Nancy Pelosi To Introduce “War Powers Resolution” To Limit Trump’s Power With Iran

This is direct from Nancy Pelosi's website:

From NBC News:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the House will vote soon on a war powers resolution to limit President Donald Trump's military actions after he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general last week, escalating tensions with Tehran.

"Last week, the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials," Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Sunday. "This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran."

"As members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep the American people safe," she continued. "For this reason, we are concerned that the administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution."

She said the House resolution is similar to one introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

"It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days," she said.

Last week, Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and other officials near the Baghdad airport. Soleimani's death came days after rioters sought to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and a U.S. contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk.

Iran and its allies vowed to retaliate for the general's death, and Trump has since escalated his language in response.

Meanwhile, Senate leader in both parties exchanged harsh words about the matter later Monday, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., attacking Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blasting the administration for its lack of transparency.

"Unfortunately, in this toxic political environment, some of our colleagues rushed to blame our own government before knowing the facts, rushed to split hairs on intelligence before even being briefed on it," McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. He said Democrats "downplayed Soleimani's evil while playing up our own president as a villain."

"Can we maintain a shred of national unity for five minutes before deepening the partisan trenches?" McConnell asked.

Moments later, Schumer, in his own Senate floor speech, accused Trump of engaging in "erratic and impulsive decision making" on the Soleimani strike.

“In my view, the president does not — does not — have authority to go to war with Iran," he added. "The American people need clarity that the Trump administration has a plan, not just a tweet, a plan to keep our troops, our nation and our people safe."

On Sunday, Iraq's Parliament voted to ask its government to end the presence of U.S. troops in the country, while Iranian state TV reported that Iran will no longer abide by any limits of the 2015 nuclear deal — an agreement Trump withdrew from in 2018.

More from Breitbart:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wrote a letter to her Democrat colleagues in the House on Sunday to reveal a new “War Powers Resolution” that amounts to a pre-emptive surrender to Iran in ongoing hostilities.

Pelosi’s letter begins with the declaration that President Donald Trump’s airstrike last week targeting Iranian General Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) Quds Force, responsible for the murders of hundreds of Americans and for recent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, was “provocative and disproportionate,” terms suggesting the attack was illegal under international law and could constitute a war crime.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus (and Democrat) Alan Dershowitz argued in Monday’s Wall Street Journal that the strike was not only lawful, but an “easy call”: “The president has the constitutional authority to take military actions, short of declaring war, that he and his advisers deem necessary to protect American citizens. This authority is extremely broad, especially when the actions must, by their nature, be kept secret from the intended target.”

Nonetheless, Pelosi’s letter indicates that the House will declare the president’s action illegal under international law.

The letter further claims that Trump’s action “endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran” — placing the responsibility for violence not on Iran, which recently attacked a U.S. Navy drone; a Saudi oil field; and, via proxies, Americans soldiers and civilians in Iraq; but on the United States, which had restrained itself until the recent assault by an Iranian-backed militia on the embassy.

The letter goes on to describe a new resolution that would “limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran,” essentially signaling a surrender in the potential conflict before the Iranian regime itself had managed to respond.

Pelosi adds that the resolution “reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.” Under current law, the War Powers Act of 1973 limits the time that a president can lead a military effort, without formal authorization, to 60 days following a required presidential report to Congress when hostilities begin.

The new resolution, which Pelosi says mirrors a similar Senate bill by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), would amount to an effective surrender by signaling that the president had no congressional support for striking back against Iran, and imposing a new deadline for any military action that would give Iran greater freedom of action. Paradoxically, the resolution could force the president to choose more drastic measures of conducting a war effort before the deadline.

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