1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am writing to state plainly what should already be obvious: Congress has failed in its constitutional duty by allowing credible allegations of U.S. war crimes to go unanswered and uninvestigated. A U.S. military operation authorized under the Trump administration involved the deliberate use of a military aircraft configured to masquerade as a civilian plane in order to carry out a lethal attack at sea. Weapons were concealed, and the aircraft was intentionally presented as non-military. This conduct meets the definition of perfidy, a war crime prohibited under international humanitarian law and criminalized under U.S. law. This was not an accident. It was not a misunderstanding. It was a calculated deception that relied on civilian protections to facilitate lethal force. When a military disguises itself as civilian in order to kill, it destroys the legal distinction between combatants and civilians and places innocent lives at risk everywhere. That is precisely why perfidy is forbidden without exception. What is just as disturbing as the conduct itself is Congress’s response: silence. Rather than exercising oversight, demanding legal justification, or asserting its constitutional authority, Congress has largely abdicated its responsibility. That abdication is not passive; it is an active failure to uphold the Constitution, the rule of law, and the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act. Compounding this failure is the administration’s assertion that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels—a claim that stretches the law beyond recognition and appears designed to manufacture wartime authority where none lawfully exists. Congress has allowed this dangerous theory to stand unchallenged, enabling the executive branch to expand lethal force without accountability. You swore an oath to the Constitution, not to any president, party, or administration. That oath requires you to act when the executive branch plausibly commits or authorizes war crimes. By failing to investigate, legislate, or even publicly object, Congress is not merely neglecting its duty—it is violating it. I therefore accuse Congress, including yourself, of dereliction of duty. That dereliction has real consequences: it normalizes unlawful violence, erodes international law, and signals to the world that the United States believes itself above the rules it enforces on others. I expect immediate and concrete action, including: A formal congressional investigation into the authorization and legality of these operations Disclosure of all legal opinions and rules of engagement used to justify them Legislative action explicitly prohibiting perfidy and repudiating any doctrine that enables it Accountability for civilian and military officials who authorized or carried out unlawful conduct Anything less will confirm that Congress has chosen convenience over law and political safety over constitutional responsibility. History will record whether Congress acted when confronted with credible evidence of war crimes—or whether it chose to look away. I expect a direct response explaining what you will do to correct this failure.