Just a week removed from their acquittal of President Trump, U.S. senators—including a number of Republicans—are set to deliver the president a constitutional dressing-down over who has the power to authorize war with Iran.On Thursday, a bipartisan majority of the GOP-controlled Senate is expected to vote in favor of a War Powers Act resolution that blocks the U.S. from engaging in hostilities with Iran without express approval from Congress. Similar resolutions have passed the Democratic-led House of Representatives since Jan. 3, when U.S. forces, at Trump’s direction, assassinated the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.The Senate has been slower to move, largely due  to the impeachment trial that froze the chamber for two weeks. In the time that has passed, the administration’s handling of Soleimani has faded from the headlines—but champions of the resolution, particularly Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), got time to tweak the resolution and win over GOP support. The success of those efforts became clear on Wednesday, when eight Republican senators voted with all Democrats to allow the War Powers resolution to proceed. The group included the GOP’s reliable dissenters on foreign policy, Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT), as well as moderates like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and one of the swing lawmakers who helped secure Trump’s speedy acquittal, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). A knowledgeable Senate Democratic aide said there’s high confidence that number will hold for the final vote on Thursday. "We'll be sending Trump his second War Powers resolution,” the aide told The Daily Beast. If that tally sticks, it would represent a greater GOP rebuke of Trump’s war authority than the first War Powers resolution, which moved to end U.S. support of the Saudi war in Yemen. Seven Republicans voted in favor of that resolution; Trump ultimately vetoed it when it passed in May 2019, and there weren’t enough votes to override it.That’ll likely be the case again with the Iran resolution, but its lead backers argue that the vote will nevertheless send a strong message that the legislative branch won’t sit idly by as the executive bypasses Congress on a military move that significantly increases prospects for war with Iran. It could even deter Trump from similar moves in the future, said Kaine, who raised the example of last year’s Yemen resolution. “We couldn’t override it, but it changed his behavior and decision-making,” the Virginia Democrat said at a Wednesday press conference. “He didn't like Congress telling him what to do, but that our feeling is when Congress stands up and acts, a majority of both bodies, and puts something on his desk, even if he chooses to veto it and we can’t override… That is something that could well be a factor in his decision making .”Trump, for his part, took to Twitter on Wednesday to urge the Senate to reject the resolution, claiming it would “show weakness” to America’s adversaries, particularly Iran, which he suggested would have a “field day” if it passed. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has also voiced strong opposition to the resolution on similar grounds.GOP backers of the resolution straddled a fine line between praising Trump’s action on Soleimani—recognizing the executive’s prerogative to respond to foreign attacks—and explaining why this resolution to rein in the president is necessary.“This is not about the presidency,” said Lee, who said he is a “huge fan” of the way Trump has exercised his authority as commander in chief. “This is not about wanting a weak presidency, or a weak commander in chief… This is neither hawkish or dovish.” Instead, Lee said, the resolution focuses on the fact that “moving forward, any action that we take involving Iran… needs to be authorized by Congress.”“This,” he said, “should not be controversial.” —with reporting from Spencer AckermanRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

The West Virginia Democrat is already looking to reconcile with the president.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch sounded the alarm on Wednesday night, telling an audience at Georgetown University that the State Department is "in trouble," with leaders who lack "policy vision" and "moral clarity."Yovanovitch was ousted from her post last May, following a smear campaign orchestrated by President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. During the impeachment inquiry, Yovanovitch testified that she felt undermined and threatened by people who wanted her out of their way. She was removed from Kyiv at the same time Giuliani was digging for dirt in Ukraine on Trump's political rivals.Yovanovitch, who retired from the State Department last month, told the crowd that when it comes to foreign policy, the U.S. needs to be "principled, consistent, and trustworthy. To be blunt, an amoral, keep-them-guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear, and confusion for trust cannot work over the long haul. At some point, the once-unthinkable will become the inevitable — that our allies who have as much right to act in their own self-interest as we do, will seek out more reliable partners whose interests might not align well with ours."These were Yovanovitch's first public remarks since leaving the State Department. She was at Georgetown to accept an award from the School of Foreign Service, and received a standing ovation from the audience.More stories from theweek.com Bipartisan group of senators to meet Ukrainian president this week Brokered convention gets close 2nd place in FiveThirtyEight's Democratic nomination forecast 8 Republicans join Democrats in vote to limit Trump's military powers in Iran

* Attorney general to go before House judiciary committee * Democrats warn of ‘a crisis in the rule of law in America’William Barr, the US attorney general, has agreed to testify before a congressional committee over alleged political interference at the justice department, Democrats said, as they warned of “a crisis in the rule of law in America”.Washington is reeling from aftershocks of the department’s unusual decision to overrule career prosecutors and seek a lighter prison sentence for the political operative Roger Stone, a longtime friend of the US president. The entire prosecution team resigned in protest.On Wednesday, Democrats on the House judiciary committee wrote to Barr confirming that he had agreed to testify at a hearing on 31 March. Chairman Jerry Nadler wrote in the letter that the attorney general should expect to be asked about recent steps that “raise grave questions” over his leadership of the justice department.These include, Nadler said, “the decision to overrule your career prosecutors and significantly reduce the recommended sentence for Roger Stone, who has been convicted for lying under oath, at the apparent request of the president – a decision that led to all four prosecutors handling the case to withdraw from the proceedings in protest”.Stone, 67, a political operative and self-described dirty trickster, was convicted last November of lying to Congress, witness tampering and impeding the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. On Monday, prosecutors requested that he serve seven to nine years behind bars. But Trump issued a late-night objection via Twitter, stating: “Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”Hours later, a new memo from the justice department cut the proposed sentence, offering Stone’s “advanced age, health, personal circumstances and lack of criminal history” as mitigating circumstances. Media reports suggested Barr had personally intervened.All four lawyers that prosecuted Stone abruptly quit the case, with one leaving the justice department altogether. On Wednesday, the White House insisted that Trump had not meddled, but on Twitter the president brazenly praised Barr for “taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought”.Later, speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump thanked justice department officials for trimming the sentencing recommendation. He declined to say whether he would pardon Stone. “They treated Roger Stone very badly,” he said.But Chuck Schumer, the Democrat minority leader in the Senate, sounded the alarm about an unprecedented threat to the independence of the legal system.“We are witnessing a crisis in the rule of law in America – unlike one we have ever seen before,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. “It is a crisis of President Trump’s making. But it was enabled and emboldened by every Senate Republican who was too afraid to stand up to him and say the simple word ‘no’, when the vast majority of them knew that that was the right thing to do.”Trump was acquitted by the Republican majority in the Senate in his impeachment trial last week and immediately began a purge of officials who testified about his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival – fuelling Democrats’ fears that he would feel further emboldened, unleashed and able to act with impunity.Two days after his acquittal, Schumer noted, Trump retaliated by firing members of his administration who testified in the impeachment inquiry, including Lt Col Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland. He even dismissed Vindman’s brother. “How vindictive, how petty, how nasty,” Schumer said.On Tuesday Trump withdrew the nomination of Jessie Liu, a former US attorney in Washington whose office prosecuted Stone, for a new post in the treasury department. But it was the Stone case that prompted Schumer to call for an emergency Senate judiciary committee hearing, where Barr would potentially be obliged to testify, and an investigation by the department’s inspector general, an external watchdog.“The president is claiming that rigging the rules is perfectly legitimate – he claims an ‘absolute right’ to order the justice department to do anything he wants,” he said. “And the president has as his attorney general an enabler – and that’s a kind word – who actually supports this view.”Schumer added: “We are seeing the behavior of a man who has contempt for the rule of law beginning to try out the new, unrestrained power conferred on him by 52 Republican senators … Left to his own devices, President Trump would turn America into a banana republic, where the dictator can do whatever he wants and the justice department is the president’s law firm, not a defender of the rule of law.”The sentiments were echoed by Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state who was defeated by Trump in the 2016 presidential election. She tweeted: “Trump is using the powers of the presidency like a tyrant – now, to reward accomplices and go after witnesses who dared to speak against him. This should concern and anger us all.” Eric Holder, who served as Barack Obama’s attorney general, wrote on Twitter: “Do not underestimate the danger of this situation. This affects the rule of law and respect for it. Unprecedented.”Yet most Senate Republicans, all but one of whom voted in Trump’s favour in the impeachment trial, again held the line. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina told reporters: “I’m not disturbed about it at all. If you read the reports, this action began on Monday night before the president’s tweets, so I’ve got to take them at their word.”However, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who had claimed Trump would learn his “lesson” from impeachment, struck a note of dissent. “The president should not have gotten involved,” she told the Reuters news agency.Stone is scheduled to be sentenced by the US district judge Amy Berman Jackson on 20 February. Jackson on Wednesday declined to grant Stone’s request for a new trial.Barr last year cleared the president of obstruction of justice even when the special counsel Robert Mueller had pointedly declined to do so after the Russia investigation.

In the week since his acquittal on impeachment charges, a fully emboldened President Donald Trump is demonstrating his determination to assert an iron grip on government, pushing his Justice Department to ease up on a longtime friend while using the levers of presidential powers to exact payback on real and perceived foes. Trump has told confidants in recent days that he felt both vindicated and strengthened by his acquittal in the Senate, believing Republicans have rallied around him in unprecedented fashion while voters were turned off by the political process, according to four White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Since then, Trump and his aides have moved with haste to clear his administration of those he sees as insufficiently loyal, reaching all the way back to the time of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Army is not investigating Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for testifying during the House impeachment inquiry despite President Trump's wishes. But an anonymous retired senior Army officer told The Daily Beast that doesn't necessarily meant the coast is clear for the Purple Heart recipient.For starters, the Army could always change its mind and wind up launching an investigation into whether his testimony was appropriate. But there's also a chance his career may hit a wall. If Vindman is denied a promotion to colonel by the next Army promotions board, that means his service is up, per The Daily Beast. The retired officer said bias can easily "creep into" those discussions, and it could just take one person who has "an issue with his testimony to tank his promotion possibility."And even though his position is safe at the moment, no one in a position of leadership in the Army has spoken up on Vindman's behalf, either, which the officer finds troubling. "It smacks of craven careerism that has permeated the ranks of our senior corps officers," he told The Daily Beast. "It's definitely dishonorable when public accountability and public ethics are so in question that those people whose careers are built on alleged public ethics and accountability are not present." Read more at The Daily Beast.More stories from theweek.com Barr sets March 31 congressional testimony amid Roger Stone controversy Brokered convention gets close 2nd place in FiveThirtyEight's Democratic nomination forecast The Democratic establishment is out of time

Inside the Capitol, it’s as if the impeachment of President Donald Trump never happened. One week after the historic undertaking shuttered to a close, Congress is feverishly back at work emboldened but also arguably diminished by the outcome. Senate Republicans are flexing their new status as Trump’s unshakable allies, hitching their election pursuits to his and looking the other away as the president seems to dole out favoritism for friends and payback for critics with apparent impunity.

A donor to President Trump who was accused of “stalking” the former ambassador to Ukraine at the behest of Rudy Giuliani’s associates has provided documents to Congress as it opens its investigation into the ousting of Marie Yovanovitch, a crucial witness in the president’s impeachment.

Last week, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) was widely ridiculed for saying she believed President Donald Trump had learned a “lesson” from his impeachment saga. She later admitted that she may have been wrong, explaining that she should have used the word “hopes” instead of “believes.” Well, on Wednesday afternoon at the White House, a reporter finally asked the president if he learned anything from the ordeal. “Some Republicans have said they hoped you would learn a lesson from impeachment,” NBC News’ Peter Alexander said. “What lesson did you learn from impeachment?” The answer is unlikely to satisfy the Republican senator who will face Maine voters this fall.Without a second of hesitation, Trump replied, “Uh, that the Democrats are crooked, they’ve got a lot of crooked things going. That they’re vicious. That they shouldn’t have brought impeachment. And that my poll numbers are 10 points higher because of fake news like NBC, which reports the news very inaccurately—probably more inaccurately than CNN if that’s possible.” After taking one more shot at the network he now likes to call “MSDNC,” Trump kicked the press out of the room.Earlier in the day, CNN’s Manu Raju cornered Collins outside of her Senate office and asked—in light of the president’s actions regarding Roger Stone and the impeachment witnesses—if she still thinks there are any “lessons” Trump has learned from the experience.After reiterating that she doesn’t think anyone should be “retaliated against,” Collins defended her vote to acquit, saying his actions “did not meet the high bar established in the Constitution for the immediate ouster of a duly elected president.” Raju asked Collins twice more what lessons she thinks Trump has learned before she shut the door in his face. Stephen Colbert Absolutely Destroys ‘Skin-Bag’ Senator Susan Collins Over ImpeachmentRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

The Army officer and former National Security Council staffer who testified in the impeachment inquiry is not under Army investigation, a knowledgeable Defense Department official told The Daily Beast. But veteran Army officers caution that the lack of an investigation does not necessarily mean Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has escaped reprisal. Ever since Vindman was escorted out of the White House on Friday, along with his twin brother, there has been intense speculation over the future of his military career. Vindman has returned to the Department of the Army. Vindman infuriated President Donald Trump by testifying that the pressure he witnessed on Ukraine to aid the president’s reelection was inappropriate. After the Senate Republicans acquitted Trump in the impeachment trial, Trump has focused on retribution against his perceived enemies within the national-security apparatus. On Tuesday, Trump encouraged the military to discipline Vindman, saying “the military can handle him.” “That’s going to be up to the military, we’ll have to see, but if you look at what happened, they’re going to certainly, I would imagine, take a look at that,” Trump said.For now, they’re not. The Defense official said the Army was not investigating Vindman—an indication that, thus far, the Army does not see Vindman as committing a professional infraction by testifying to the inquiry. The durability of that assessment stands as a key question affecting civilian-military relations in the post-impeachment phase of Trump’s presidency. In an indication of how treacherous the military considers the politics of the Vindman episode, not even retired officers would speak on the record for this story. A source close to Vindman told The Daily Beast, “We have every confidence that the Army and the Department of Defense will regard Lt. Col. Vindman’s truthful testimony in response to a legal congressional subpoena as entirely appropriate.”A former senior Army officer who would not speak for the record cautioned that just because Vindman is not under investigation does not mean his career is safe. In the military’s “up or out” culture, being denied a promotion to colonel by the next Army promotions board will spell the end of Vindman’s service. And the ex-officer specified that the inherent subjectivity of the officer board will make it impossible to determine precisely if it was the ire of the president that prevents Vindman from ever having birds pinned on his shoulders. “There’s so much bias that can seep into these promotion boards that all it takes is someone to have an issue with his testimony to tank his promotion possibility,” the retired officer said.Additionally, just because Vindman isn’t under investigation now doesn’t mean the Army’s decision will hold. Just months ago, the Navy sought against Trump’s wishes to strip accused war criminal Eddie Gallagher of his affiliation with the Navy SEALs. Trump persisted, prompting the departure of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer. Several in national-security circles have been disturbed that no military or civilian leaders within the Defense Department have spoken up for Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran whose testimony subjected him to an onslaught of denunciation from Trump’s allies. As Vindman, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, testified in November, he found his loyalty to the United States called into question. The Democratic Senate leader, New York’s Chuck Schumer, called even before Vindman’s testimony for the Army leadership to "issue public statements indicating your support for him." None manifested. On Friday, following the early end to Vindman’s NSC assignment, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith of California, “urge[d] Army leadership to ensure this brave Soldier does not experience any further retribution.”Through a spokesperson, Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment about Vindman. Milley was formerly chief of staff of the Army. A representative for Defense Secretary Mark Esper did not respond to a request for comment about the propriety of disciplining Vindman.Ryan McCarthy, the secretary of the Army, told Cheddar that Vindman would temporarily work at the Department of the Army headquarters “and then we’ll send him off to war college this summer.” An Army source cautioned that the previously-scheduled board reviewing senior-service college assignments has yet to determine which one Vindman will attend. Vindman also came under attack on Tuesday from his former boss, national security adviser Robert O’Brien. During an appearance at the Atlantic Council, O’Brien said that the premature end of Vindman’s NSC billet, which had been slated to run through May, was necessary because Trump is “entitled to a staff that he has confidence in and that he believes will execute his policy.”But as he testified, Vindman thought he was executing policy—the formal policy of supporting Ukraine, for which Congress had appropriated nearly $400 million in aid that Trump had withheld as pressure. Yet O’Brien suggested that Vindman’s objections to secretly conditioning aid on a foreign power’s willingness to aid Trump’s reelection were the real abuse of power.  “We're not some banana republic where lieutenant colonels get together and decide what the policy is,” O’Brien said. Friday Night Massacre’s Just the Beginning for Acquitted TrumpNot everyone thinks speaking out on Vindman is helpful. A different former senior military officer who also would not speak for the record said the consensus among his retired colleagues is that “we should not put more pressure on the leaders or increase the attention given to this issue, as that could prove counterproductive.” The ex-officer expressed confidence in Esper and Milley to “ensure that nothing untoward transpires” against Vindman.But the first ex-officer said that the brass’ silence about Vindman is nothing short of dishonorable.  “It smacks of the craven careerism that has permeated the ranks of our senior officer corps,” this retired Army officer said. “It’s definitely dishonorable when public accountability and public ethics are so in question that those people whose careers are built on alleged public ethics and accountability are not present…. If they can’t take care of their men and women when the heat is on on a political level, I cannot imagine how they handle taking care of them in the heat of combat.”—with additional reporting by Molly Jong-FastRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.