Justice Department Memo Says President Had Power to Attack Syria

The Justice Department has declared in a legal opinion that President Donald Trump has broad constitutional power to order shelling on Syrian installations without congressional approval.

The 22-page memo comes almost a year after President Trump ordered the U.S. military to bomb Syrian government forces as punishment for using chemical weapons. According to the DOJ, he could do so legally if he determines that doing so would be in the national interest, and because the attack would carry little risk of escalation.

“Given the absence of ground troops, the limited mission and time frame and the efforts to avoid escalation, the anticipated nature, scope and duration of these airstrikes did not rise to the level of a ‘war’ for constitutional purposes,” wrote Steven A. Engel, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine rejected such a claim, arguing that Congress continues to fail in its constitutional role in making decisions about war and peace. He deemed the claim that firing missiles at a foreign nation was not “war” nonsense.

“Is there any doubt that America would view a foreign nation firing missiles at targets on American soil as an act of war?” Mr. Kaine said. “The ludicrous claim that this president can magically assert ‘national interest’ and redefine war to exclude missile attacks and thereby bypass Congress should alarm us all.”

The memo does not say whether the Office of Legal Counsel was consulted in April 2017, the first time President Trump attacked Syria for having used chemical weapons.

Such operations in Syria were also justified under the Obama administration as falling under Congress’s 2001 and 2002 authorizations to use military force against Al Qaeda, but that authority did not apply to the airstrikes on forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, carried out in April of last year and this year.

Those largely disputed attacks were neither approved by Congress nor the United Nations Security council and there was no self-defense rationale.

Engel’s memo, however, said that “the President here was faced with a grave risk to regional stability, a serious and growing humanitarian disaster, and the use of weapons repeatedly condemned by the United States and other members of the international community,” and as such had a basis for ordering these airstrikes.