Raskin: Bombing Iran Is in ‘Absolute Violation of the Constitution’ ... ‘Would Be an Impeachable Offense’

MENENDEZ: “Congressman, you had Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling the president’s decision to bomb Iran without authorization a grave violation of the Constitution, saying it is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment. Just real quickly, do you agree?”

RASKIN: “I couldn’t read the whole thing, but it sounds like I agree with that, that it’s an absolute violation of the Constitution.”

MENENDEZ: “It’s the grounds for impeachment piece that I want you to weigh in on. That right there at the end.”

RASKIN: “Well, without saying what anybody should do in any particular situation, undoubtedly a violation of the war powers of Congress, the usurpation of the war powers of Congress would be an impeachable offense, would be a high crime and misdemeanor. I mean, you know, Israel said we’ve just — in what Israel did on its own, we set them back two or three years. So that’s not an emergency. Remember, the president can only assert the power to use military in a context in which there’s an imminent threat to us, and that clearly wasn’t there. So, we can add this to a very long list of things where the president has violated the spending power. I mean, the states brought an action because the president unilaterally imposed a spending freeze on laws passed by Congress signed by the president for a trillion dollars in spending. They wanted to hold up all of these federal public health programs, housing programs, local policing programs, just out of the blue. And where does he get the doctrine that he can just do that? He just pulls it out of a hat. Well, the court struck it down, and gratefully, the states are there. But obviously, talk of impeachment today when we’re in the minority and we can’t even get Republicans to vote with us on a single bill to try to restore sanity, is somewhat hypothetical, but I’m with my friend AOC in saying we’ve got to keep a very strict catalog of all of the violations of the Constitution that are taking place.”

MENENDEZ: “Congressman Jamie Raskin, New Jersey AG Matthew Platkin, thank you both so much for being with us.”