Wednesday, September 16, 2015

America's Descent Into Lawlessness

Do you remember Lewis "Scooter" Libby? In 2003, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate allegations that Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, unlawfully disclosed the covert status of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Yet Plame may not have been a covert undercover agent, based on the formal government definition of that role.
And even if she were, it was widely known at the time that Secretary of State Colin Powell's subordinate, Richard Armitage, had most likely disclosed her status earlier.
In other words, Libby was in an Orwellian position of being accused of a crime that may not have existed. But if it had, it was more likely committed by someone else.
Publicity-seeking special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald convinced a Washington, D.C., jury to find Libby guilty of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal investigators — not the supposed crimes for which he was originally targeted by the media.
Apparently, the very suspicion of improper behavior by high public servants once warranted vigorous legal inquiry — by supposedly independent and autonomous prosecutors.
In the eight-plus years since the Libby trial, the Obama administration has blown up the law as we have known it for centuries.
Barack Obama once warned Latino activists that he had no legal authority to suspend enforcement of federal immigration law, stop deportations and offer de facto amnesties.
But that caution was only a campaign talking point. After his re-election in 2012 and the midterm elections in 2014, Obama made a mockery of immigration law.
Ignoring The Law
Hundreds of liberal sanctuary cities have announced that federal immigration law does not apply to them. That scary, neo-Confederate idea of legal nullification was sanctioned by the Obama administration — in a way it never would have been if a city had suspended the Endangered Species Act, emissions standards or gun-control legislation.
As a result, once-detained and later-released immigrants with criminal records have murdered innocent American citizens.
Consider the proposed nuclear deal with Iran. By past custom and practice, the nonproliferation agreement would be treated as what it is — a treaty. But ratifying treaties constitutionally requires 67 yes votes from the Senate. Obama could never obtain that margin.
Read the rest of this Victor Davis Hanson op-ed HERE.

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