A Bill to Curtail the Forever War, or Extend It?

As we lurch through the second year of Trump administration, it’s hard to know whether to just give up the whole rule-of-law thing or rejoice at the very faint stirrings of conscience appearing on Capitol Hill.

Sign number one: The Senate Judiciary committee has approved a bill to protect the Mueller investigation from a presidential attempt to quash it. For now, the bill has no chance of passage; both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have made that clear, but the gesture is appreciated.

Sign number two: Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine have agreed on a bill that at least gestures toward Congress’s role as a check on executive war-making. The Corker-Kaine bill is designed to place the Trump administration’s ongoing military operations within at least the semblance of a constitutional framework.

Is it a step forward or a final surrender of congressional authority?

Congress’s war powers were not in good shape when Barack Obama left office; his administration used statutory double-talk to justify intervening in Libya, and, in its efforts against ISIL, stretched the two existing statutory authorizations almost toclaim of legal authority; the closest thing to a statement of war aims was a promise by United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley that if Trump “needs to do more, he will.”