Iowa’s “Silent Six” in Congress have voted multiple times against checking Trump’s unconstitutional war and the war crimes he uses to wage it.
(PHOTO FROM SEN. JONI ERNST’S FACEBOOK PAGE)
Iowa’s “Silent Six” congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. You can add to their resume enabling Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war and the war crimes he employs to wage it.
They have become Iowa’s “War Crimes Caucus.” Too harsh? They had the power to check Trump’s military abuses, but chose to vote against using it – every single time. Every single one of them.
So yes, it fits.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) —- When I think of state congressional delegations that would be most likely to ignore the unconstitutionality of a war, enable widely recognized war crimes being committed to wage it, and refuse to use the power they have to stop that war and those war crimes — I have to acknowledge that Iowa does not immediately come to mind.
That notion, however, is becoming as quaint and old fashioned under Iowa’s current congressional delegation as the practice of churning your own daily butter on the back porch.
It may have once accurately reflected reality. But those days are long gone today.
You can thank Iowa’s “Silent Six” in Congress for that.
You can also start calling them Iowa’s “War Crimes Caucus.” They’ve earned it.
Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Ernst (R-IA); and Reps. Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA), Hinson (R-2nd IA), Nunn (R-3rd IA), and Feenstra (R-4th IA) have all been too busy routinely genuflecting to Mr. Trump to worry about mere technicalities like staying within the boundaries of the US Constitution and the law.
There have been six attempts in Congress this year to advance War Powers Act authority that could stop Trump’s unconstitutional war and thereby check his ability to commit war crimes in pursuit of his war.
Four of those votes took place in the Senate. Two in the U.S. House.
Every Iowan in Congress – every time – voted against using the War Powers Act as it was intended to be used – to stop presidents from unilaterally sending American men and women off to fight and die in foreign wars that have not been authorized by Congress, power the Constitution clearly put in the hands of Congress, and thereby, in the hands of the people.
That power was also placed with Congress – with the people – to protect the people from having to pay for a war they do not support and did not authorize.
Which you may have noticed is exactly where we are today: taxpayers paying a billion dollars a day for a war they do not support, that their Congress did not authorize, in a region where wars never end.
All without Trump so much as asking Congress or the citizens of America for even a whiff of their opinion on the matter.
The “Silent Six” tried to justify their votes against following the Constitution and the law by claiming that Trump had to do what he did and is doing to protect national security from the imminent threat Iran posed.
No one argues we should not protect national security. But even if Trump’s lies on that front were true, it was not, and is not, necessary to violate both the Constitution and the law to do so.
There is also the fact that most observers argue there was no imminent threat from Iran that made any of this necessary. And not just any observers:
- In March 2026, the U.S. Intelligence community accessed that Iran was ‘“not building a nuclear weapon.”
- Trump himelf bragged in June 2025 that American attacks on Iran “totally obliterated” Irans’s nuclear capability to the point where it could not be rebuilt .
- No one, certainly not Trump, has offered any actual evidence to the contrary.
Yet here we are.
Even if there was a threat from Iran, and even if it was imminent, that does not mean presidents are excused from the following the Constitution and obeying the law.
Nor does it mean that Congress has no responsibility in the matter – it does – or that it does not have a responsibility to ensure that presidents obey and follow the Constitution and the law, or that it does not have an obligation to reclaim its constitutional power by invoking the War Powers Act when a president tries to steal it away.
I have a unique perspective on what the Constitution and the War Powers Act require when a president wants to take the nation to war.
In early 1977, I had the unique privilege to sit in on a small college classroom discussion at American University in Washington, DC with a freshly minted former President Gerald Ford and hear him discuss his experience as President with the attack on the Mayaguez at Koh Tang in Cambodia.
There were no more than 25-30 of us in the room with Ford, where he discussed his experience with the War Powers Act for well over an hour. Ford had left the presidency just a few months earlier so all of this was still very fresh on his mind,
Ford was no fan of the War Powers Act, which was enacted in November 1973, over President Richard Nixon’s veto.
He was especially not happy about the requirements that a president consult with congressional leaders if at all possible, before any military action is taken.
He thought those requirements were cumbersome and created unacceptable and dangerous delays in emergencies.
But Ford he understood – exactly – what the Constitution required when the nation goes to war, and he understood what the War Powers Act allowed a president to do – on a temporary basis – until Congress could get back in the saddle when an immediate response was required.
Neither the Constitution, nor the War Powers Act, in Ford’s view, allowed what Trump and his Iowa “War Crimes Caucus” now assume they do:
- allow a president to take the nation to war at any time or place; for any reason, true or false; and do so unilaterally without any congressional involvement. Ever. Period.
Ford understood – deeply – that no matter how inconvenient or cumbersome it might be, Congress was very much involved in these decisions. The Constitution and the law required it.
Trump violated the Constitution and the law with how he launched his war.
The Iowa’s congressional delegation enables that illegal launch of a war when they voice or vote no objection.
Trump is also employing war crimes to wage his unconstitutional war.
- It is an international war crime – and a war crime under U.S. law – to even threaten actions that are war crimes against civilians.
- It is an international war crime – and a war crime under U.S. law – to target civilian infrastructure or civilian populations that are unrelated to a belligerent’s war effort.
Both of the above are exactly what Trump is doing when he threatens to destroy Iran’s oil wells, electric power plants, oil export hub of Kharg Island, and desalination plants.
Both are exactly what Trump is doing when he threatens to destroy Iran’s entire civilization.
Those threats were made, publicly and after the U.S. had already hit a girls school in Iran, killing more than 160 young girls. Iran had every reason to believe they are real.
That’s the nuttiness coming out of Trump’s mouth these days. Most of his threats target a multitude of strictly civilian targets.
They are all war crimes if and when he actually strikes those targets.
They are war crimes now that he has threatened to do so.
This is no longer theory.
The President of the United States is committing war crimes daily just by running his mouth.
He is doing so in our name.
Yet, none of this is apparently enough for Iowa’s “Silent Six” to be willing to suggest that Trump tap the brakes a bit on his rhetoric; nor to suggest that Congress step up and do its job if Trump won’t stop committing war crimes daily; nor take action to stop Trump’s war if he insists on continuing to run it as an endless, tragic parade of war crimes.
What will it take for any of the enablers in Iowa’s “War Crimes Caucus” – several of whom are former military personnel and presumably know the law – to step up and actually do their jobs?
I recently saw the 2025 movie “Nuremberg,” starring Rami Malek and Russell Crowe.
I never thought I would see the day when it might be possible that Americans are the ones in an international tribunal’s dock answering for war crimes.
And I certainly never thought I would see the day when Iowans in Congress – with their silence and refusal to do their constitutional duty – helped put them there, by . refusing to lift a finger, raise their voice, or cast their vote to stop those war crimes in their tracks.
But here we are.
You’re going to hear a lot from these folks about working to advance Iowa’s values this election year.
Remember these votes. Remember this silence when they start selling that line.
None of this is “Iowa Nice.”
What they are enabling isn’t even legal.
