Constitutional Law Expert Tells Congress It Has the Power To Stop This War on Iran

April 9—Bruce Fein, a senior constitutional lawyer known for speaking out when the U.S. Constitution is being trampled on, put forward a forceful argument for how “Congress Can End Trump’s Unconstitutional War in Iran: Legislators Have the Power of the Purse; They Should Use It,” as he titled his article published in the American Conservative on April 7.

Fein emphasizes two key points of law. First, that U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran is not only unconstitutional, but that it constitutes “a criminal war of aggression as defined by the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal.” It violates Section 6(a) of the Charter of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, which “criminalized wars of aggression or in violation of treaties.” This is the crime for which 12 high-ranking Nazi officials were sentenced to death at Nuremberg, he reminds.

Second, just as Congress ended the Vietnam War by prohibiting any further spending on any further acts of war in Southeast Asia, Congress must do the same today.

Fein situated this action in its proper historical context: "All Congress needs today is a fraction of the courage displayed by the 56 signatories to the American Declaration of Independence who signed their death warrants in defense of unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 250 years ago….

“The Constitution contemplates congressional control over spending enshrined in Article I, section 9, clause 7 as an invincible check on executive abuses. James Madison, father of the Constitution, elaborated in Federalist 58: ‘This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.’”

Fein suggests wording for the bill Congress must enact today: “No monies of the United States may be expended to conduct combat operations against Iran without a congressional declaration of war or in self-defense in response to an Iranian invasion of the United States. Further, no member of the United States Armed Forces may be deployed to undertake combat against Iran absent a prior congressional declaration of war or in self-defense to an unprovoked actual attack on the United States.”

Should the President veto the bill, “Congress is empowered to override the veto by two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate, which was done in response to President Richard Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Moreover,” Fein suggests, Congress could refuse to appropriate the $200 billion requested to fund the continuance of the criminal war of aggression against Iran. “The President is powerless to veto congressional inaction.”