2026-02-28T19:47:13.873Z / CNN
法律专家已对总统唐纳德·特朗普在未经国会批准的情况下发动针对伊朗的新军事行动的宪法授权表示怀疑，尤其是当这可能导致长期冲突时。
与去年夏天美国轰炸伊朗核设施以及今年1月军方抓捕委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的行动类似，这些攻击将行政权力以及总统权力范围的问题推向了前沿。
多名消息人士告诉CNN，白宫尚未向公众提供法律依据，国务卿马尔科·卢比奥也未向国会成员全面说明这一点。
美国公民自由联盟（ACLU）的律师、国家安全事务专家克里斯托弗·安德斯表示：“特朗普入侵伊朗违反了宪法，因为宪法明确规定宣战权和派遣美国军人参战的权力仅属于国会。”
“总统试图在未经国会授权的情况下擅自夺取这一权力，”安德斯补充道。
宪法明确规定，只有国会有权宣战或授权军事行动。
乔治梅森大学法学教授、自由意志主义智库卡托研究所学者伊利亚·索明表示：“这显然是一场战争。你不必只听我的，特朗普自己就称这是一场战争。”
[image_3]2026年2月27日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在佛罗里达州西棕榈滩走下空军一号。
曼德尔·恩甘/法新社/盖蒂图片社
在周六早些时候宣布打击行动的讲话中，总统称：“伊朗政权试图杀戮。勇敢的美国英雄的生命可能会丧失，我们可能会有伤亡。战争中常发生此类情况，但我们这么做不是为了现在，而是为了未来，这是一项崇高的使命。”
美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）已联系司法部和白宫法律顾问办公室寻求置评。
尽管只有国会有权宣战或授权军事行动，但特朗普和其他总统不断援引宪法第二条，该条款规定总司令有权指挥美军在推进美国海外国家利益的必要行动中采取军事行动。
此外，最高法院一直对特朗普扩大权力的做法持宽松态度，最显著的是2024年的豁免权裁决。一位高级白宫官员当时表示，这一观点促成了去年夏天美国打击伊朗时依据第二条权力推进行动的法律分析。
司法部也在部分情况下用第二条来为近期美军抓捕马杜罗的行动提供法律依据。司法部发布了一份机密法律意见（后经编辑），称特朗普在海外执行执法行动时不受国内法限制。
如果冲突持续更长时间怎么办？
消息人士称，司法部法律顾问办公室的备忘录还辩称，针对马杜罗行动的规模、范围和持续时间在宪法意义上未构成战争，因此不需要国会事先授权。
针对伊朗的新行动将引发关于规模、范围和持续时间的问题。特朗普在视频讲话中描述此次军事行动为“大规模且持续进行”。两名消息人士表示，美军正计划进行数天的攻击。
“司法部提出了一系列越来越站不住脚的论点来为此类打击辩护，但几乎所有这些论点都依赖于声称打击是有限的且不太可能引发更广泛冲突的假设，”CNN最高法院分析师、乔治城大学法学院教授史蒂夫·弗拉迪克表示。
“即使这是一个法律论点而非政策论点，在这里也很难认真对待，”弗拉迪克说。
乔治·H·W·布什总统对巴拿马使用武力推翻独裁者曼努埃尔·诺列加、奥巴马总统对利比亚发动空袭以及特朗普在第一任期内对伊朗和叙利亚采取的行动，都援引了第二条权力。
“尽管美国不是世界警察，但随着其力量增长，其地区利益范围扩大，外国混乱对国家利益构成的威胁也增加了，”特朗普政府司法部法律顾问办公室在2018年关于叙利亚空袭的报告中写道。
此外，民主党和共和党政府多次扩大了2002年《授权对伊拉克使用军事力量法案》（AUMF）的适用范围，该法案最初授权伊拉克战争。2001年《授权对基地组织及相关团体使用军事力量法案》也被扩大应用到了后9·11时代最初设想之外的范围。
索明在谈到美国新攻击时表示：“我认为你可以讨论其明智性。如果伊朗政权被推翻，我当然不会感到难过。它是一个糟糕的政权，是我们的敌人等等，但这里发动的战争是违宪的。”
CNN的葆拉·里德对此报道有贡献。
Are Trump’s strikes against Iran legal? Experts are skeptical
2026-02-28T19:47:13.873Z / CNN
Legal experts are already skeptical of President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority to launch new military action against Iran without Congress’ approval, especially if it leads to a prolonged conflict.
Like with the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last summer and the January military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the attacks bring the issue of executive authority and the extent of presidential powers to the forefront.
The White House hasn’t presented a legal justification to the public, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t give a full accounting of one to members of Congress, multiple sources told CNN.
Trump “violated the Constitution by invading Iran because the Constitution is crystal clear on who has the authority to declare war and commit American service members to battle and that is Congress alone,” said Christopher Anders, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is an expert on national security matters.
“The president has tried to grab that power for himself without getting authorization from Congress before doing so,” Anders added.
The Constitution unambiguously states that only Congress can declare or authorize war.
“This is very obviously a war,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and a scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “You don’t have to take my word for that — Trump himself says it’s a war.”
[image_3]US President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 27, 2026.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
In his message announcing the strikes early Saturday, the president said: “The Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war, but we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department and White House counsel’s office for comment.
While only Congress can declare or authorize war, Trump and other presidents have continuously cited the Constitution’s Article II, which says the commander in chief has the power to direct US military forces in engagements necessary to advance American national interests abroad.
In addition, the Supreme Court has been generous in approving Trump’s expansive use of power, most notably in its 2024 immunity ruling. That view contributed to the analysis to move forward under Article II authority when the US struck Iran last summer, a senior White House official said at the time.
Article II was used in part to legally justify the recent US military operation to capture Maduro. The Justice Department issued a classified legal opinion (and later a redacted version) saying Trump was not limited by domestic law in carrying out law enforcement operations overseas.
What if the conflict goes on longer?
That Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel memo also argued that the scale, scope and duration for the Maduro operation did not rise to the level of war in the constitutional sense and therefore did not require prior authorization by Congress, sources said.
The question of scale, scope and duration will be raised with the new actions against Iran. Trump, in his video announcing the strikes, described the military campaign as “massive and ongoing.” The US military is planning for several days of attacks, according to two sources.
“The Justice Department has come up with an increasingly dubious series of arguments in attempts to defend such strikes, but virtually all of those arguments have depended on assertions that the strikes were limited and unlikely to lead to a broader conflict,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
“Even if that were a legal argument, rather than a policy one, it’s hard to take that remotely seriously here,” Vladeck said.
Article II powers were cited for President George H.W. Bush’s use of force against Panama to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega, President Barack Obama’s use of air strikes in Libya and Trump’s actions in his first term against Iran and Syria.
“While the United States is not the world’s policeman, as its power has grown, the breadth of its regional interests has expanded and threats to national interests posed by foreign disorder have increased,” the Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote in 2018 regarding air strikes in Syria.
In addition, Democratic and Republican administrations have repeatedly stretched the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which authorized the Iraq War. An earlier AUMF that authorized action against al Qaeda and associated groups has also been used beyond what was conceived in the post-9/11 era.
“I think you could argue about the wisdom of it,” Somin said of the new US attacks. “I certainly wouldn’t shed any tears if the Iranian regime were to be overthrown. It’s an awful regime. It’s an enemy of ours and so forth, but the war that has been started here is unconstitutional.”
CNN’s Paula Reid contributed to this report.