Latest news with #JohnYoo
Fox News
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump 'doesn't need permission' from Congress to strike Iran, expert says
Print Close By Alex Miller Published June 20, 2025 While lawmakers argue over their position in the command chain as President Donald Trump mulls a possible strike on Iran, one expert believes that the president is within his constitutional authority to move ahead with a bunker-busting bomb. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are embroiled in debate over where they are in the pecking order. Some argue they should have the sole authority to authorize a strike, let alone declare war, while others believe that is within Trump's purview if he wanted to join Israel's bombing campaign against Iran. 'INSTINCTS FOR RESTRAINT': SENATE DIVIDED OVER WHO GETS TO DECLARE WAR The predominant argument on the Hill is that the entire point of supporting Israel is to prevent the Islamic Republic from creating or acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, a legal scholar who helped to craft the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which authorized the usage of the U.S. armed forces to engage with the entities that then-President George W. Bush believed were behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack in New York City, argued that there was a difference between Congress' constitutional authority to declare war and the president's authority to use force abroad. "The position we took then, I think, is the same one that Trump should take now," John Yoo told Fox News Digital. "As a legal matter, the president doesn't need the permission of Congress to engage in hostilities abroad. But as a political matter, it's very important for the president to go to Congress and present the united front to our enemies." THUNE WARNS IRAN SHOULD RETURN TO NEGOTIATING TABLE 'IF THEY'RE SMART' The Constitution divides war powers between Congress and the White House, giving lawmakers the sole power to declare war, while the president acts as the commander in chief directing the military. Nearly two centuries later, at the height of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was born, which sought to further define those roles. Yoo agreed that the Constitution was clear that Congress has the sole authority to declare war, which effectively changes the legal status of the country. However, he countered that "the framers did not think that language meant that the President and Congress are like the two weapons officers on a nuclear sub and have to turn the keys at the same time to use force." "The founders were very practical men, and they knew that Congress is slow to act, that Congress is a large body that deliberates, but it's the president who acts swiftly and decisively in defense of the nation," he said. Adding fuel to the debate in Washington are a pair of resolutions in the Senate from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and the House, from Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would require debate and a vote before any force is used against Iran. The measures are designed to put a check on Trump's power and reaffirm Congress' constitutional authority. 'ANOTHER ENDLESS CONFLICT': DEMOCRAT ECHOES TRUMP'S ANTI-WAR STANCE AS MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS ESCALATE Yoo said that the resolutions appeared to be forms of "political opportunism" and noted that when former President Joe Biden wanted to send aid to Ukraine, when former President Barack Obama engaged abroad or when Trump authorized a drone strike to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, there was no resolution demanding Congress have a say. "People on the Hill are conflating what's constitutionally necessary with what's politically expedient," Yoo said. "Two very different things." Congress' real power over war, he said, was the power of the purse, meaning lawmakers' ability to decide whether to fund the Pentagon and military in their appropriations process. Republicans are currently working to ram Trump's "big, beautiful bill" through Congress and onto his desk by Independence Day. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Included in the colossal bill is roughly $150 billion in funding for the Defense Department. "If Congress really doesn't want us to, doesn't want Trump to, get deeper involved in the Israel-Iran war," Yoo said. "All they got to do is not fund the military." "The ironic thing is, you have people who are voting to give extra tens of billions of dollars to the Defense Department, who are then turning around and complaining that they don't have the ability to vote on war," he said. "Every time they vote for funding, they're voting to make war possible." Print Close URL
CNN
05-06-2025
- General
- CNN
Trump's autopen fixation, explained
President Donald Trump first focused on Joe Biden's use of the autopen in March, leaning into the idea that the former president's use of the tool to sign documents showed that he wasn't in charge while in the White House and that his actions were 'null and void.' At the time, conservative executive authority scholar John Yoo wagered to CNN that Trump was 'just having fun at Biden's expense.' Trump on Wednesday sought to take this outside the realm of mere 'fun.' He ordered an investigation of Biden's use of the autopen and its supposed links to Biden's 'cognitive decline.' The move is guaranteed to breathe even more life into a story that has proven to be catnip for conservative media eager to keep the focus on the alleged coverup of Biden's decline. And Trump has certainly shown a talent for seeding baseless conspiracy theories for political gain (see: birtherism and the false notion that the 2020 election was rigged, among them.) But it's difficult to see how this leads anywhere, for a few reasons. The first is that there is nothing evidently wrong or unlawful about using the autopen. In 2005, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (under Republican President George W. Bush) conducted an extensive review of the legality of a president using the autopen. It found that 'the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it within the meaning of Article I, Section 7.' Trump has most often focused his autopen theory on Biden's pardons. (The idea that these are invalid would ostensibly allow Trump's Justice Department to investigate and charge the people Biden preemptively pardoned.) But there too, established legal advice from past administrations undermines the claim. A 1929 memo from the US solicitor general noted that the Constitution didn't even prescribe a method for issuing pardons. That means they don't necessarily even need to be publicly documented. (You might have heard in recent years about the prospect of 'secret' pardons.) And the memo explicitly says that pardons 'need not have the president's autograph.' The other key point is that many presidents have used this practice in one form or another. Thomas Jefferson bought and used such a machine back when it was first patented in 1803, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation. And even Trump himself has acknowledged using the autopen for certain things. Trump said back in March he has used it but 'only for very unimportant papers.' He specifically cited responding to people's letters. But in another case, Trump rather curiously seemed to indicate that he hadn't signed a major proclamation that bore his signature – the one at issue in his attempt to rapidly deport migrants using the Alien Enemies Act. That proclamation is a major issue in litigation that has already reached all the way to the Supreme Court. 'I don't know when it was signed, because I didn't sign it,' Trump said, adding: 'Other people handled it, but (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted them out and we go along with that.' Given the proclamation bore Trump's signature, that seemed to raise the possibility that the administration might have used the autopen for it. The White House later claimed Trump had in fact signed the proclamation and that he was instead referring to not having signed the original Alien Enemies Act. (But that argument strained credulity, given Trump cited how 'other people handled it' and the fact that the Alien Enemies Act dates to 1798. That means there is no way anyone could ever believe Trump might have signed it. The question Trump responded to also specifically referenced the proclamation, not the 1798 law.) In another way, Trump's Wednesday night memorandum isn't really about the autopen. It's about using that as a shorthand for something else entirely: what the memo calls Biden's 'cognitive decline.' Trump's order isn't just about reviewing whether any autopen signatures used by Biden were lawful; it also cites the idea that people used it as part of an effort to 'unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.' 'I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things – look, he was never for open borders, he was never for transgender for everybody, he was never for men playing in women's sports. All of these things that changed so radically, I don't think he had any idea … what was going on,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president.' This theory – if ever somehow proven – would actually matter. The 2005 Bush Justice Department memo, for instance, made clear that while presidents could outsource the signing of documents, that doesn't mean they could necessarily outsource the decisions to sign the documents. The OLC memo emphasizes that 'we do not question the substantial authority supporting the view that the President must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills.' But however compelling the evidence that Biden administration officials covered up his decline, there remains no evidence that he wasn't actually making decisions to sign things. That's taking things to an entirely different level. Biden's advisers have denied any coordinated effort to conceal from the public his deteriorating condition during the final years of his presidency. And the 2005 DOJ memo suggests it would have to prove more than just that Biden wasn't particularly engaged, but that he didn't make the final decisions. Trump was asked Thursday if he had uncovered 'anything specific' that was signed without Biden's knowledge or by people in his administration who acted illegally. Trump said, 'No.' Biden, for his part, issued some strong statements late Wednesday. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,' the former president said. 'Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' The former president also called this 'nothing more than a distraction' to obscure Republicans' push for a dicey Trump agenda bill, which features Medicaid cuts in the House-passed version. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that this could lead to millions of people losing their health insurance. Indeed, the political utility of the theory underlying Trump's memo is readily apparent. It's wildly popular in conservative media, with Fox News already devoting dozens of stories and extensive coverage to it. That includes this week when other outlets were focused on a decidedly less helpful story for the Trump administration: Elon Musk bashing the president's domestic policy bill. It's also nearly impossible to disprove it. History suggests that arriving at actual proof of Trump's theory is often besides the point for Trump. It's about repetition and seeding doubt. And Wednesday's action is clearly in line with that history.
