Watchdogs sue government, seeking legal basis for strike
WASHINGTON — A month after President Donald Trump ordered a military strike on the Syrian regime as punishment for using chemical weapons, his administration has yet to offer a rationale for what lawful authority he had to carry out the attack.
Now, a government watchdog group run by former Obama administration lawyers is suing to force the Trump administration to disclose its legal theory — or concede that it launched the April 6 attack without thinking about the law. While the attack attracted bipartisan support as a political and policy matter, its legal basis was disputed.
The United States had no self-defense rationale, and neither Congress nor the U.N. Security Council authorized the attack, raising questions about the scope and limits of Trump’s power as a matter of domestic law and the United States’ power as a matter of international law. The Trump administration has not answered them.
On Monday, the watchdog group, Protect Democracy, filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act for all emails, memos and other records discussing Trump’s legal authority to launch the strike.
“We should all agree that in our constitutional democracy, the executive’s ability to attack another country is constrained by the law,” Justin Florence, the group’s legal director and a former Obama White House lawyer, wrote in an essay announcing the lawsuit. He added: “Some countries may tolerate a head of state launching a new conflict without offering a clear legal justification, but we should not.”
In a letter to Congress, Trump asserted, with little detail, that his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief gave him sufficient basis to unilaterally launch the attack to advance U.S. interests, including deterring further use of chemical weapons.
Late last month, two Democrats in Congress — Rep. Adam Schiff of California and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia — sent a letter to Trump urging him to explain the legal basis for the strike. But the administration has not responded, aides said.
Now, Protect Democracy is hoping to shed some light with a lawsuit that, at the least, might identify whether legal memos exist, whether or not they are made public.