Obama's Scandals Stem from His Lawless Presidency

Posted 05/14/2013 07:05 PM ET


President Obama answers questions ranging from Benghazi to the IRS during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the... View Enlarged Image

Last Friday, after the Associated Press learned about the Justice Department's sweeping seizure of its phone records, AP CEO Gary Pruitt said "there can be no possible justification" for the action.

No doubt that's true. But there also seems to be no possible justification for the many other scandals now swamping the Obama administration — from Benghazi, to the IRS scandal to the White House's attempt to shake down health companies for ObamaCare money.

Except that they all stem from a common root — President Obama's callous disregard for the rule of law.

When not grousing about "this big, messy, tough democracy," or joking about having the IRS audit groups that don't do his bidding, or talking about how "we're gonna punish our enemies" (meaning his political opponents), Obama has repeatedly and casually flouted legal roadblocks whenever they got in the way of his agenda.

Last year, for example, his Health and Human Services department said it would allow waivers to work requirements for welfare benefits, despite the welfare reform law's clear prohibition against such waivers.

His National Labor Relations Board put out a "snap elections" rule meant to achieve the same goal as a union-backed "card check" law that Congress defeated. And he unilaterally gutted No Child Left Behind by offering blanket waivers to states.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued a scathing report on the Obama administration last October, titled "The Imperial Presidency," in which he documented these and dozens of other examples of "breakdowns in the rule of law" under Obama.

Even the New York Times took notice of the "increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers."
And on at least two occasions, courts have ruled that Obama's actions violated the law.

In January, a federal court said Obama improperly made several "recess" appointments, despite the fact that the Senate was still in session.

In April, a judge ruled against Obama's effort to enact parts of the controversial DREAM immigration law by executive order, saying the Department of Homeland Security "does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings" of illegal immigrants.

So it should come as no surprise that other government officials have been following Obama's lead, brushing aside legal niceties when they got in the way of their political agendas.

In its attempt to determine the source of a leak about a foiled terrorist attack that AP reported on, for example, the Justice Department seized records of 20 phone lines that more than 100 journalists had access to.

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