Tag: High Crimes

John R. Houk

© June 15, 2014

In a recent Conservative Campaign Committee (CCC) fundraising email I discovered even more SMOKING GUN evidence that the entirety of the Obama Administration conspired to lie about the Benghazi attack to American voters for political reasons. The CCC email doesn’t harp on the political reasons as I think it should. You have to realize the political reasons were to ensure the reelection of Comrade Obama as the President of the United States of America in November 2012. The Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack on the diplomatic annex was a planned attack on September 11, 2012. Obama tried to make that attack appear to voters that the Islamic terrorist attack in Benghazi was a spontaneous motivated riot due to a sophomoric made Youtube video produced in America that was designed to be provocatively racist against Islam.

If you have ever gotten to see what is billed as a Youtube trailer before it was yanked you know the video is so poorly made that it is almost humorous. Unfortunately Free Speech in Islam’s Sharia Law is blasphemous so it is true Muslims were offended. SO WHAT! The Obama Administration has forced American Christians to participate in so many offensive measures from killing unborn lives (taxpayer supported abortions), forcing Christian Hospitals to perform abortions on demand, to force businesses owned by Christians to cater to the service needs of homosexuals even though that lifestyle is an oft repeated abomination to the Presence of God in the Holy Bible and more.

Christian Rights are vacated in the name multicultural acceptance. Christians are forced to absorb the mirth of atheistic Leftists and abortionists, Muslims spewing hate toward Christians (See Also HERE), homosexuals spewing hate toward Biblical Christians and more.

AND YET when a Christian or Counterjihad writer exposes what the actual Quran, Hadith and Sira of Islam do proclaim, it is called hate-speech or bigoted Islamophobia! (See Also HERE and HERE)

I have no doubts that the Obama Administration tried to both assuage Muslims and fool American voters that his Presidency is totally supportive of a Muslim’s right to go crazy due to multicultural deference.

Is lying to voters to gain an election victory a crime in the USA?

This is not just executive overreach. In many cases, Obama’s exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups. His executive branch is guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Benghazi and in the Fast and Furious scandal, and bribery in its allocation of waivers in Obamacare and tax dollars in its stimulus spending. His administration is guilty of obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

 

And yet nothing is done. (Prosecute the President; By Ben Shapiro; FrontPage Mag; 6/12/14)

That excerpt above lists only a fraction of the legal infractions committed either by President Obama’s direction and/or Obama’s Executive Branch. And there is no criminal investigations! Why?

PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY FROM JUDICIAL DIRECTION

 

By the decision of the Court in Mississippi v. Johnson,720 in 1867, the President was placed beyond the reach of judicial direction, either affirmative or restraining, in the exercise of his powers, whether constitutional or statutory, political or otherwise, save perhaps for what must be a small class of powers that are purely ministerial.721 An application for an injunction to forbid President Johnson to enforce the Reconstruction Acts, on the ground of their unconstitutionality, was answered by Attorney General Stanberg, who argued, inter alia, the absolute immunity of the President from judicial process.722 The Court refused to permit the filing, using language construable as meaning that the President was not reachable by judicial process but which more fully paraded the horrible consequences were the Court to act. First noting the limited meaning of the term “ministerial,” the Court observed that “[v]ery different is the duty of the President in the exercise of the power to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and among these laws the acts named in the bill. . . . The duty thus imposed on the President is in no just sense ministerial. It is purely executive and political.

 

“An attempt on the part of the judicial department of the government to enforce the performance of such duties by the President might be justly characterized, in the language of Chief Justice Marshall, as ‘an absurd and excessive extravagance.’

 

…

 

Rare has been the opportunity for the Court to elucidate its opinion in Mississippi v. Johnson, and, in the Watergate tapes case,724 it held the President amenable to subpoena to produce evidence for use in a criminal case without dealing, except obliquely,[p.580]with its prior opinion. The President’s counsel had argued the President was immune to judicial process, claiming “that the independence of the Executive Branch within its own sphere . . . insulates a President from a judicial subpoena in an ongoing criminal prosecution, and thereby protects confidential Presidential communications.”725 However, the Court held, “neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high–level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.”726 The primary constitutional duty of the courts “to do justice in criminal prosecutions” was a critical counterbalance to the claim of presidential immunity and to accept the President’s argument would disturb the separation–of–powers function of achieving “a workable government” as well as “gravely impair the role of the courts under Art. III.”727

 

Present throughout the Watergate crisis, and unresolved by it, was the question of the amenability of the President to criminal prosecution prior to conviction upon impeachment.728 It was argued that the impeachment clause necessarily required indictment and trial in a criminal proceeding to follow a successful impeachment and that a President in any event was uniquely immune from indictment, and these arguments were advanced as one ground to deny enforcement of the subpoenas running to the President.729 Assertion of the same argument by Vice President Agnew was controverted by the Government, through the Solicitor General, but, as to the President, it was argued that for a number of constitutional [p.581]and practical reasons he was not subject to ordinary criminal process.730

 

Finally, most recently, the Court has definitively resolved one of the intertwined issues of presidential accountability. The President is absolutely immune in actions for civil damages for all acts within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties.731 The Court’s close decision was premised on the President’s “unique position in the constitutional scheme,” that is, it was derived from the Court’s inquiry of a “kind of ‘public policy’ analysis” of the “policies and principles that may be considered implicit in the nature of the President’s office in a system structured to achieve effective government under a constitutionally mandated separation of powers.”732 … Although the Court relied in part upon its previous practice of finding immunity for officers, such as judges, as to whom the Constitution is silent, although a long common–law history exists, and in part upon historical evidence, which it admitted was fragmentary and ambiguous,734 the Court’s principal focus was upon the fact that the President was distinguishable from all other executive officials. He is charged with a long list of “supervisory and policy responsibilities of utmost discretion and sensitivity,”735 and diversion of his energies by concerns with private lawsuits would “raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.”736 …

 

Supplement: [P. 582, add to text following n.738:]

 

Unofficial Conduct.—In Clinton v. Jones,9 the Court, in a case of first impression, held that the President did not have qualified immunity from suit for conduct alleged to have taken place prior to his election to the Presidency, which would entitle him to delay of both the trial and discovery. The Court held that its precedents affording the President immunity from suit for his official conduct—primarily on the basis that he should be enabled to perform his duties effectively without fear that a particular decision might give rise to personal liability— were inapplicable in this kind of case. Moreover, the separation–of–powers doctrine did not require a stay of all private actions against the President. Separation of powers is preserved by guarding against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one of the coequal branches of the Government at the expense of another. However, a federal trial court tending to a civil suit in which the President is a party performs only its judicial function, not a function of another branch. No decision by a trial court could curtail the scope of the President’s powers. The trial court, the Supreme Court observed, had sufficient powers to accommodate the President’s schedule and his workload, so as not to impede the President’s performance of his duties. Finally, the Court stated its belief that allowing such suits to proceed would not generate a large volume of politically motivated harassing and frivolous litigation. Congress has the power, the Court advised, if it should think necessary to legislate, to afford the President protection.10 (CRS ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION: Article II — Table of Contents; From Cornel University Law School, Legal information Institute)

Sifting through the legalese I am assuming that means the POTUS cannot be prosecuted for a crime but can be subject to a civil suit as long as it does not interfere with his Executive Branch duties. After his term of Office has expired then he may be subject to criminal proceedings. This is the unofficial reason President Gerald Ford gave President Richard Milhous Nixon a full pardon from any crimes committed while in Office. A sitting President that breaks the law can receive the equivalent of a political indictment called impeachment in the House of Representatives. The Senate acts as the equivalent of a political jury with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as Judge. A Senate conviction ONLY means a removal from Office. Then criminal proceedings can be executed judicially.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

 

The U.S. Constitution provides impeachment as the method for removing the president, vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office. The impeachment process begins in the House of Representatives and follows these steps:

 

1.      The House Judiciary Committee holds hearings and, if necessary, prepares articles of impeachment. These are the charges against the official.

 

2.      If a majority of the committee votes to approve the articles, the whole House debates and votes on them.

 

3.      If a majority of the House votes to impeach the official on any article, then the official must then stand trial in the Senate.

 

4.      For the official to be removed from office, two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict the official. Upon conviction, the official is automatically removed from office and, if the Senate so decides, may be forbidden from holding governmental office again.

 

 

The impeachment process is political in nature, not criminal. Congress has no power to impose criminal penalties on impeached officials. But criminal courts may try and punish officials if they have committed crimes.

 

The Constitution sets specific grounds for impeachment. They are “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” To be impeached and removed from office, the House and Senate must find that the official committed one of these acts.

 

The Constitution defines treason in Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1:

 

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

 

The Constitution does not define bribery. It is a crime that has long existed in English and American common law. It takes place when a person gives an official money or gifts to influence the official’s behavior in office. For example, if defendant Smith pays federal Judge Jones $10,000 to find Smith not guilty, the crime of bribery has occurred.

 

…

 

What are “high crimes and misdemeanors”? On first hearing this phrase, many people probably think that it is just an 18th century way of saying “felonies and misdemeanors.” Felonies are major crimes and misdemeanors are lesser crimes. If this interpretation were correct, “high crimes and misdemeanors” would simply mean any crime. But this interpretation is mistaken.

 

The Origins of the Phrase

 

…

 

But the committee’s recommendation did not satisfy everyone. George Mason of Virginia proposed adding “maladministration.” He thought that treason and bribery did not cover all the harm that a president might do. He pointed to the English case of Warren Hastings, whose impeachment trial was then being heard in London. Hastings, the first Governor General of Bengal in India, was accused of corruption and treating the Indian people brutally.

 

Madison objected to “maladministration.” He thought this term was so vague that it would threaten the separation of powers. Congress could remove any president it disagreed with on grounds of “maladministration.” This would give Congress complete power over the executive.

 

Mason abandoned “maladministration” and proposed “high crimes and misdemeanors against the state.” The convention adopted Mason’s proposal, but dropped “against the state.” The final version, which appears in the Constitution, stated: “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.”

 

The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. …

 

After the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution had to be ratified by the states. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of essays, known as the Federalist Papers, urging support of the Constitution. In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton explained impeachment. He defined impeachable offenses as “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

 

… (High Crimes and Misdemeanors; From Constitutional Rights Foundation; © 2014 CRF-USA)

Finding a crime directly linked to a sitting POTUS is difficult for justice to be maintained. President Barack Hussein Obama has pushed the criminal envelope to the limits and appears near untouchable because of the blathering love of most of America’s media and the love of political power by the most Left Wing Democratic Party in American history. I am surprised the numerous “phony scandals” has not produced links to actual murder in the name of political power. Thank God so far, that extant of nefarious scandalous illegalities has not come up pertaining to President BHO.  

The CCC email I referenced at the beginning of these thoughts exposes the fact that the Islamic terrorists that attacked Libyan Embassy annex in Benghazi had acquired stolen “State Department-issued cell phones from our U.S. diplomatic facility”. The Islamic terrorists utilized these phones to coordinate their attack on the annex mission that resulted in the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The implication of the CCC email is that America’s Intelligence Community was listening to the Islamic attack coordination! This is another nail in the coffin of lies that exposes Obama and his Administration KNOWINGLY LYING to the American public just prior to the November 2012 election!

This is a ton of political evidence to bring Obama to an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. BUT just like the Democrats in the Senate protected President Slick Willie Clinton from a Senate conviction, the same scenario would undoubtedly take place today in the Senate. EVEN if the GOP retakes the majority in the Senate there will be enough Democrats to ensure that a TWO-THIRDS majority would not be achieved to convict Obama and remove the most corrupt President from Office.

That leaves the only way for Obama to receive some justice for his criminal management of this Administration will be via the Civil Suit and/or criminal charges AFTER his term of Office ends in January 2017. AND there is a good chance Obama would escape that post-Presidential justice if a Democrat actually wins the 2016 election for President. Do you think someone like Hillary Clinton will allow civil or criminal discovery of Obama Administration law breaking to go on the public record? NO! A President Hillary would take a page out of the Republican playbook and give Obama a blanket full pardon preventing any kind of investigation from proceeding with the power of the independent Judicial Branch.

KNOWING these potential unjustified outcomes I say proceed with House impeachment proceedings at least after the 2014 election cycle to get something on the public record. Public revelations will make it more difficult for Hillary to become President and at the very least allow public opinion to force the Judicial Branch into action civilly or criminally.

JRH 6/15/14

Please Support NCCR

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New Benghazi Scandal Revelations

From: Office of CCC PAC

Sent: 6/14/2014 3:35 PM

Fox News has a stunning new report that shows that the Benghazi terrorists stole the State Department-issued cell phones from our U.S. diplomatic facility that they had attacked – and they used the phones to coordinate their attack with fellow terrorists.

But the most shocking aspect of the new report is that American intelligence agencies were listening in to the calls – and KNEW instantly that the attack on our compound in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

These stunning new reports are further proof that the Obama administration lied to us about the Benghazi attacks, and then tried to cover up the fact that it was indeed a terrorist attack, and not a political rally in response to a YouTube video.

Please review our TV ad below demanding that Barack Obama be held accountable for the Benghazi cover up, and if you want us to keep the pressure on the Obama administration for this scandal, make a contribution to our TV ad campaign – HERE.

VIDEO: TV Ad: Hold Obama Accountable for Benghazi Scandal

You can help us keep these ads running on the airwaves by making a contribution of any amount from as little as $5 up to the maximum allowed contribution of $5,000. 

To make a contribution online – JUST CLICK HERE.

Ever since the Benghazi terrorist attack the Obama administration, with significant backing from the liberal media, have attempted to hide the truth about what happened.  To cover their failures in combating terrorism, they told lies saying it was not a preplanned terrorist attack, even when they knew that to be an absolute falsehood.

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and countless members of the Obama administration have lied, concealed and attempted to cover up not only the truth but their failures.  As has been his pattern of appeasement in the face of Islamic terrorism, Obama himself would not even call this an act of terrorism.

Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said it didn’t matter whether Benghazi was a terrorist attack or whether she and the Obama administration had lied about it.

The Obama administration has dishonored those who lost their lives on that fateful night of September 11, 2012 and now they say it doesn’t matter because it happened “a long time ago.”

It’s time to hold the Obama administration accountable for their misdeeds.

We know the media will try to whitewash the seriousness of this issue.  We need to get the truth out as soon as possible, so please make a contribution to our TV ad campaign that holds Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton accountable – CONTRIBUTE HERE.

Again, you can contribute any amount from as little as $5 up to the maximum allowed amount of $5,000.

You can also make a contribution online here:

Conservative Campaign Committee
ATTN:  Benghazi Ad Campaign

P.O. Box 1585

Sacramento, CA 95812

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The House should Investigate and Subpoena Obama Administration to the Hilt

John R. Houk

© June 15, 2014

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New Benghazi Scandal Revelations

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