33) is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.

For actions short of treason, they can remove the president for "Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors", the definition of which the Supreme Court has left up to Congress.

President Franklin Roosevelt directed the U.S. Navy to protect British shipping vessels during WW2 as well as ordering the occupation of Greenland and Iceland.

It was prompted by news leaking out that President Nixon conducted secret bombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam War without notifying Congress.

[9][6] By a two-thirds vote in each house, Congress overrode the veto and enacted the joint resolution into law on November 7, 1973.

[12] Presidents have submitted 130[13] reports to Congress as a result of the War Powers Resolution, although only one (the Mayagüez incident) cited Section 4(a)(1) and specifically stated that forces had been introduced into hostilities or imminent danger.

On November 9, 1993, the House used a section of the War Powers Resolution to state that U.S. forces should be withdrawn from Somalia by March 31, 1994;[citation needed] Congress had already taken this action in appropriations legislation.

Even then, however, the Clinton legal team opined that its actions were consistent with the War Powers Resolution because Congress had approved a bill funding the operation, which they argued constituted implicit authorization.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to congress in March 2011 that the Obama administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya or for further decisions about it, despite congressional objections from members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution.

[20] Months later, she stated that, with respect to the military operation in Libya, the United States was still flying a quarter of the sorties, and the New York Times reported that, while many presidents had bypassed other sections of the War Powers Resolution, there was little precedent for exceeding the 60-day statutory limit on unauthorized military actions – a limit which the Justice Department had said in 1980 was constitutional.

[23][24][25] May 20, 2011, marked the 60th day of US combat in Libya (as part of the UN resolution) but the deadline arrived without President Obama seeking specific authorization from the US Congress.

[29] By September, the US had conducted 26 percent of all military sorties, contributing more resources to Operation Unified Protector than any other NATO country.

[32][33] In The New York Times, an opinion piece by Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman stated that Obama's position "lacks a solid legal foundation.

And by adopting it, the White House has shattered the traditional legal process the executive branch has developed to sustain the rule of law over the past 75 years.

"[34] In late 2012 or early 2013, at the direction of U.S. President Barack Obama, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was put in charge of Timber Sycamore, a covert program to arm and train the rebels who were fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,[35] while the State Department supplied the Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid.

Instead, Congress passed a bill that specified that the Defense Secretary was authorized "...to provide assistance, including training, equipment, supplies, and sustainment, to appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian opposition and other appropriately vetted Syrian groups and individuals...." The bill specifically prohibited the introduction of U.S. troops or other U.S. forces into hostilities.

Constitutional scholar and law professor Stephen Vladeck has noted that the strike potentially violated the War Powers Resolution.

[46] On January 4, 2020, the White House officially notified Congress that it had carried out a fatal drone strike against Iranian General Qasem Soleimani a day earlier.

[47] Senator Tim Kaine (D–VA) had already introduced a resolution to prevent the U.S. Armed Forces or any part of the government to use hostilities against Iran.

In general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by appropriation, while the President commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized.

[clarification needed] Bobbitt also argues that "A democracy cannot ... tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.

In that prior instance, the Congress passed a law (over the veto of the then-President) that required the President to secure Congressional approval for the removal of Cabinet members and other executive branch officers.

Here, the separation of powers issue is whether the War Powers Resolution requirements for Congressional approval and presidential reporting to Congress change the constitutional balance established in Articles I and II, namely that Congress is explicitly granted the sole authority to "declare war", "make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" (Article 1, Section 8), and to control the funding of those same forces, while the Executive has inherent authority as Commander in Chief.

The witnesses giving testimony before the subcommittee were law professors Andrew Napolitano and Jonathan Turley, and Christopher Anders of the ACLU.