Protect Democracy Sues for Administration Opinions on Initiating War with North Korea

On October 26th, Protect Democracy filed suit against the Trump Administration to find out whether the President thinks he can unilaterally start a war with North Korea without Congressional authorization. The suit comes after the Administration has refused to respond to FOIA requests for the information.

Read the complaint.

Protect Democracy previously filed suit for the Administration’s legal justification for strikes against the Syrian regime, which was not authorized by Congress, and for which the Administration did not provide any legal rationale. In July, Judge Christopher Cooper of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C. ordered the Administration to speed up its disclosures on the information because, as he explained, the decision of whether to go to war is one that requires a public debate and “[b]eing closed off from such a debate is itself a harm in an open democracy.” The Administration continues to fight disclosing key documents.

With a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee coming on Monday, Protect Democracy also released a list of questions Senators should ask the Trump Administration about how it views its authority to take the country to war.  Read those questions here.