Impeachable Offenses

Impeachable Offenses? Gave Tax Dollars To Campaign Contributors Under The Ruse Of Green Energy (1 of 10)

Back in 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million in taxpayer funds to the company Solyndra. They claimed at the time that it would create 4,000 new jobs. Instead, the company went bankrupt.

It was later learned that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign. In addition, the company had spent large sums of money on lobbying and Solyndra executives had a number of meetings with White House officials.

In 2010, Obama visited the Solyndra factory and cited it as a role model for his “stimulus” program, saying “It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” Sounds good, but according to the company’s security filings in 2009, the company had been selling its product for less than the cost of production.

According to a piece by the Washington Post, “Administration officials and outside advisers warned that President Obama should consider dropping plans to visit a solar startup company in 2010 because its mounting financial problems might ultimately embarrass the White House.”

Although Solyndra was a private company, it had been planning to use its government loans as a means of going public. When Obama knowingly overstated the company’s prospects in order to help his donors at Solyndra, he broke the same law that Martha Stewart went to prison for breaking.

A brief timeline of illegality and abuse:

• In September 2011, federal agents visited the homes the company’s CEO and the company’s founder to examine computer files and documents.
• Also in September 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department launched an investigation.
• On September 13, 2011, the Washington Post reported on emails which showed that the Obama administration had tried to rush federal reviewers to approve the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory.
• Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office, had found that the preliminary loan approval had been granted before officials had completed the legally mandated evaluations of the company.
• Among 143 companies that had expressed an interest in getting a loan guarantee, Solyndra was the first one to get approval. During the period when Solyndra’s loan guarantee was under review, the company had spent nearly $1.8 million on lobbying.
• On September 29, 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had continued to allow Solyndra to receive taxpayer money even after it had defaulted on its $535 million loan.
• On October 7, 2011, The Washington Post reported that newly revealed emails showed that Energy Department officials had been warned that their plan to help Solyndra by restructuring the loan might be illegal, and should be cleared with the Justice Department first. However, Energy Department officials moved ahead with the restructuring anyway, with a new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the company were to default.
• In April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial amount of toxic waste at its abandoned facility in Milpitas, California.

Impeachable Offenses? Ignored Constitutional Requirements For Presidential Appointees (2 of 10)

In February 2009, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) expressed concern that Obama’s dozens of czar appointments might violate the U.S. Constitution, because they were not approved by the U.S. Senate. U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) expressed a similar concern in September 2009.

According to the Constitution of the United States, “advice and consent” is a power of the United States Senate. This means, among other things, the power to approve appointments by the President of the United States to public positions, including Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and ambassadors.

The term “advice and consent” first appears in the United States Constitution in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, referring to the Senate’s role in the signing and ratification of treaties.
“[The President] shall nominate, and, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”

This term is then used again, to describe the Senate’s role in the appointment of public officials, immediately after describing the President’s duty to nominate such officials.

Several framers of the U.S. Constitution explained that the required role of the Senate is to advise the President after the nomination has been made by the President. Apparently, President Obama does not seem to feel this is not always the case. Or that it does not apply to him.

In addition to the numerous appointments he made in 2008 – triggering concerns from Senators Byrd and Feingold – Obama has made recess appointments when Congress was not in recess.

In January 2012, Obama violated the Constitution by making four recess appointments when Congress was not in recess. Recess appointments themselves are constitutional, but only if they are made when Congress is actually in recess. These actions were not debatable.

In January 2013, a federal appeals court ruled that Obama’s appointments had violated the Constitution. In May 2013, a second federal appeals court also ruled that Obama’s appointments had violated the Constitution. In July 2013, a third federal appeals court also ruled that Obama’s appointments had violated the Constitution.

In June of 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Obama’s appointments were unconstitutional because the Senate was not truly in recess when he made them during a three-day break in pro forma meetings of the legislative body.

And nothing else was done.

Impeachable Offenses? Dismissed Charges Of Voter Intimidation Despite Video Evidence (3 of 10)

In May 2009, the Obama administration dismissed charges that had been filed by the Bush administration against members of the New Black Panther Party. Members of that group had been videotaped intimidating voters and brandishing weapons at a Philadelphia polling station during the November 2008 election.

On Election Day in November 2008, two members of the New Black Panther Party, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, stood in front of the entrance to the polling station wearing what was described as military or paramilitary outfits. Minister King Shabazz carried a billy club, and is reported to have pointed it at voters while both men shouted racial slurs, including phrases such as “white devil” and “you’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

On June 16, 2009, the commission sent a letter to the civil rights division of the Department of Justice questioning their decision to drop the case, stating “Though it had basically won the case, the Civil Rights Division took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges. The division’s public rationale would send the wrong message entirely — that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges leveled against them.”

In August 2009, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights demanded that the Justice Department explain why it dismissed the charges.

In the course of these hearings, one of those testifying against the administration and the Justice Department was former Justice Department attorney, J. Christian Adams.

In December 2009, Adams’s supervisor and Civil Rights Division attorney Christopher Coates stepped down as chief of the voting division in December 2009 amid controversy over his objections to the dropping of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.

Coates’ testimony before the United States Civil Rights Commission supported Adams’ allegations, and the Commission’s report that found “a cover-up of a possible racial double standard in law enforcement in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice,” and, detailing “a year of DOJ’s intransigence and baseless refusals to comply with our subpoenas,” that “the Department of Justice is unquestionably hostile to any serious investigation of these allegations.”

On April 23, 2010, Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia gave a statement during the hearings on the dismissal of voter intimidation case. In that statement he said, “From the beginning, I have asked the question: why did the department dismiss this serious case? Look at the facts. If this is not a clear case of voter intimidation, I do not know what is. ”

In May 2010, Adams also resigned from the Justice Department.

Impeachable Offenses? Illegally Gave ObamaCare Exemptions To Unions That Supported The Passage Of Obamacare (4 of 10)

Obama gave some organizations an exemption from some of the requirements of ObamaCare. Many of these organizations were unions that had supported the passage of ObamaCare, but now wanted exemptions from the very same law that they wanted to force everyone else to obey. This reveals an extreme level of hypocrisy among many of the supporters of ObamaCare.

In addition, these exemptions are illegal, because the Constitution requires the law to treat everyone the same.

The Washington Times noted: “Selective enforcement of the law is the first sign of tyranny. A government empowered to determine arbitrarily who may operate outside the rule of law invariably embraces favoritism as friends, allies and those with the best-funded lobbyists are rewarded. Favoritism inevitably leads to corruption, and corruption invites extortion. Ultimately, the rule of law ceases to exist in any recognizable form, and what is left is tyranny.”

“The now-familiar monthly trickling down of new waivers is, at best, a tacit admission that ObamaCare is a failure. So far, seven entire states and 1,372 businesses, unions and other institutions have received waivers from the law. The list includes the administration’s friends and allies and, of course, those who have the best lobbyists.”

“More than 50 percent of the ObamaCare waiver beneficiaries are union members, which is striking because union members account for less than 12 percent of the American work force. The same unions that provided more than $120 million to Democrats in the last two elections and, in many cases, openly campaigned in favor of the government takeover of your health care, now celebrate that ObamaCare is not their problem.”

Barack Obama should know that as president he has authority to check the Legislative Branch by recommending legislation to be passed by Congress, or through presidential veto, but he cannot legislate through executive fiat or pick which parts of the law to comply with or decline. He is, after all, a presumed constitutional scholar!

Yet, Article 2, Section 3, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires that the president “…shall take care that the Laws be carefully executed.”

It doesn’t limit those laws, or encapsulated provisions, to the particular ones that he likes.

Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee in December 2013, Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, a well-known liberal, noted that the president doesn’t take the part of his presidential oath that “Laws be faithfully executed” very seriously. This was evident in the application of his signature Affordable Care Act.

Professor Turley voted for Obama and agrees with him on health care and other issues, he warned that his power grabs are causing “the most serious constitutional crisis in my lifetime.”

Impeachable Offenses? Routinely Breaks The Law And Flouts The U.S. Constitution (5 of 10)

The Obama administration – through regulatory agencies, mandates, lawsuits and threats of lawsuits – has broken the law and overstepped its constitutional bounds. This allegation is in a report released in March 2012 from nine Republican state attorneys general.

The authors of the report were Tom Horne of Arizona; Pam Bondi of Florida; Sam Olens of Georgia; Bill Schuette of Michigan; Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma; Marty Jackley of South Dakota; Alan Wilson of South Carolina; Greg Abbott of Texas; and Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia.

The report focused variously on what they considered attacks on religious liberty, unconstitutional environmental regulations, illegal recess appointments, and lawsuits to stop state laws regarding voter ID and immigration by the Obama administration.

In addition, the report pointedly cited the individual mandate to purchase health insurance and the mandate for employers – without a conscience exemption – to cover the cost of employee abortifacients, sterilization and contraception under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In a memo titled, “A Report on Obama Administration Violations of Law.”, the group stated, “One of the ways in which attorneys general protect the integrity of state laws and constitutions is by carefully reviewing the actions of the federal government and responding when they break the law or overstep the bounds of the Constitution.”

It went on to say, “Through the collective review by a committee of Attorneys General from nine of the 50 states, the group identified more than 21 illegal actions from this administration and is highlighting the effects of the federal overreach on our citizens and states.”

“The purpose of this report is to outline actions taken by this Administration that are violations of law,” it added.

The report cited two instances where the Obama administration attacked the First Amendment’s right to religious freedom. Seven states have filed suit to protect religious liberty and oppose the Department of Health and Human Services forcing employers, including religious entities such as Catholic, Baptist and Jewish schools, to cover the cost of contraception for employees.

The Environmental Protection Agency was involved in four legally questionable actions, including a federal water quality regulation on Florida.

“The estimated impact the EPA’s rules would impose was dramatic, including billions of dollars in compliance costs, significant spikes in utility bills and the loss of thousands of jobs,” the report said. “The Florida Attorney General’s Office sued the EPA and prevailed when a federal judge in Tallahassee threw out the costliest of the EPA’s rules, the one governing Florida’s streams and rivers.”

In Oklahoma, the EPA established emissions standards that “goes beyond the authority granted to the EPA in the Clean Air Act and will result in $2 billion in cost to install technology needed to complete the EPA plan, and a permanent increase of 15-20 percent in the cost of electricity; Obama Administration is fighting Oklahoma’s appeal, which was filed in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,” the report said.

Impeachable Offenses? Illegally Refused To Submit Budgets On Time (6 of 10)

The President is legally required to submit a budget by the first Monday in February. Obama broke this law during four of his first five years in office. Since 1921, no President had missed this deadline more than once. According to the House Budget Committee, in the 88 years from 1921 through 2008 (the year that President George W. Bush submitted his final budget), the sitting president was a full week late submitting his budget only four times.

However, President Obama has now achieved that number all by himself. In fact, Obama now holds the following records since 1921:

• The most times being a week late in submitting a budget (4 times compared to only one time)
• The most times being a month late in submitting a budget (2 times compared to twice before)
• And most times being three months late in submitting a budget (Once, but no previous president has done this)

In terms of percentage, President Obama has only a 20% “on time” score compared to every president since Warren G. Harding in 1921. Their lowest scores for an on-time rate is 67 percent, while most previous presidents maintained an on-time rate of 100 percent.

And they were in obedience to the law.

Submitting the federal budget by the first Monday in February is the law, not a guideline. It is a legal obligation that President Obama has refused to submit to. While one late budget submission shouldn’t be seen as an egregious and flagrant violation of constitutional law, repeated abuses are indicative of a pattern and attitude that this president has displayed since first taking office.

In addition to playing fast and loose with his legal obligations to submit the budget on time, Obama has repeatedly used the threat of “no budget” and a subsequent government “shutdown” as a weapon of blackmail to impose his imperial will on an intimidated and weak Republican leadership opposition.

Impeachable Offenses? ‘Aided And Abetted’ Illegal Actions By IRS Employees (7 of 10)

It is no secret that the Obama administration has tried to use the IRS to intimidate and, in some cases, bully his opponents and critics. What many Americans do not know is the extent to which the White House has gone to protect the agency.

For example, in May 2013, the Daily Caller reported that the IRS had taken the “unprecedented” step of approving a non-profit application within just one month. In this particular case, the application was from the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a so-called “charity” which was headed by Malik Obama, Barack Obama’s brother. In addition, the IRS illegally gave retroactive approval for the organization’s tax exempt status. Prior to getting this approval, the organization had illegally solicited tax deductible donations even though it did not have legal approval to do so.

• In March 2011, 15 IRS agents illegally seized the medical records of 10 million people without a warrant. Obama refused to fire or prosecute them.
• During Obama’s first term, more than 1,000 IRS employees illegally used their IRS credit cards for personal purchases, but Obama refused to fire or prosecute them.
• In September 2013, it was reported that IRS employees had “lost” $67 million from a “slush fund.” Obama refused to fire those employees. Obama had created the “slush fund” as part of ObamaCare.

Another twist to ObamaCare is that it illegally gives the IRS additional powers without approval from Congress. In May 2013 the Washington Post wrote: “The law allows the Department of Health and Human Services to set up federal health exchanges in the holdout states. But the statute makes no mention of the IRS providing credits and subsidies through federal exchanges.”

The IRS resolved this conundrum by denying its existence. In a May 2012 regulatory ruling, it asserted its own right to provide credits outside the state exchanges as the reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous law. But the language of the law is not ambiguous. And health scholars Jonathan Adler and Michael Cannon, in an exhaustive recent analysis, find no justification for the IRS’s ruling in the legislative history of ObamaCare.

“The statute,” they argue, “and the lack of any support for the IRS rule in the legislative record put defenders of the IRS rule in the awkward position of arguing that it was so obviously Congress’ intent to offer tax credits in federal exchanges that despite a year of debate over the PPACA, it never occurred to anyone to express that intent out loud. A better explanation is that the PPACA’s authors miscalculated when they assumed states would establish exchanges.”

The result? The IRS seized the authority to spend about $800 billion over 10 years on benefits that were not authorized by Congress.

Not everyone working for the federal is exempt from presidential displeasure, however.

In October 2013, a caller to the ObamaCare phone line asked: “Have you ever gotten anyone who really likes it yet?” The phone operator, a woman named Earline Davis, answered: “Um, not really.” Davis was fired for her response.

Impeachable Offenses? Secretly And illegally Reversed NSA Restrictions Without Congressional Approval (8 of 10)

In a September 2013 article, the Washington Post reported:

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.

In addition, the court also extended the length of time the agency is permitted to keep intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six, the Post reported, “and under more special circumstances.” citing the documents – among them a 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates.

In 2008 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the body that grants its authority to conduct spying operations domestically, imposed a wholesale ban on such searches at the government’s request. The government included this restriction “to remain consistent with NSA policies and procedures that NSA applied to other authorized collection activities,” said Alex Joel, civil liberties protection officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

However, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt says the Obama administration wanted more access to Americans’ private communications, so “we did ask the court” to lift the ban. “We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, in reference to poring over citizens’ communications and doing so without first obtaining a constitutionally required warrant, and meeting the constitutional standard of probable cause.

U.S. Senator Mark Udall of Colorado and fellow Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, both Democrats, have tried to raise the issue of improper NSA spying for years.

“Our founders laid out a roadmap where Americans’ privacy rights are protected before their communications are seized or searched – not after the fact.” said Senator Udall in a statement to the paper.

Impeachable Offenses? Aided And Abetted Illegal Activities By His former Secretary of State (9 of 10)

Whether it is simply a case of “honor among thieves”, or a more intricate situation of forestalling mutual destruction, the Obama administration has turned a blind eye numerous times regarding blatant violations of federal law by former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Once would be a misstep; multiple instances constitutes conspiracy to defraud the American people.

• In April 2015, it was reported that when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Obama had allowed Russians who had donated to her foundation to buy American uranium.
• Before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, she promised that she would publish all donors to her foundation. She broke that promise. However, Obama refused to fire her.
• Before Hillary Clinton become Secretary of State, she promised that she would let the State Department review all new or increased donations to her foundation by foreign governments. She broke that promise. However, Obama refused to fire her.
• For three consecutive years – 2010, 2011, and 2012 – Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s foundation lied to the IRS by falsely saying that it had not received any donations from foreign governments. However, in reality, during those three years, the foundation had actually been given tens of millions of dollars by foreign governments.

In April 2015, White House press secretary Josh Earnest ignored ten consecutive questions about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s foundation.

Obama refused to fire Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against government officials accepting gifts from foreign governments
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution states:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

In addition, the State Department had the following rules when Clinton was Secretary of State:

“Executive branch employees are subject to restrictions on the gifts that they may accept from sources outside the Government. Unless an exception applies, executive branch employees may not accept gifts that are given because of their official positions or that come from certain interested sources (“prohibited sources”).”

“A prohibited source is a person (or an organization made up of such persons) who: is seeking official action by, is doing business or seeking to do business with, or is regulated by the employee’s agency, or has interests that may be substantially affected by performance or nonperformance of the employee’s official duties.”

Turns out the countries of Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Algeria all donated money to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, at a time when these countries were attempting to conduct business with the U.S. government.

Charity Navigator, the United States’ most influential charity watchdog, said that legitimate charities spend at least 75% of their donations on their mission. However, according to Clinton’s foundation’s tax forms for the years 2009 through 2012, only 15% was spent on programmatic grants, but almost 60 percent, was reported as “other expenses.”

Because of this, Charity Navigator put Clinton’s foundation on its “watch list.”

Donations that foreign governments had given to Clinton’s foundation were used to pay for first class flights for Clinton, even though she was not an employee of the foundation when those flights took place. This is a clear and obvious violation of the Constitution’s prohibition against federal officials accepting money or gifts from foreign governments.

However, Obama still refused to fire Hillary Clinton.

Impeachable Offenses? Illegally And Repeatedly Violates The U.S. Freedom Of Information Act To Dodge Public Scrutiny (10 of 10)

The “most transparent administration in history” has set the record for censoring government files, or outright denying access to them, doing so more than any previous presidency since the passing of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966.

In an article in March 2015, the Associated Press reported:

“The Obama administration set a new record again for more often than ever censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.”

The administration has illegally ignored a Freedom of Information Act request from the ALCU regarding information about airport security.

In March 2015, it was reported that the Obama administration had illegally ignored Freedom of Information requests from the Associated Press regarding information on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Obama administrations even went so far as to exempt itself from Freedom of Information regulations. And this during the same week that was supposed to be a celebration of the Freedom of Information Act!

In a March 2015 article, U.S. News & World Report wrote:

“The Obama administration announced Tuesday it will ditch regulations that subjected large portions of White House correspondence to public records requests, a decision derided by transparency advocates who wryly noted it was issued during a week celebrating open access to government.

The notice exempting the White House’s Office of Administration from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act was contained in Tuesday’s Federal Register, reversing a three-decade-old policy during Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the FOIA law.

Anne Weismann, interim executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), says the step ‘makes mockery of the administration’s commitment to transparency, especially given that it’s Sunshine Week.’”

The White House and it’s administration goes far beyond ignoring Freedom of Information requests in its illegal efforts to avoid public scrutiny or disclosure of information it apparently deems “off limits” to the public.

For example, in February 2013, when Hillary Clinton resigned as Secretary of State, she was required to sign a form OF-109, declaring that she had turned over all work related records, including all work related emails. It is a crime to lie on this form. In March 2015, the Obama administration refused to say whether or not Clinton had signed this form.

And former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder illegally refused to release 1,300 pages of information on Operation Fast and Furious, even after he had been subpoenaed to do so.

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