A War Without Congress

How Republican Legislative Abdication Became the Enabler of Authoritarianism

Pulse Check by Dr. Linda Gunshefski

When the United States launched large-scale military strikes inside Venezuela it was without Congressional authority. There was no vote, no debate, and no opportunity for objection from the branch of government the Constitution assigned responsibility for war, Congress. NYT Gift Article: Trump Plunges the U.S. Into a New Era of Risk in Venezuela.

The current Congress under Republican control has been completely negligent in their duties to provide a Constitutional check on the Executive branch. Especially pathetic has been the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson who has convened the House of Representatives less than 40% of the time in 2025. Silence on the part of the Republican Congress is complicit with this illegal action.

Trump not seek Congressional authorization nor did he advise congressional leaders of the pending military attack. As of this writing there is no public reporting about Congress had been notified prior to the event.

Donald Trump ordered a military operation in Venezuela and stated his plans to“run” Venezuela. To understand how the administration reached this point, and why its justification sounds ridiculous, it is necessary to analyze what Trump claims the operation was about, to what actually occurred and what Trump said to justify the action.

The Administration’s Narrative:

Once the deed was done and with Nicolás Maduro in the custody of US military forces en route to the US, Trump announced the event. In televised remarks and interviews, the President emphasized that just before the strike, the electrical power and other infrastructure in Caracas were disrupted. He bragged that the Venezuelan military forces, whom he described as “readied” as being ultimately overwhelmed. He described the operation as “spectacular” and “deadly”. The Maduros were seized from their bedroom.

The Narrative, ‘It’s about Drugs’, It’s Not.

The White House has characterized the action as a joint police–military operation aimed at apprehending an indicted criminal rather than waging war against an oil-rich state. (Though during his press conference Trump acknowledged that Venezuela is “sovereign.”) The Justice Department statements emphasize long-standing narcotics indictments pending in the Southern District of New York. The Defense Department officials stress precision, discipline, and the absence of U.S. casualties. Framed this way, the administration argues the operation falls within the President’s Article II authority and did not require congressional approval or trigger the full application of the laws of armed conflict. That framing is deliberate but still difficult to reconcile with the facts disclosed by the President himself.

In 2025 Trump pardoned two notorious criminals involved in the drug trade.

These are not the statements made after a narrow arrest or extradition mission. They describe the use of military force and de facto control over another sovereign nation for an indefinite period of time. No post-hoc legal label can convert such an operation into routine law enforcement.

The military action is the easy part. Did Trump consult anyone from the Bush II administration about the challenges of maintaining an occupation?

War and A Complicit Congress

The Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress precisely to prevent unilateral escalation by the executive. We, the citizens of the United States, face the grim reality of not having any effective representation in Congress.

Military action involving air strikes, infrastructure disruption and asserted control over foreign territory is not incidental or defensive force, it is “war”.

Members of Congress have stated publicly that they were not consulted in advance and saw no evidence of an imminent threat that would justify unilateral action. Senator Chuck Schumer went as far as saying that Congress was misled. He had been told in three classified briefings that the administration was not pursuing regime change or planning to take military action in Venezuela. Democrats on Venezuela

The Republican majority has declined to assert its Congressional authority and responsibility, continuing a pattern in which Congress functions less as a coequal branch and more as a permissive bystander.

Republicans appear to be allowing the President to get away with the strike on Venezuela. My Congressman, Mike Baumgartner, a Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is peddling Trump’s “it’s about the drugs” narrative.

Baumgartner: "I think it was a great step for the security of the American people and the Western Hemisphere, and certainly a great day for the people of Venezuela.” Baumgartner approves Trumps actions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson in a statement called the military action in Venezuela “decisive” and a “justified operation that will protect American lives.” Senator Tom Cotton said on Fox News, “Congress doesn't need to be notified ever time the executive branch is making an arrest.” Republicans supportive of Trump.

The Criminal Case Against Maduro and Its Limits

The administration points to a 2020 federal indictment charging Maduro with narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking. Indictments, however, do not confer a global arrest warrant enforceable by military invasion, nor do they erase the legal distinction between criminal jurisdiction and armed force.

Criminal charges may support extradition requests but they do not supply a lawful basis for air strikes.

Moreover, key elements of the indictment’s narrative remain contested. The term “Cartel de los Soles” is widely understood by analysts as a descriptive label for corruption networks involving some Venezuelan officials, not a centralized cartel directed personally by Maduro. U.S. intelligence assessments have repeatedly stopped short of asserting that Maduro commands a transnational drug organization.

International Law: Where the Case Breaks

Under the United Nations Charter, the use of force is lawful only in self-defense against an armed attack or with authorization from the Security Council. Drug trafficking, migration pressures, and generalized criminality, however serious, do not meet that standard.

Reactions from abroad have been strikingly consistent. European governments, Latin American democracies, and international law experts have cited violations of sovereignty and the prohibition on the use of force. Even governments that have long criticized Maduro’s rule have rejected the method. Invocations of hemispheric dominance or resource security have reinforced the perception that the action reflected power and opportunity rather than legal necessity.

An “Occupation” by any other name still Stinks

Perhaps the most consequential statement came when the President said the United States would run Venezuela until a “safe transition” could occur.

That is not law enforcement, it is planned occupation without consent. History offers repeated warnings about such arrangements. “Temporary” control tends to persist, sometimes for decades, particularly when no legitimate successor government, international mandate, or clear exit strategy exists.

Wag the Dog

The timing of the operation is also notable. The strike on Venezuela occurred amid renewed public attention to the release of the Epstein files. Also re-entering the news cycle were unresolved questions about Trump’s handling of classified documents and his involvement in January 6th. On December 31, Congress finally released testimony given by Jack Smith earlier in the month.

Jack Smith stated to Congress, behind closed doors that Trump was fully responsible for the January 6th insurrection on the US Capitol. Jack Smith’s full deposition on the decision to indict Trump

Both investigations continue to carry legal and political consequences for Trump. These developments threatened to dominate the recent US news cycle. A dramatic foreign military operation predictably displaced that coverage, shifting public attention from accountability to spectacle.

Whether or not diversion was the intent, the incentive structure is obvious. With regard to the timing on the strike on Venezuela the question becomes, “why now?”

What was the hurry? Venezuela was under an effective blockade. Maduro was checked. He wasn’t going anywhere. Why not simply ask for a legal extradition as with the Honduran president? Or is Trump willing to do everything and anything necessary to maintain complete control over the US government?

The Epstein Files were not completely released by Congress’ Deadline.

Trump’s presence in the Epstein files still leaves the following question unanswered. Is there a pedophile sitting behind the resolute desk in the White House?

One Step Closer to Dictatorship

If a President can wage war abroad under precarious pretenses the same logic can migrate home: militarized enforcement, emergency rationales, and the normalization of force over law. The corrosion of constitutional limits is cumulative and it rarely confines itself to foreign policy. Look around you, it is happening now.

The World Responds

From Mexico and Brazil to the European Union, official statements have emphasized international law, non-intervention, and the danger of precedent. Adversaries have seized on the episode to accuse the United States of hypocrisy, charges made more credible by the President’s own rhetoric about dominance, oil, and control.

International norms erode not through abstract debate but through blatant disregard and abuse of them.

Furthermore, the action has been widely condemned abroad as unlawful under international law. Trump and a compliant Republican Congress’s succeeded at isolating the United States and weakening norms we have long claimed to defend.

The Strategic Cost

Dominance is not legitimacy. For decades, the United States argued that power must be constrained by law. The Venezuela operation is telling the world who we have become.

We have lost our standing among fellow world democracies. The US is no longer a respected country of law - domestic or international.

Our allies are distancing themselves. Adversaries under other autocrats are emboldened. The rules-based order the United States once championed is gone. We are less of a democracy today than we were before the strike.

Pulse Check: The Diagnosis

Condition: Chronic Executive Lawlessness

Symptoms: War without consent. Law without justice

Prognosis: Escalation abroad. Corrosion of democracy at home

Treatment: New Congressional Representation, public transparency, legal accountability,

Call to Action

Call your US Congressional representative and ask if they support the President’s action? Did they demand a briefing, call for authorization, force a vote, or invoke the War Powers Resolution? If they did none of these things, their silence was not neutrality it was permission. In a democracy, war requires consent. Anything less is abdication.

Demand from your Congressman that they immediately host an in-person town hall in your Congressional District to answer questions their constituents have about this action. Insist that the town-hall be announced well in advance and accommodate everyone, not just hand-picked Republican partisans. Request that anyone who chooses to ask a question be given the opportunity to do so.

As always, when calling your Congressman, ask that you receive a response back. Tell them that you prefer a telephone call but will accept an e-mail. Their response, or lack of, is evidence of who your Congressman represents. Is it you?

—Shared with permission of Linda Gunshefski.
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