US President Donald Trump joins dancers with swords at a welcome ceremony ahead of a banquet at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh on May 20, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON ― The Trump administration and GOP leadership started lobbying against a bipartisan resolution questioning the U.S. role in the civil war in Yemen before Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) even filed it on Wednesday morning.
The Defense Department’s acting general counsel sent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a letter criticizing the resolution on Tuesday. That letter was sent to all Senate offices Wednesday morning, hours before a high-profile news conference at which Sanders and Lee argued that current American efforts in Yemen ― providing aerial refueling and intelligence to a Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels ― are unconstitutional because Congress has never explicitly approved them.
William S. Castle of the Pentagon disagrees. His letter maintains that the U.S. support does not count as “hostilities” because American forces are not having exchanges of fire with the rebels, known as the Houthis, or commanding the coalition. It also suggests that the resolution threatens American authority to combat the local branch of the Islamic State ― and even holds that Congress cannot end the policy because it is the president’s prerogative, adopting an expansive view of presidential control over war-making that some experts likened to controversial George W. Bush-era arguments once HuffPost published the letter.
At stake is a debate ― the likes of which hasn’t been seen in the Senate for decades ― over how America wages war.
The resolution from Sanders, Lee and Murphy is guaranteed a vote on the Senate floor because of authorities outlined in arms control legislation, staffers say; the U.S. is a major supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia and its chief partner in the war, the United Arab Emirates.