Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says President Obama is guilty of numerous high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant his removal from office is proposing seven specific articles of impeachment on which he says the evidence is very clear.
McCarthy is best known as the lead prosecutor in the cases against the “blind sheikh”, Omar Abdel Rahman, and eleven conspirators behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York City landmarks. McCarthy is now with the National Review Institute. His new book is “Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.” In the book, he says the case for impeachment is solid, although he does not believe there is enough political will in the country to move forward at this time.
Nonetheless, McCarthy offers seven indictments, beginning with “The President’s Willful Refusal to Execute the Laws Faithfully and Usurpation of the Legislative Authority of Congress.” Within that article, McCarthy cites Obama’s illegal and unilateral changing of federal statutes, from several components within Obamacare to scrapping codified welfare work requirements to amending immigration laws to enact policies Congress did not approve.
He also alleges Obama failed to execute laws ranging from layoff notifications to the Clean Air Act to nuclear waste and Medicare. McCarthy says there’s a simple reason he put these allegations first.
“When I was a prosecutor, what you always want to have in the indictment is one count that’s pretty much indefensible. I think even the president’s most ardent admirers would have to admit that he does not execute the laws faithfully, which is one of the most important duties that he has in the Constitution,” said McCarthy.
“The president is the only officer in our government who is required by the Constitution to take an oath to faithfully execute the laws and preserve the Constitution. We have a president who is very arbitrary about laws. He enforces some. He doesn’t enforce others. He’s selective. He rewrites them. He presumes to be able to decree federal benefits. A lot of people may like that on the hard left because it’s basically implementing their ideological program. But I think most people, if they’re of good faith, have to admit that he’s not following the law,” said McCarthy.
Obama’s alleged failure to faithfully enforce immigration laws also appears in the fifth article, specifically referring to the president’s unilateral conferring of amnesty upon certain groups of immigrants and fighting states that seek to enforce federal immigration laws on their own. Immigration is also mentioned in another article on defrauding the American people, alleging the administration deliberately misleads the public on its border enforcement record.
McCarthy says there is a very good reason for the heavy focus on immigration.
“I think it’s because it’s so blatant. The president has taken the position that he can write the immigration law himself. He’s tried to go the constitutional route. He’s tried to go to Congress. He hasn’t gotten what he’s wanted. What he says in those instances is that, ‘If Congress won’t act, I will.’ Constitutionally, it’s not that Congress won’t act. They’ve said no. His response to that is to become imperious and try to impose his own program and do it in a way that not only disregarding of the Constitution’s separation of powers but also is an insult to the sovereignty of the states,” said McCarthy.
Other articles of impeachment on McCarthy’s list, include “Usurping the Constitutional Authority and Prerogatives of Congress” for not getting congressional authorization for extended military action in Libya and making recess appointments at a time when the Senate was not in recess, and dereliction of duty as commander-in-chief. The latter charge focuses on crippling rules of engagement that McCarthy says makes our troops much more vulnerable and more unlikely to complete their missions.
McCarthy also sees impeachable offenses on this front in the recent prisoner swap that allowed five key Taliban figures to go free from Guantanamo in exchange for captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl.
“I’m not impressed by the one that seems to have everybody whipped up in Washington, this 30-day notification requirement. I think that’s of dubious constitutionality. I actually think Obama has a pretty good argument on that statute because it really does try to restrict his core constitutional authority as commander-in-chief,” said McCarthy.
“It seems to be quite beside the point when we have a commander-in-chief who is replenishing the enemy in wartime when the enemy is still on the battlefield conducting offensive, jihadist operations against our guys. That’s about as shocking a dereliction of duty as I can imagine,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy lodges another article of impeachment against Obama for fraud perpetrated against the American people. The allegations under that charge focus on the core promises of Obamacare that Americans could keep their health plans and doctors. They also cite Obama for going into Libya under the premise of averting genocide and always intending to depose Moammar Ghaddafi, blaming the 2012 Benghazi attacks on a video long after the truth was known, facilitating Iran’s nuclear program while publicly vowing to stop it and propping up the green energy firm Solyndra with taxpayer dollars in a way that deceived investors.
Another article calls for impeachment based on the Justice Department’s alleged failure to execute the laws faithfully. That indictment centers on the illegal monitoring of reporters, the Fast and Furious gun-running operation, politicizing the hiring process at the Justice Department and unequally applying civil rights laws.
On matters such as Benghazi, the Justice Department’s actions and even the IRS scrutiny of conservatives, it is still unclear what Obama knew and if he had an active role in those issues. McCarthy says it doesn’t matter.
“In the system the framers gave us, it was very important to them that the president be accountable. If you look at the Constitution carefully, you’d find that all the executive power in the government is invested in one person. It is not endowed in this vast array of executive agencies. It is singularly the president who is responsible,” said McCarthy.
“It’s not what Hillary Clinton does or Susan Rice does or Eric Holder or Eric Shinseki or any of the people who have become infamous over the past five -and-a-half years. All those facts are attributable to the president,” said McCarthy, who says the founders would have little patience with the Obama administration’s frequent explanation that the president did not know or approve of any wrongdoing.
The final article accuses Obama of undermining the constitutional rights of the American people, from the IRS harassment of conservatives applying for non-profit status to his refusal to classify the Ft. Hood massacre as an act of terrorism to infringing on religious freedom through the contraception and abortifacient mandate and eroding gun rights through the United Nations.
However, McCarthy save some special frustration for Obama’s efforts to stifle criticism of Islam in the public square.
“From the first days of Obama’s presidency in 2009 with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, that’s this cabal of 57 Islamic government including the Palestinian Authority, they’ve been working on a resolution to curtail American free speech rights in deference to sharia blasphemy standards. They have essentially struck a human rights resolution that makes it unlawful to engage in expression that could incite hostility to religion. Of course, there’s only one religion we’re talking about in this context,” he said.
“Proving that there is an Obama administration mandate that attacks religious liberty, it’s not difficult to prove these things have happened, and I don’t even think it’s hard to prove these are high crimes and misdemeanors. Are they serious enough? Does the public think this is egregious enough to remove the president from power?” asked McCarthy.
