This Is the Line: Congress Must Act Now

If Congress allows a President to launch an unauthorized war, openly tie it to corporate plunder, and normalize the use of military force outside the law, then Congress has already surrendered its constitutional role. I am demanding that you act—now—to begin impeachment proceedings. In the past day, the President has reportedly ordered U.S. military action in Venezuela without congressional authorization, publicly encouraged U.S. oil executives to move in and extract resources, and suggested that the United States will administer the country for the foreseeable future. Taken together, these are not policy disagreements; they are clear violations of the Constitution and federal law. Article I of the Constitution reserves the power to declare war to Congress. The War Powers Resolution explicitly prohibits sustained hostilities without congressional authorization. Unilateral military action is illegal, full stop. When the President frames that action around resource extraction and private corporate gain, it raises profound corruption concerns and violates his obligation under the Take Care Clause to faithfully execute the law rather than abuse office for private interests. Equally alarming is the continued pattern of blurring military action with law enforcement authority. The normalization of deploying armed force outside statutory limits—abroad today, potentially at home tomorrow—undermines the Posse Comitatus framework and sets the stage for domestic use of the military in ways the Constitution was designed to forbid. Democrats have long warned that authoritarianism does not arrive all at once; it advances through precedent, repetition, and congressional acquiescence. This is not an isolated event. It is another brick in a growing wall of evidence that this President is willing to bypass Congress, ignore statutory limits, and condition the public to accept rule by force rather than by law. That trajectory is existentially dangerous to democratic governance. Your previous responses—hearings, letters, expressions of concern—have not altered this behavior. The Constitution provides a remedy precisely for moments like this. Impeachment is not a symbolic act. It is a constitutional obligation. Do your job.