Patricia A. O'Malley
Social Policy & Programs Consulting
Training and Services for agencies working toward social and economic justice
The U.S. War Powers Act
Yes, Donald Trump has violated it.
June 27, 2025
On June 21, Donald Trump sent crewed American aircraft into Iranian airspace to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities because his birthday parade flopped and he’s a whiny crybaby.
Now we continue our national debate about his fitness for the job and authority to issue that order.
HISTORY
The US Constitution designates the president as the Commander in Chief of our armed forces.
Yet Congress has the sole power to declare war. Now and then, those two roles conflict.
Most Americans think that the War Powers Act gives the president exclusive authority for unbridled military power. They’re wrong. They also don’t know that Congress has enacted three war powers acts, because our schools don’t bother to teach anything properly.
Congress has declared war eleven times in our 237 years:
- 1812 against the United Kingdom
- 1846 against Mexico
- 1898 against Spain
- 1917 against Germany and Austria-Hungary
- 1941 against Germany, Japan, and Italy
- 1942 against Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
We have conducted combat actions against:
- The Barbary States
- North Vietnam
- Grenada
- Panama
- Persian Gulf War
- Afghanistan
- Iraq
Without war declarations.
We entered the Korean war under the United Nations treaty.
The NATO treaty covered our actions in Libya and the Balkans; as per the Constitution’s Article VI supremacy clause.
There was no War Powers Act during most of the Vietnam war.
Congress passed our first War Powers Act in 1941, after declaring war on Japan. They wanted to give President Franklin Roosevelt the ability to mobilize quickly without waiting for Congress to pass individual laws.
The second act, in 1942, expanded those powers to include censoring soldiers’ mail and confiscating the private property of Japanese-Americans. Regardless of the Act, that confiscation was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment. Those acts expired six months after the end of World War II, in March 1946.
LEGALITIES
The current War Powers Resolution, enacted in 1973, refers primarily to actions in which actual troops are to engage in combat. It requires that:
- The president consult with Congress before inserting US troops into conflicts whenever possible.
-- That includes sending troops into another nation’s airspace.
- The president must notify Congress within 48 hours after sending armed forces any time that Congress has not formally declared war.
- That military action must end within 60 days unless Congress declares war or permits an extension.
- If the president refuses to submit the report, the military action must end and the troops must be removed from the foreign country.
But the Resolution gives no consequences to the president for violations. Naturally.
CURRENT EVENTS
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) claims that the Resolution is unconstitutional because it limits the president’s Article II powers as Commander in Chief.
The Resolution’s Section 1 clearly asserts Congress’s constitutional rationale for passing the act.
Mr. Johnson should read it. Trump should read it too. But that’s far too much to expect from the president of the United States.
Donald Trump has violated the War Powers Act’s Section 3.
Iran’s nuclear work posed no immediate threat to the United States.
He clearly had plenty of time to consult Congress.
Trump may also have violated the part of Section 4 which requires him to notify the Speaker of the House (Mike Johnson) and Senate President Pro Tempore (Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA).
That notice must be shared with the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees.
I called both men’s offices, and the committee offices, to ask whether they had received the required notice, but they haven't returned my calls.
There’s no such information online.
The official White House statement on the bombings appears on the White House website.
You can read it at the link below.
TREASON
Since there's a possibility of war, we should also mention treason.
Too many people fling the word around like confetti.
They don’t know what the word means because our schools won’t teach them.
Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution.
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” (Article III. Section 3)
Our founders chose these words carefully. If they had wanted to say something else, they would have chosen other words. This is the definition we have to use.
The U.S. Code defines "enemy" as a nation with which we are in a declared or open war.
The Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. They haven't done that since World War II.
We are not at war with any nation at this time. We have adversaries, opponents, and antagonists.
Legally, we have had no enemies since World War II.
So none of us could commit treason now, even if we wanted to.
So it does matter whether we’ve declared an actual war, or not.
The 1973 Act refers only to actual armed forces, not to drones, or remote air bombings, or other high-tech activities because those things didn’t exist 52 years ago. But it does refer to another country’s “territory, airspace, or waters”.
Perhaps it’s time to modify the War Powers Act to reflect modern realities.
It only takes ONE PERSON to defeat all of Trump's plans. But it won't happen because
Republicans have no morals. Democrats have no globules.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read the Constitution
Congressional Record: 1973 War Powers Act text and legislative history
Previous War Powers Acts
1973 War Powers Act
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum: War Powers Resolution of 1973.
CNBC: House Speaker Johnson argues the War Powers Act is unconstitutional
US Declarations of War
BBC: What is known about the impact of the attacks?
Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News
Treason: Myths and Facts
We Can Save American Democracy
Contact Pat for email notice of all new Community Matters articles.
Patricia A. O'Malley
Social Policy & Programs Consulting ~ Community Matters
412-310-4886 ~ info@patomalley-consulting.com
Copyright Patricia A. O'Malley ~ All rights reserved
Established 1993
Congress controls all spending appropriations.
If Trump continues to flaunt the law,
then don’t give him any more money to pay for it.
Contact your senators.
Tell them to FILIBUSTER EVERYTHING.