Raskin: Trump Authorizing Iran Strikes Likely Impeachable

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Weeknight” that President Donald Trump authorizing military strikes against Iran could be grounds for impeachment.

Host Alicia Menendez said, “You had Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling the president’s decision to bomb Iran without authorization a grave violation of the Constitution, saying it is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment. Just real quickly, do you agree?”

Raskin said, “I couldn’t read the whole thing, but it sounds like I agree with that, that it’s an absolute violation of the Constitution. ”

Menendez said, “It’s the grounds for impeachment piece that I want you to weigh in on that right there at the end.”

Raskin said, “Well, without saying what anybody should do in any particular situation, undoubtedly a violation of the war powers of Congress, the usurpation of the war powers of Congress would be an impeachable offense, would be a high crime and misdemeanor. I mean, you know, Israel said, in what Israel did on its own, we set them back 2 or 3 years, so that’s not an emergency. Remember the president can only assert the power to use military in a context in which there’s an imminent threat to us, and that clearly wasn’t there. So we can add this to a very long list of things.”

He added, “But obviously talk of impeachment today when we’re in the minority and we can’t even get Republicans to vote with us on a single bill to try to restore sanity is somewhat hypothetical. But I’m with my friend AOC in saying we’ve got to keep a very strict catalog of all of the violations of the Constitution that are taking place.”

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