Charlie Savage

It could refuse to confirm

Trump appointees until the administration stops doing this thing it hypothetically thinks it ought to stop doing.

Ultimately, in theory, it could impeach Trump and remove him from office.

But we all know as a matter of political reality that that's unlikely to happen.

Even if Democrats retake control of one or both chambers, they won't have the two-thirds necessary to convict in the Senate.

So what you're asking about now is if someone broke the law here, whether it's the entire operation or just this follow-up missile strike, is there a place where theoretically someone could be charged, let's say, with murder or war crime down the road?

And the answer to that is it's very difficult to see where that could happen.

The fact is that right now, while these actions are happening, the Justice Department's official position is, this is lawful.

And that you can't prosecute someone just for doing a thing that you yourself, that is the Justice Department, said was lawful at the time.

They're relying on your assurances.

You can't bait and switch people.

This is a matter of due process.

And so this OLC memo, the Justice Department memo, says,

A former head of OLC who teaches at Harvard now named Jack Goldsmith has famously called them get-out-of-jail-free cards.

Golden shields.

You can just write down some nonsense on a piece of paper on OLC letterhead, and suddenly people are free to do whatever that memo says.

And there's just not really a check on that.

It's just the way the system is structured.

Domestic federal prosecution.

That's right.