's interpretation of 'hostilities' was not well received, including by the US Congress," Finucane wrote, pointing to a May 18, 2011 letter that Republican senators sent to Obama accusing him of flouting the War Powers Resolution.
One of those GOP senators—Rand Paul of Kentucky—is backing a bipartisan war powers effort to prevent Trump from unilaterally and unlawfully attacking Venezuela.
Finucane stressed that the implications of the Trump administration's decision to interpret hostilities narrowly "are significant," noting that it paves the way for the US government to "continue its killing spree at sea, notwithstanding the time limits imposed by the War Powers Resolution."
"Second, the executive is arrogating to itself greater power over the use of force that constitutionally is the prerogative of Congress," Finucane added. "It is a power grab in the service of killing people outside the law based solely on the president's own say so."
On Saturday, Drop Site reported that the Trump administration has expanded its "drug cartel target list" to include sites inside Colombia and Mexico amid concerns that the president could soon attack Venezuela and launch an effort to overthrow the nation's president, Nicolás Maduro.
"At an Oval Office meeting in early October, Trump administration officials and top generals discussed escalating the pressure on Venezuela to go beyond the semi-regular attacks on boats in the Caribbean," the outlet reported. "The discussed plans include striking on land inside Venezuela... The same October 2 meeting included a previously reported directive from President Trump, who dialed his special envoy Richard Grenell into the call, telling him to cut off diplomatic communications with Maduro."
Asked during a newly aired "60 Minutes" interview if he believes Maduro's days as Venezuela's president are "numbered," Trump responded, "I would say yeah."
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The Spinelessness of Thune and Johnson Is Destroying American Democracy
GOP leaders in Congress are assaulting the Constitution by dismantling the separation of powers in favor of limitless presidential authority indistinguishable from monarchy or a dictatorship of Der Fuhrer.
Oct 31, 2025
Dear Majority Leader Thune and House Speaker Johnson:
Under your leaderships, the wholesale surrender of constitutional powers of Congress to the White House has been appalling. You both took oaths to defend and preserve the Constitution under Article VI. In violation of your oaths, you are destroying the Constitution by dismantling the separation of powers—a structural bill of rights to arrest executive tyranny—in favor of limitless presidential authority indistinguishable from monarchy or Der Fuhrer.
You cannot claim ignorance. Among other assertions and actions, President Donald Trump proclaimed on July 23, 2019, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” If there were any doubt about Mr. Trump’s belief in lawless presidential omnipotence, it should have been dispelled by Mr. Trump’s skepticism about honoring his oath of office on May 4, 2025. During an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, Trump was questioned about a potential mass deportation program. When Welker asked, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Trump responded, “I don’t know.”
Would you have acted as Mr. Trump has as president of the United States? Can you accept behavior that you would not tolerate if you occupied the White House?
On your watch, Congress has surrendered the war powers to Mr. Trump. It has surrendered the power of the purse to Mr. Trump. It has surrendered the treaty power to Mr. Trump. It has surrendered the oversight and confirmation powers to Mr. Trump. It has surrendered the power to legislate to Mr. Trump, including limitless discretion to jettison his constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed instead of being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Mr. Trump’s refusals to enforce the congressional ban on TikTok, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the federal prohibition on extortion, the Anti-Deficiency Act, the Hatch Act, or the Leahy Amendments are some examples of his serial violations of law. Indeed, Mr. Trump has turned the United States into a police state in which any criticism of his stewardship of our liberties is treated and prosecuted as a felony.
You both have idled as Mr. Trump has flouted the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution, putting the White House up for auction and lately, unlawfully paying for a giant ballroom with private contributions. You both have acquiesced while Mr. Trump has daily flouted the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association, pressing to make American journalists echo chambers of his administration in the manner of Russian President Vladimir Putin and RT and Radio Sputnik.
Would you have acted as Mr. Trump has as president of the United States? Can you accept behavior that you would not tolerate if you occupied the White House?
You have turned Congress into a laughingstock as the Invertebrate Branch. We have no confidence that you will respond to our constitutional peril by impeaching and removing President Trump from office. Your entire careers betray the treacherous earmarks of the “summer soldier and sunshine patriot” as historians will highlight.
On July 4, 1776, nearly 250 years ago, the 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence signed their death warrants to secure unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under attack by King George III and his powerful military forces. President Trump has bested the King’s tyranny. He is exercising the power to assassinate any person or organization on the planet as a putative enemy of the United States. Trump’s assassinations may have started with suspected drug traffickers. His dress rehearsal was assisting Israeli assassinations throughout the Middle East. Mr. Trump has articulated no limiting principle that would preclude assassinating political opponents, active or retired, including Members of Congress. “Immunity, immunity, immunity,” in the words of Justice Sonya Sotomayor dissenting in Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024). The only uncertainty is where Members stand in the queue, unlessimpeachment is forthcoming by Congress without tarry.
The lament of Pastor Martin Niemöller, inaudible during the rise of Hitler, should awaken you from your cowardly complacencies:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein
Ralph Nader
Lou Fisher
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Trump’s National Security Agenda Puts 'We the People' in Its Crosshairs
From Venezuela to Chicago, Trump’s seizure of military powers puts us all at risk.
Oct 18, 2025
As the Trump administration edges closer to a full-scale, unauthorized war on Venezuela, and amidst reports that President Donald Trump may invoke the Insurrection Act to wield the military against the American people, we must assert limits to Trump’s war powers.
On October 8, 2025, the Senate nearly passed a resolution to block the US from blowing up more boats in the Caribbean. The War Powers resolution, led by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), failed by just three votes and follows revelations that the Trump administration secretly authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela. The administration still has not provided its legal justification or evidence supporting its repeated unlawful strikes on boats, which have killed at least 27 people so far. These startling developments are just the tip of the iceberg of Trump’s illegal abuses of wartime powers to enact his draconian agenda—in the process putting we, the people, in its crosshairs.
It’s almost impossible to list all of the ways in which the Trump administration has invoked “national security” as a means to achieve unilateral power and crush dissent. But there are a few standouts. In March this year, the Trump administration invoked an 18th-century wartime act in peacetime, targeting Venezuelan community members and disappearing them to a torture prison in El Salvador. It then defied court orders attempting to curb its unlawful actions. Simultaneously, the administration asserted that the wartime act allows it to search homes without a warrant and that it can deploy the military against certain civilians–we now know it’s delivered on the latter promise.
Meanwhile, Trump adviser Stephen Miller has said he wants to suspend habeas corpus—the right to challenge unlawful imprisonment—for all immigrants. Guantánamo Bay is warehousing immigrants as Trump attempts to expand a “global gulag” for mass deportations. The federal government has also exploited laws rooted in anti-Palestinian racism to designate Latin American and Haitian cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and wants to lock up anyone opposed to the Trump agenda as “domestic terrorists”—all of this so the administration can silence, strip rights from, and wield its massive police powers against whatever community it sees fit.
Most people view the Japanese internment and racist post-9/11 policing of Muslim communities as stains on our country’s history. The Trump administration’s latest racist power grabs are no different, and are already harming communities across the country.
This isn’t as unprecedented as it may feel, though the sheer magnitude is alarming. Racist laws and policies in the US have long drawn lines to dictate who has rights and who does not. Eighty years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the 1798 wartime act during World War II to enable the government to detain and expel people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent. Over 31,000 people were rounded up based on nationality and imprisoned in concentration camps, separating thousands of families. Raids, kidnapping, and incarceration of Japanese Americans soon followed–all justified in the name of national security.
Six decades later, the Bush administration used national security as cover for racist executive power grabs which defined the post-9/11 era. Congress passed laws and allocated billions to expand a national security apparatus that criminalized Muslim identity and political and religious expression. The Bush administration even attempted to suspend habeas corpus until the Supreme Court intervened.
Most people view the Japanese internment and racist post-9/11 policing of Muslim communities as stains on our country’s history. The Trump administration’s latest racist power grabs are no different, and are already harming communities across the country.
The administration has claimed power to deny fundamental rights to any community it decides is a threat—whether abroad, or at home. Already, residents of multiple cities are dealing with active military on their street corners. Adults and children are being snatched off the street in broad daylight, from the kidnappings of Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to the disappearances of a dozen people to South Sudan, to the attempted abduction of hundreds of Guatemalan children. Last month, the Supreme Court caved to the administration and green-lit racial profiling against Latinos by masked, violent, and sometimes deadly federal officers. People in towns and neighborhoods across the country are terrified to take their kids to school, travel to work, or sleep in their own apartments, all because the administration is misusing war powers to surveil, detain, and disappear anyone it wants, foreign or domestic.
Congress must exercise its power to rein in this unchecked executive. The Senate is poised to bring a new, bipartisan War Powers resolution, offering senators another, critical chance to block the administration's unlawful military strikes on civilians. The House should likewise move Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) or Rep. Jason Crow's (D-Colo.) similar War Powers resolution. Congress must also demand answers from the administration on its deadly, illegal attacks; stop funding its raids, deportation, and disappearance machines; and restore fundamental rights by passing laws like the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, which diminishes the executive’s power to mass deport or surveil.
Increased military force, whether in the Caribbean or in Chicago, are interlocking pieces in a horrifying puzzle of presidential overreach. A runaway executive, emboldened by the courts, is subjecting communities of color—and anyone it labels a threat—to a different set of rules. We’ve seen this play out before, and we know what’s at stake for ourselves and our neighbors. We must speak out, resist, and demand our elected officials refuse to fund or sanction the Trump administration’s naked power grabs before it’s too late.
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