The Administration’s Lawless Overreach Continues Unabated

The Obama Administration’s continuing surrender to lawless Executive overreach is predictable, disappointing, and a threat to the rule of law.

Last month, the United States Supreme Court slapped down the Administration’s lawless Executive action unilaterally rewriting our nation’s immigration laws despite President Obama’s admission that he is not a king.

At the same time, evidence has emerged that the Obama Administration hid from Congress and the American people key information about a secret deal with Iran that apparently enables the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to maintain critical aspects of its nuclear program.  We have already filed one federal lawsuit against the Obama Administration’s State Department for their lies and censorship of the truth about its nuclear negotiations with Iran. And this latest bombshell reveals that Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapon could be months instead of more than a year.

The arrogance of the Obama Administration’s Executive overreach and Executive lies grows each and every single day.

This week, dissatisfied with the Court’s ruling in State of Texas v. United States, which blocked the Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal to shield as many as five million illegal immigrants from deportation and provide them numerous benefits, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a petition with the Court for a rehearing. In contradicting the President’s observation that he is not a monarch, the Administration seeks to place the Supreme Court’s original decision on hold until there is a ninth Justice on the Court rather than allowing the current affirmation of the lower court’s judgment by an equally divided 4-4 Court to stand.

Every American who is committed to the notion that we are a country of laws and not of kings should be concerned by the Justice Department’s petition striving to reinstate a policy that the President has repeatedly said exceeds his authority. Evidence that this Administration has surrendered to Executive overreach can be found in District Court Judge Hanen’s blistering opinion finding that DOJ lawyers admitted making intentional misstatements of facts. In essence, the DOJ misled the District Court and opposing counsel both in writing and in open court on multiple occasions on the timing of the commencement of DHS’s Directive establishing Deferred Action. In essence DOJ lawyers who have sworn to uphold the law violated the very canons necessary to ensure democracy and the rule of law prevail.

Deception, particularly by lawyers and Presidents, erodes the rule of law, undermines public trust, and diminishes our democracy.

The Administration’s legal and moral dysfunction runs roughshod over (1) Article II’s Take Care Clause that prevents the President from claiming the same lawmaking powers as Congress, (2) prevents the Administration from violating the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and (3) its self-proclaimed commitment to openness, transparency, and full disclosure.

The Obama Administration, either through deception or otherwise, has violated its legal and moral obligations with impunity. The President continues to keep Congress in the dark about its secret Iran deal that has released billions to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. This all exposes President Obama’s claim that Congress’s failure to act on his Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland as merely more political games instead of serious statesmanship. Although he continues to castigate Congress for failing to move on his nominee, it is clear that the Administration remains oblivious to the fact that it is its own lawless action rather than Congressional inaction that truly undermines the rule of law.

Right now the Administration’s petition for a rehearing before a nine-member Supreme Court hangs in the balance. If five justices vote to rehear this case and therefore place the Supreme Court’s current decision on hold, that would place all Americans at the mercy of an out of control bureaucracy that appears to have no regard for the rule of law.

That is why it is so important for concerned citizens to oppose the DOJ’s recent petition for a rehearing on the DHS Deferred Action program, to realize that the President is constitutionally allowed to nominate Supreme Court justices and the Senate is constitutionally allowed to act or not act, and to remember that every election for officials at every level of our federal and state governments have an impact on the rule of law.