alt Hacker NewsCan somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
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If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...
Presumably under the War Powers Resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
[0] <https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...>
[1] See the "The Korean War" section here: <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11236>
The same way every president since ww2 has been able to.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?