Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer charged President Obama with deliberating violating the limits of his constitutional authority, claiming that “if this were a Republican, he’d be impeached now over all of these abuses.”
On Thursday evening Krauthammer spoke with Fox News’ Greta van Susteren about the 9-0 Supreme Court decision overturning the president’s three “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board in defiance of the Senate.
“It’s a major rebuke,” the columnist explained. “I mean, this is — when there’s 9 and nobody on the other side, including the two Justices you appointed. When the opinion is written by a leading liberal [Justice Breyer], and in which it shows really contempt for what the president did, he obviously trampled on the constitutional powers.”
“This is a major statement to the president,” he claimed. “Watch how you’re walking outside of the boundaries of what you can do.”
Krauthammer noted that the abuse of the executive’s appointment powers is but one part of President Obama’s consistent disregard of Congress and the courts — from immigration to drug laws to environmental regulations to Obamacare.
Worse, the columnist believes Obama understands he’s abusing his power. “But I don’t think he cares,” Krauthammer asserted. “He’s in his second term. He’s not running again. They will never impeach him. He has nothing to lose. He has an ideological agenda he wants to enact.”
“And he truly believes that if the Congress won’t cooperate with him it’s being kind of un-American,” he continued. “And he is the one who’s acting in the national interest. So even if he has to abuse the Constitution here or there, what he’s doing is so good for the country he feels almost obligated to do it.”
“There will be president’s after him,” Krauthammer explained. “And if he gets away with all this overreach — creating laws, rewriting laws, ignoring laws — it will be a terrible defeat for the country and the rule of law. And I think that’s the worst part of this.”
“If this were a Republican he’d be impeached now over all of these abuses,” the conservative columnist concluded.