Someone has finally been moved to action by Barack Obama’s
increasingly lawless administration.
Bruce Fein,a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department who
wrote the first article of impeachment against Bill Clinton, has drawn up formal articles of impeachment against the president.
Fein explained the final straw was Obama’s
unwise,
unauthorized,and
unconstitutional military action against Libya. “
Barack Hussein Obama
has mocked the rule of law,endangered the very existence of the
Republic and the liberties of the people,and perpetrated an impeachable
high
crime and misdemeanor,” he said.
The Founding Fathers required the president to seek a
Congressional declaration of war
before engaging in armed hostilities,with the possible exception of
repelling a sudden invasion or a limited military response. The last two
Democratic presidents
have taken the armed forces into combat without any legislative
authorization,Bill Clinton in Kosovo and Obama in Libya. Fein states
this usurpation of Congressional authority should concern our elected
officials,and lovers of liberty everywhere.
Fein is a recognized legal scholar whose work could be adopted without change as the legal basis for impeachment.
Ben Smith at
Politico reports,“Fein
said a number of Congressional offices have expressed interest” in his
proposal.” Fein told Smith “at least two dozen” Congressmen view the
Libyan intervention as “a serious constitutional crisis.”
The Libyan intervention has further separated Obama from his party’s left-wing base. Liberal Democrat
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio became an outspoken critic, while conservative Republican
Ron Paul of Texas agreed the bombing constituted “an
impeachable offense.”
Congressman
Trent Franks, R-AZ, and former Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich have raised the possibility of impeaching Obama over his
refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Other supporters of impeachment range from
Congressman Tom Tancredo, to talk show host
Tammy Bruce, to conservative activist
Howard Phillips.
A poll last month conducted by Public Policy Polling last month found that
60 percent of Tea Party members and nearly half of all Republicans favored impeachment.
As the pressure on Obama mounts, some of his supporters have become (more) unhinged. On Monday, two San Franciscans
attacked a 29-year-old man holding an “Impeach Obama” sign.
Bruce Fein has maintained
close ties to those involved in the last impeachment. Fein now serves as one of the “principals” of the
American Freedom Agenda. Its other leaders include 2008 Libertarian Party presidential candidate
Bob Barr,
Rutherford Institute founder
John Whitehead, and direct
New Right pioneer
Richard Viguerie.
Barr served as one of the House managers during
Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
Perhaps the past is prologue.
Below are the articles of impeachment drawn up by Fein. You can
view the full document here. You can
e-mail Bruce Fein here.
Click here to sign the petition to impeach Barack Obama. Click here to learn more about the Impeach Obama Campaign.
ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT OF
PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
RESOLVED, That Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors, and that the following article of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:
ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF
ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IN
USURPING THE EXCLUSIVE PREROGATIVE OF CONGRESS TO COMENCE WAR UNDER
ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8, CLAUSE 11 OF THE CONSTITUTION.
Minutemen Revolutionary War
ARTICLE I
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States,
Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully
to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the
best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed, has usurped the exclusive
power of Congress to initiate war under Article I, section 8, clause 11
of the United States Constitution by unilaterally commencing war against
the Republic of Libya on March 19, 2011, declaring that Congress is
powerless to constrain his conduct of the war, and claiming authority in
the future to commence war unilaterally to advance whatever he ordains
is in the national interest. By so doing and declaring, Barack Hussein
Obama has mocked the rule of law, endangered the very existence of the
Republic and the liberties of the people, and perpetrated an impeachable
high crime and misdemeanor as hereinafter elaborated.
I.
THE IMPEACHMENT POWER
1. Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United
States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction
of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
2. According to James Madison’s Records of the Convention, 2:550;
Madison, 8 Sept., Mr. George Mason objected to an initial proposal to
confine impeachable offenses to treason or bribery:
Why is the provision restrained to Treason & bribery only?
Treason as defined in the Constitution will not reach many great and
dangerous offences. Hastings is not guilty of Treason. Attempts to
subvert the Constitution may not be Treason as above defined–As bills of
attainder which have saved the British Constitution are forbidden, it
is the more necessary to extend: the power of impeachments.
3. Delegates to the Federal Convention voted overwhelmingly to
include “high crimes and misdemeanors” in Article II, Section IV of the
United States Constitution specifically to ensure that “attempts to
subvert the Constitution” would fall within the universe of impeachable
offences. Id.
4. Alexander Hamilton, a delegate to the Federal Convention,
characterized impeachable offenses in Federalist 65 as, “offenses which
proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the
violation or abuse of some public trust. They are of a nature which with
peculiar propriety may be denominated political, as they relate chiefly
to injuries done to society itself.”
5. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of
impeachment against then President Richard M. Nixon for actions
“subversive of constitutional government.”
6. Father of the Constitution, James Madison, observed that, “Of all
the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other…. War is the
true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”
7. James Madison also instructed that “no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
8. The exclusive congressional power to commence war under Article I,
section VIII, clause XI of the Constitution is the pillar of the
Republic and the greatest constitutional guarantor of individual
liberty, transparency, and government frugality.
FREEDOM ~ Fighting The Rothschild British Banking System At Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
II.
THE “DECLARE WAR” CLAUSE
9. Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI of the United States
Constitution provides: “The Congress shall have the power … To declare
War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning
Captures on Land and Water;”
10. Article II, Section II, Clause I of the United States
Constitution provides: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the
Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several
States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
11. The authors of the United States Constitution manifestly intended
Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI to fasten exclusive responsibility
and authority on the Congress to decide whether to undertake offensive
military action.
12. The authors of the United States Constitution believed that
individual liberty and the Republic would be endangered by fighting too
many wars, not too few.
13. The authors of the United States Constitution understood that to
aggrandize power and to leave a historical legacy, the executive in all
countries chronically inflates danger manifold to justify warfare.
14. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, in Federalist 4 noted:
[A]bsolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get
nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such
as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition,
or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families
or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only
the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not
sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
15. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 69 that the president’s Commander-in-Chief authority
…would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain,
but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more
than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces,
as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the
British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and
regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under
consideration would appertain to the Legislature.
16. In a written exchange with Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym Helvidius, James Madison wrote:
In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in
the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the
legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection
to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation
would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the
prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary
successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive
aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the
executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are
to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.
In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and
it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is
in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the
executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most
dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the
honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the
desire and duty of peace.
17. James Madison also wrote as Helvidius to Alexander Hamilton:
Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be
proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued,
or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great
principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the
sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of
enacting laws.
18. On June 29, 1787, at the Federal Convention, James Madison
explained that an executive crowned with war powers invites tyranny and
the reduction of citizens to vassalage:
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly
given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the
same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing
military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe
companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have
been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a
standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of
defending, have enslaved the people.
19. In a letter dated April 4, 1798, James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson:
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments
demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested
in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care,
vested the question of war in the Legislature. But the Doctrines lately
advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit
the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution
distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it.
For if the opinion of the President not the facts & proofs
themselves are to sway the judgment of Congress, in declaring war, and
if the President in the recess of Congress create a foreign mission,
appoint the minister, & negociate a War Treaty, without the
possibility of a check even from the Senate, untill the measures present
alternatives overruling the freedom of its judgment; if again a Treaty
when made obliges the Legislature to declare war contrary to its
judgment, and in pursuance of the same doctrine, a law declaring war,
imposes a like moral obligation, to grant the requisite supplies until
it be formally repealed with the consent of the President & Senate,
it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in
their Government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of
their blessings.
20. During the Pennsylvania Convention to ratify the Constitution,
James Wilson, a future Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
observed:
This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard
against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single
body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of
declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration
must he made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from
this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our
national interest can draw us into a war.
21. In 1793, President George Washington, who presided over the
Federal Convention, wrote to South Carolina Governor William Moultrie in
regards to a prospective counter-offensive against the American Indian
Creek Nation: “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with
Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be
undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and
authorized such a measure.”
22. President Thomas Jefferson, who served as Secretary of State
under President Washington, in a statement before Congress regarding
Tripoli and the Barbary Pirates, deemed himself “unauthorized by the
Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of
defense.” He amplified: “I communicate [to the Congress] all material
information on this subject, that in the exercise of this important
function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature exclusively
their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every
circumstance of weight.”
23. In a message to Congress in December, 1805 regarding potential
military action to resolve a border dispute with Spain, President Thomas
Jefferson acknowledged that “Congress alone is constitutionally
invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I
have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force.” He
requested Congressional authorization for offensive military action,
even short of war, elaborating:
Formal war is not necessary—it is not probable it will follow; but
the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country,
require that force should be interposed to a certain degree. It will
probably contribute to advance the object of peace.
But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which
it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or deny. To them I
communicate every fact material for their information, and the documents
necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom,
then, I look for the course I am to pursue; and will pursue, with
sincere zeal, that which they shall approve.
Founding Father James Madison
24. In his War Message to Congress on June 1, 1812, President James
Madison reaffirmed that the shift in language from make to declare in
Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI of the United States Constitution
authorized at the Constitutional convention did not empower the
Executive to involve the United States military in any action aside from
defense against an overt attack. Although President Madison was
convinced that Great Britain had undertaken acts of war against the
United States, he nevertheless maintained that he could not respond with
military force without congressional authorization. He proclaimed:
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war
against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state
of peace toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these
progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing
force to force in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just
cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all
connections which might entangle it in the contest or views of other
powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable
re-establishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which the
Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the
Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy
in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and
patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.
25. In his Records of the Convention, 2:318; Madison, 17 Aug., James
Madison wrote that the power “To declare war” had been vested in the
Congress in lieu of the power “To make war” to leave to the Executive
“the power to repel sudden attacks.”
26. Mr. Elbridge Gerry “never expected to hear in a republic a motion
to empower the Executive alone to declare war,” but still moved with
Mr. Madison “to insert declare—in place of make” in Article I, Section
VIII, Clause XI. Id.
27. Mr. George Mason was against “giving the power of war to the
Executive, because not safely to be trusted with it; or to the Senate,
because not so constructed as to be entitled to it. He was for clogging
rather than facilitating war; but for facilitating peace.” Yet Mr. Mason
“preferred declare to make.” Id.
28. Mr. Roger Sherman “thought [the proposal] stood very well. The Executive shd. be able to repel and not to commence war.” Id.
29. Delegates to the Federal Convention overwhelmingly approved the
motion to insert “declare—in place of make,” to deny the Executive power
to initiate military action, but to permit the Executive to repel
sudden attacks unilaterally. Id.
30. Then Congressman Abraham Lincoln sermonized:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall
deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so,
whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose —
and you allow him to make war at pleasure…. Study to see if you can fix
any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much
as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it
necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how
could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the
British invading us” but he will say to you “be silent; I see it, if you
don’t.”
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to
Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons.
Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars,
pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the
object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of
all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution
that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon
us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President
where kings have always stood.
31. Crowning the President with unilateral authority to commence war
under the banner of anticipatory self-defense, prevention of civilian
slaughters, gender discrimination, subjugation of ethnic or religious
minorities, or otherwise would empower the President to initiate war
without limit, threatening the very existence of the Republic. Although a
benevolent Chief Executive might resist abuse of an unlimited war
power, the principle, if ever accepted by Congress, would lie around
like a loaded weapon ready for use by any successor craving absolute
power.
32. Thomas Paine justly and rightly declared in Common Sense that “in
America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is
law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to
be no other.”
33. Article 43 Paragraph 3 of the Charter of the United Nations
provides that all resolutions or agreements of the United Nations
Security Counsel “shall be subject to ratification by the signatory
states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.”
34. Article 43 Paragraph 3 of Charter of the United Nations was
included specifically to allay concerns that prevented the United States
of America from ratifying the League of Nations Treaty in 1919.
Henry Cabot Lodge
35. That treaty risked crowning the President with the
counter-constitutional authority to initiate warfare. On November 19,
1919, in Section II of his Reservations with Regard to Ratification of
the Versailles Treaty, to preserve the balance of power established by
the United States Constitution from executive usurpation, Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge resolved as follows:
The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the
territorial integrity or political independence of any other country or
to interfere in controversies between nations — whether members of the
League or not — under the provisions of Article 10, or to employ the
military or naval forces of the United States under any article of the
treaty for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress,
which, under the Constitution, has the sole power to declare war or
authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United
States, shall by act or joint resolution so provide.
The rejection of Lodge’s reservations by President Woodrow Wilson and his Senate allies insured defeat of the treaty.
36. Section 2(c) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 clarifies Presidential authority to undertake military action as follows:
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to
introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into
situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly
indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a
declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a
national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its
territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
Supreme Court Justice William Paterson
37. In United States v. Smith, 27 F. Cas. 1192 (1806), Supreme Court
Justice William Paterson, a delegate to the Federal Convention from New
Jersey, wrote on behalf of a federal circuit court:
There is a manifest distinction between our going to war
with a nation at peace, and a war being made against us by an actual
invasion, or a formal declaration. In the former case it is the
exclusive province of Congress to change a state of peace into a state
of war.
38. In Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 267 (1890), the Supreme Court of the United States held:
The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms
unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument
against the action of the government or of its departments, and those
arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the
States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize
what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the
government, or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion
of the territory of the latter, without its consent.
39. In his concurrence in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,
343 U.S. 579, 642-643 (1952), which rebuked President Harry Truman’s
claim of unilateral war powers in the Korean War, Justice Robert Jackson
elaborated:
Nothing in our Constitution is plainer than that
declaration of a war is entrusted only to Congress. Of course, a state
of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration. But no doctrine
that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and
alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so
largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his
mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment
of the Nation’s armed forces to some foreign venture.
40.
All treaties are subservient to the exclusive
congressional power to commence war. In Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 18
(1957), the United States Supreme Court held:
There is nothing in [the Constitution’s text] which
intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to
comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything
in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the
Constitution which even suggests such a result.
41. Unconstitutional usurpations by one branch of
government of powers entrusted to a coequal branch are not rendered
constitutional by repetition. The United States Supreme Court held
unconstitutional hundreds of laws enacted by Congress over the course of
five decades that included a legislative veto of executive actions in
INS v. Chada, 462 U.S. 919 (1982).
U.S. Justice Scalia
42. In their dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004),
Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia recognized the “Founders’
general distrust of military power lodged with the President, including
the authority to commence war:
No fewer than 10 issues of the Federalist were devoted in
whole or part to allaying fears of oppression from the proposed
Constitution’s authorization of standing armies in peacetime. Many
safeguards in the Constitution reflect these concerns. Congress’s
authority “[t]o raise and support Armies” was hedged with the proviso
that “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term
than two Years.” U.S. Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 12. Except for the actual
command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and
all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of
Congress under Article I, rather than the President under Article II. As
Hamilton explained, the President’s military authority would be “much
inferior” to that of the British King… (Citing Federalist 69, Supra.)
43. On December 20, 2007, then Senator Hillary Clinton proclaimed:
“The President has the solemn duty to defend our Nation. If the country
is under truly imminent threat of attack, of course the President must
take appropriate action to defend us. At the same time, the Constitution
requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the President
can take military action — including any kind of strategic bombing —
against Iran without congressional authorization.”
Biden His Time!
44. Then Senator Joseph Biden stated in a speech at the Iowa City
Public Library in 2007 regarding potential military action in Iran that
unilateral action by the President would be an impeachable offense under
the Constitution:
It is precisely because the consequences of war –
intended or otherwise – can be so profound and complicated that our
Founding Fathers vested in Congress, not the President, the power to
initiate war, except to repel an imminent attack on the United States or
its citizens.
They reasoned that requiring the President to come to Congress first
would slow things down… allow for more careful decision making before
sending Americans to fight and die… and ensure broader public support.
The Founding Fathers were, as in most things, profoundly right.
That’s why I want to be very clear: if the President takes us to war
with Iran without Congressional approval, I will call for his
impeachment.
I do not say this lightly or to be provocative. I am dead serious. I
have chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. I still teach
constitutional law. I’ve consulted with some of our leading
constitutional scholars. The Constitution is clear. And so am I.
I’m saying this now to put the administration on notice and hopefully
to deter the President from taking unilateral action in the last year
of his administration.
If war is warranted with a nation of 70 million people, it warrants coming to Congress and the American people first.
45. In a speech on the Senate Floor in 1998, then Senator Joseph
Biden maintained: “…the only logical conclusion is that the framers [of
the United States Constitution] intended to grant to Congress the power
to initiate all hostilities, even limited wars.”
Rotten Eggs
46. On December 20, 2007, then Senator Barack Obama informed the
Boston Globe, based upon his extensive knowledge of the United States
Constitution: “The President does not have power under the Constitution
to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not
involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
Obama/McCain Surreptitious Libyan ‘Liberation’ Unleashes Terror ”TIDAL WAVE” Over North Africa!
III.
USURPATION OF THE WAR POWER OVER LIBYA
47. President Barack Obama’s military attacks against Libya constitute acts of war.
48. Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-4) had the following exchange
with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a March 31, 2011 House
Armed Services Committee Hearing on the legality of the present military
operation in Libya:
Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, if tomorrow a foreign
nation intentionally, for whatever reason, launched a Tomahawk missile
into New York City, would that be considered an act of war against the
United States?
Secretary Gates: Probably so.
Congressman Forbes: Then I would assume the same laws would apply if
we launched a Tomahawk missile at another nation—is that also true?
Secretary Gates: You’re getting into constitutional law here and I am no expert on it.
Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, you’re the Secretary of Defense.
You ought to be an expert on what’s an act of war or not. If it’s an act
of war to launch a Tomahawk missile on New York City would it not also
be an act of war to launch a Tomahawk missile by us at another nation?
Secretary Gates: Presumably.
49. Since the passage of United Nations Security Council
resolution 1973 on March 19, 2011, the United States has detonated over
200 tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and 455 precision-guided bombs
on Libyan soil.
50. Libya posed no actual or imminent threat to the United States when President Obama unleashed Operation Odyssey Dawn.
51. On March 27, 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that
Libya never posed an “actual or imminent threat to the United States.”
He further stated that Libya has never constituted a “vital interest” to
the United States.
52. United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 directs an
indefinite United States military quagmire in Libya, authorizing “all
necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, which clearly
contemplates removal by force of the murderous regime of Col. Muammar
Qadhafi.
53. In a Letter From the President to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate sent March
21, 2011, President Barack Obama informed Members of Congress that “U.S.
forces have targeted the Qadhafi regime’s air defense systems, command
and control structures, and other capabilities of Qadhafi’s armed forces
used to attack civilians and civilian populated areas. We will seek a
rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional,
or international organizations that are postured to continue activities
as may be necessary to realize the objectives of U.N. Security Council
Resolutions 1970 and 1973.”
54. In his March 21, 2011 letter, President Barack Obama further
informed Members of Congress that he opted to take unilateral military
action “…in support of international efforts to protect civilians and
prevent a humanitarian disaster.”
55. President Barack Obama has usurped congressional authority to
decide on war or peace with Libya, and has declared he will persist in
additional usurpations of the congressional power to commence war
whenever he decrees it would advance his idea of the national interest.
On March 28, 2011, he declared to Congress and the American people: “I
have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military
swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our
people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests” (emphasis
added).
56. President Obama’s humanitarian justification for war in Libya
establishes a threshold that would justify his initiation of warfare in
scores of nations around the globe, including Iran, North Korea, Syria,
Sudan, Myanmar, China, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Russia.
57. In Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), Justice Louis
D. Brandeis wrote on behalf of a majority of the United States Supreme
Court:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are
naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment
by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
58. President Barack Obama has signed an order, euphemistically named
a “Presidential Finding,” authorizing covert U.S. government support
for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, further
entangling the United States in the Libyan conflict, despite earlier
promises of restraint. Truth is invariably the first casualty of war.
59. In response to questions by Members of Congress during a
classified briefing on March 30, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton indicated that the President needs no Congressional
authorization for his attack on the Libyan nation, and will ignore any
Congressional attempt by resolution or otherwise to constrain or halt
United States participation in the Libyan war.
60. On March 30, 2011, by persistent silence or otherwise, Secretary
Clinton rebuffed congressional inquiries into President Obama’s view of
the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. She failed
to cite a single judicial decision in support of President Obama’s
recent actions, relying instead on the undisclosed legal opinions of
White House attorneys.
PERJURY OF OATH
61. President Barack Obama, in flagrant violation of his
constitutional oath to execute his office as President of the United
States and preserve and protect the United States Constitution, has
usurped the exclusive authority of Congress to authorize the initiation
of war, in that on March 19, 2011 President Obama initiated an offensive
military attack against the Republic of Libya without congressional
authorization.
In so doing, President Obama has arrested the rule of law, and
saluted a vandalizing of the Constitution that will occasion ruination
of the Republic, the crippling of individual liberty, and a Leviathan
government unless the President is impeached by the House of
Representatives and removed from office by the Senate.
In all of this, President Barack Obama has acted in a manner contrary
to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government,
to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Floyd Reports
Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein
Bruce Fein is the legal scholar who is best known for having drafted
articles of impeachment against former President Bill Clinton for
perjury after he lied under oath about having sexual relations with an
intern.
Fein also drafted articles of impeachment against former
President George W. Bush and former
Vice President Dick Cheney.
In 2011, he drew up formal articles of impeachment against President
Obama for his use of military action against Libya without congressional
authorization.
Fein was a top Justice Department official under the Reagan
administration. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in
1972. Fein clerked for a prestigious federal court, and has served in
top positions in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Office of Legal
Policy. He has served as visiting fellow for constitutional studies at
the Heritage Foundation, adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute and guest lecturer at the Brookings Institute.
Fein specializes in constitutional and international law and is a
frequent witness before Congress. He is chairman of the American Freedom
Agenda, founder of Bruce Fein & Associates Inc. and The Lichfield
Group and author of
“Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy.”
An election for President and Commander in Chief of the Military must strive to be above reproach. Our public institutions must give the public confidence that a presidential candidate has complied with the election process that is prescribed by our Constitution and laws. It is only after a presidential candidate satisfies the rules of such a process that he/she can expect members of the public, regardless of their party affiliations, to give him/her the respect that the Office of President so much deserves.
