The U.S. Constitution is in the hands of those who ignore it, writes Andrew P. Napolitano. The consequences are deaths of innocents and the undermining of constitutional norms.
Members of the U.S. military listening to President Donald Trump deliver remarks at Fort Bragg, N.C., on June 10 during a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. (White House /Daniel Torok)
Has the United States become what President Donald Trump recently condemned? Can the president fight any war he wishes?
Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged?
These questions should be central to a debate over the U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran. Sadly, there has been no great debate. The mainstream media are mouthing what the C.I.A. is telling them, and only a few websites and podcasts are challenging the government’s reckless, immoral, illegal and unconstitutional wars.
Here is the backstory.
All power in the federal government comes from the Constitution and from no other source. Congress is restrained by the Constitution and by treaties to which the U.S. is a party.
Congress cannot legally declare war on Russia, Gaza or Iran since there are no militarily grounded reasons for doing so. Russia poses no threat to American national security, persons or property; nor do Gaza or Iran. Moreover, the U.S. has no treaty with Ukraine or Israel that triggers an American military obligation.
Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war on a nation or group. The last time it did so was to initiate American involvement in World War II. But Congress has given away limited authority to presidents and permitted them to fight undeclared wars — such as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Congress has not only not declared war on Russia or Gaza or Iran; it has not authorized the use of American forces in those countries. Yet, it has given the president a blank check and authorized him to spend it on military equipment for Ukraine and Israel however he sees fit.
Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13. (White House /Daniel Torok)
Trump came into office promising to end America’s forever wars. Instead, the United States continues to fund a war his predecessor entered into in Ukraine, the goal of which was to eliminate Russian troops from Ukraine and Crimea and Russian President Vladimir Putin from office. None of these objectives is realistically attainable.
In Gaza, the Israeli goal has been to remove by death or force all Palestinians from their ancestral land. That goal, which is morally reprehensible and militarily unfeasible, has produced more than 55,000 civilian deaths — none of this to the benefit of the U.S.
In Iran, the president lulled the Iranians into believing that the U.S. was seriously negotiating with them, while U.S. intelligence assets planned and helped execute the Israeli attacks on Tehran last week, some of which murdered the negotiators.
Does Iran, which U.S. and Israeli intelligence have concluded has no nuclear weapons as Israel does, pose the slightest threat to U.S. national security? It does not.
Parts of Tehran under Israel’s opening attack at dawn on June 13. (Mehr News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
We don’t know how many American intelligence officers are in Ukraine, Gaza or Iran. But we know that they are there. During Trump’s first term in office, the C.I.A. built 20 facilities for its officers and agents across Ukraine.
We also know that they are involved in hostilities, since much of the U.S. hardware used against Russia and Gaza and in defense of Israel requires American know-how to operate and maintain.
Are American intelligence officers killing Russian soldiers, Gazan civilians and Iranian officials? The White House prefers not to answer, yet none of this has been authorized by Congress.
Now back to the Constitution.
Defensive, Proportional & Reasonable War-Making
The War Powers Resolution, which requires presidential notification to Congress of the use of American military force, is unconstitutional because it consists of Congress giving away one of its core functions — declaring war.
The Supreme Court has characterized delegating away core functions as violative of the separation of powers, and thus unconstitutional.
Moreover, that statute only applies to the military. It does not constrain or require reporting of the use of intelligence personnel to fight wars.
Nevertheless, Trump has not informed Congress of his intentions to use American troops violently. Yet, he has used the Navy, the Air Force and the C.I.A. to attack civilians in Yemen — a war crime — and he has soldiers out of uniform in Ukraine, so as to perpetuate the Biden-era deception that American boots are not there on the ground.
Don’t be surprised if Trump gives War Powers Act notice secretly to the Gang of Eight. That’s the Congress within the Congress. It consists of the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate with which the president legally shares secrets.
Just as Congress cannot delegate away its war-making powers to the president, it cannot delegate them away to the Gang of Eight. The concept of the Gang of Eight is antithetical to democratic values. Informing them of whatever violence the president is up to is done under an oath of secrecy.
What kind of democracy operates and kills in secret?
The various treaties to which the U.S. is a party limit its war-making to that which is defensive, proportional and reasonable. So, if a foreign power is about to strike — like on 9/11, while the government slept — the president can strike first in order to protect the U.S.
Beyond an imminent attack, the basis for war must be real, the adversary’s anti-U.S. military behavior must be grave and imminent, the objective of war must be clear and attainable, and the means must be proportionate to the threat.
Have Russia, Gaza or Iran seriously threatened any grave acts against the U.S.? They have not.
Last month, in Saudi Arabia, Trump condemned the neocons’ forever wars and Western military intervention in the Middle East. We now know he didn’t mean what he said. We have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who ignore it.
The consequences are deaths of innocents and the undermining of constitutional norms. And the U.S. continues to be what Trump verbally condemned.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, was the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel and hosts the podcast Judging Freedom. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit here.
Published by permission of the author.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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TheUS constitution is a meaningless bit of nonsense. Has someone printed it on toilet paper yet?
In addition to the congressional war powers guaranteed under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution as outlined here by Judge Napolitano (which the United States has sadly been skirting at various points ever since the undeclared 1798-1800 “Quasi-War” with France), the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that renounces war as an instrument of statecraft (especially in the context of offensive operations abroad) remains a treaty in force for all ratifying signatory states, including the United States, and therefore is the supreme law of the land per the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, as are the United Nations Charter and other subsequent agreements that reinforce the prohibition on wars of aggression (meaning there is good reason to believe that any operations launched under the Bethlehem Doctrine of “Preemptive War” do not legally cut the mustard).
”
In Gaza, the Israeli goal has been to remove by death or force all Palestinians from their ancestral land. That goal, which is morally reprehensible and militarily unfeasible, has produced more than 55,000 civilian deaths — none of this to the benefit of the U.S.”
On the contrary, it has been a great benefit to General Dynamics, Boeing, Ratheon and other war contractors.
Robert McNamara pushed the idea that the Executive branch should prosecute “limited wars” (with Congress still controlling funding). To convince Congress to declare War generally requires False Flag operations, sometimes as dangerous as the ‘limited wars’ themselves. Among other events, McNamara was in on Operation Northwoods (which thankfully never happened), the Gulf of Tonkin “attacks” (which brought money for Vietnam but not a declaration of War), and the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (whose sinking was to be blamed on Egypt and bring US into the War on Israel’s side). Since then, we have had Kuwaiti premature babies pulled from incubators and thrown on the floor by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers, Colin Powell waving a vial of pancake uranium at the UN proving WMDs, and Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, among other events (“conspiracy theories”– Kennedy assassinations and 9/11? — go hand-in-hand with theatrical False Flags).
Now that USAID is gone (rolled into State), the CIA will have to return to the dirty work.
Operation Northwoods was vetoed by President Kennedy.
However, JFK aide Kenneth O’Donnell claimed that Robert Kennedy took a rather different view.
“Trump came into office promising to end America’s forever wars.” Judge Napolitano.
W/o a doubt, he did, 100%! On day one (1), Trump was gonna shut ‘em down! Obama promised the same, day one (1), the “Iraq war,” Done & Dusted! Biden-Harris rolled into office promising $2,000 USD’s, just “Vote Blue, No Matter Whom!” Concluding, “all their truths are just one (1) big f/lie.” Universally, the sky’s burnt-orange. What lingers is the Zero to “No Impact” the “Blues” of ‘No King Day’ made on Trump-Vance, Inc., POTUS &/or the US Congress.
“Summer’s Coming In, HOT!” Just like the POTUS who is NOT a King! DJT ‘The Hot $hot” POTUS, works “remotely.
…..I.E., below the US Constitution, is the thermostat & POTUS Trump “Turns Up” the heat as quickly as he “Turns it Down!” ITSA “process a country goes through when a man is elected leader of that country & destroys it from the inside out,” aka *“the Obamafication of America.” No doubt, POTUS’ credibility is rancid! POTUS is a Smelly Cat! And, the US Congress are the feral cats lick’n their paws, bloody, dirty claws, got nothin’ left but batt’n their eyelashes, “strike a pose.”
The POTUS, Trump-Vance, Inc., is consumed w/“change,” power & influence, @ “home” & universally! IMO, the US Congress, after years of “Biden” their time; NOW, June, 2025, are “Ride’N w/Massie,” “They” want their “Power” to Authorize War, BACK!!! The sufferin’ US Congress, FAFO, that “being so caught up in a man,” i.e., Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr “El Chapo” Zelensky, Benyamin Netanyahu, Donald J. Trump, “they,” the US Congress, loose site of the issues,” deception, destruction, deaths. “W/the Obamafication of America, there has been a tendency to look away from other things that are important and are historical in their own right.” Torrance T. Stephans, Ph.D., Behavioral Scientist, Author.
……The owl asks, “Who Ya Gonna Believe Me or Your Own Eyes?” The bird tweets, “keep your head on a swivel. No one is safe. Everyone’s “being tracked,” wherever you go. You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.” John W. Whitehead, Constitutional Attorney, Author.
TY, Judge Napolitano, Cn. “Onward & Upwards.”
Very true that “We have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who ignore it.”
Our constitutional rights are no more than formalities ignored by corrupt judges, legislators, and secret agencies.
All branches of our former democracy are now corrupt, serving only to mask control by partisan gangs.
Congress, the courts, and mass media are a corruptocracy of billionaires and corporations who prevent all reform.
The only new corruption is the explicit declaration of unconstitutional powers by the tyrannical executive branch.
We must not be so loyal to the old Chevy that we refuse to allow repairs. To make the system work, I suggest reforms:
1. Constitutional amendments prohibiting election or media funding beyond limited registered Individual donations;
2. Checks and balances Within each functional branch, because they do not have powers to balance each other;
a. Monitor officials and staff for political viewpoints; and form anonymous committees with balanced viewpoints;
b. Have two or three such committees or courts vote on each decision and refer disputes to a higher such group.
3. Public and mass media education to identify and avoid social dependency upon tribal groups and their tyrants.
To look to the source of this problem is to look past Trump and the neocons, to those who fund and direct them; the billionaires. Who funds the think tanks that write the policy papers such as “Which Path to Persia?” by the Brookings Institute in 2009? The billionaires. Who funds the politicians? the billionaires. Who runs the defense contracting companies? The billionaires. Who owns and controls the news media that push for war 24/7? The billionaires. Who hobnobs with the government officials and CIA people at Georgetown cocktail parties? The billionaires. Who has Trump surrounded himself with in his administration? The billionaires.
We live in an unregulated capitalist paradise where money talks very, very loudly. We can’t end the endless wars until we root out the problem and defund the billionaires. As long as they have more money than many nations on earth, we will never stop this madness.
“We can’t end the endless wars until we root out the problem and defund the billionaires.”
We can’t stop the endless wars until “war is good for business” is outright rejected as sociopathic.
@riva enteen:
remember the claim of all who benefit from
[forever] wars: “PEACE DOES NOT PAY!”
we have not managed to convince them otherwise.