» Iran uncertainty grips Congress amid impeachment.
Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani gives Congress more to grapple with
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to kill Iran’s top security commander has reshuffled the already fraught political dynamic around impeachment and thrust matters of war and peace into the middle of an election-year debate over whether to remove Trump from office.
As Congress reconvenes Monday, the specter of escalating hostilities with Iran and a searing debate over the justification behind Trump’s action will take center stage on Capitol Hill. The unexpected turn of events has added a volatile new element to the pitched fight over Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.
For Republicans, the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, fueled a new line of defense of the president, as they argued that Democrats’ effort to oust Trump while he tended to matters of national security was irresponsible.
“Think of the contrast,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “While Democrats are trying to remove President Trump from office, the president is focused on removing terrorists from the face of the earth.”
Democratic leaders insisted the two issues must not be interwoven, and said that lawmakers were obligated to follow through with the impeachment process even as they debated the way forward on Iran. Many of their rank and file have charged that Trump authorized the strike precisely to distract attention from the charges at the center of his impeachment.
“Congress has to do both of our constitutional responsibilities,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“One, to protect the American people and be a coequal branch of government with the administration to make sure that we keep Americans safe,” he added on NBC, referring to Iran. “Secondly, we also have to take on the responsibility of what’s going to come over at some point from the House, and that’s to conduct a full and fair trial.”
Related or not, the rapid developments in recent days mean that Congress will grapple simultaneously in the coming weeks with two of its most consequential constitutional duties: the power to impeach and to weigh matters of war. The outcome will clarify the legislative branch’s appetite for checking an expansive presidency and will also likely play a continuing role in Trump’s fight for reelection.
The timing and outlook for the president’s impeachment trial were already murky. In a pair of votes in December, the House impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The charges stem from his bid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, while withholding nearly $400 million of military aid.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to transmit the charges against Trump to the Senate, in a bid to give Senate Democrats more leverage as they try to force Republicans to agree to call administration witnesses and gain access to more documents. The president blocked administration officials from testifying in the House inquiry and refused to turn over documents that impeachment investigators requested, prompting the obstruction charge.
Now, the question is whether the coming debate on Iran will affect the calculations by Democrats and Republicans strategizing over the terms and length of a trial.
Democrats on the left argue that the impulses that led Trump to strike Soleimani are themselves grounds for his removal.
Some Democrats, calling the action unauthorized and illegal, made clear over the weekend that they intended to try to curtail Trump’s ability to strike Iran in the future.
After the White House on Saturday sent Congress an unusual, completely classified notification of the drone strike, Pelosi said it raised “serious and urgent questions” about the decision.
“Congress and I will do everything I can to assert our authority,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Sunday on ABC. “We do not need this president either bumbling or impulsively getting us into a major war.”
But in a clear signal that he has no interest in consulting with Congress on his military moves or strategy, Trump suggested Sunday that lawmakers should monitor social media to discern how he plans to proceed.
“These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” the president tweeted. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”
Senators are expected to receive a full briefing from administration officials in the coming week on the strike. An all-members briefing in the House has yet to be scheduled, according to a senior Democratic aide.
Senators could be forced to vote on the scope of the president’s war-making powers with Iran as soon as mid-January. The House could do so on a similar schedule, though it is not clear whether Congress has the appetite for a full debate over war powers, or whether lawmakers will be able to reach a consensus.
That timing could collide directly with an impeachment trial, an all-consuming proceeding that brings other Senate work to a halt.
Though they did not explicitly connect the two issues, Republicans have begun looking for ways to force Pelosi’s hand and move the trial along. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday that he would seek a long-shot change to the Senate rules to compel the House to bring its case forward so it could be dispensed with quickly.