— by Odysseus
During the last few weeks of June, 2014, we have witnessed the lengths to which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will go to shield the administration of President Barack Obama and high-ranking IRS official Lois Lerner from public exposure that the IRS was used to target the conservative political opponents of President Obama. Their claims of the “loss” of not only all of Ms. Lerner’s e-mail correspondence, but, “coincidentally”, the loss of all of the long-term, emergency computer back-up of only her e-mail and only for the time period that the House of Representatives’ Oversight and Government Reform Committee needs to investigate the corruption was blatantly deceptive and arrogant.
The IRS’ deception and arrogance echoes the same behavior exhibited by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Explosives (BATFE) and the Arizona Department of Justice in the “Fast and Furious” gun smuggling scandal. And the investigation of the State Department’s disinformation campaign about what happened at the Benghazi Embassy on September 11, 2012. And the overstated claims of the National Security Agency (NSA) to the legality of its pervasive warrantless bulk wiretapping of United States citizens.
While the national info-tainment industry, including conservative news sources, focus on these four scandals as the product of the lawlessness of the Obama administration, the danger is far deeper and broader than merely a president who chooses to act like a third world dictator. It has revealed a bureaucracy that is willing to comply with the wishes of a third world dictator. This willingness alone poses a clear and present danger to our republic, and it is a danger that has not been noted or remarked upon at all by the media.
A corrupt American president can desire to do many things which go against the principles of this nation. He may try to go outside the limits of his constitutional powers and to corruptly use the power of the state to target his political opponents. However, he cannot do it alone. He needs accomplices and he needs a bureaucracy willing to follow his unlawful orders.
It appears that we have reached a point in the history of the United States where enough of our technocrats are so arrogant that they perceive themselves to be above the law. And why not? Successive administrations and Congresses have, over the last 60 years, ceded so much power and authority to them that it is easy to be confused about whether the governmental agency is the implementer of the law or the has become the law itself.
In the recent United States Supreme Court ruling in the Abramski case, administrative law has taken on the power of actual statutes passed by Congress and made into law by the presidential signature. Citizens can be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for violation of administrative rules that were never voted on by any legislature and that were never signed into law by any executive.
In Abramski, a lawful gun purchaser purchased a gun for a friend of his, someone who would also be a lawful owner. The BATFE prohibits “straw purchases” where a lawful gun purchaser purchases a gun for another person who is a criminal or an unlawful gun possessor. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority of the Court, noted that the concept of a “straw purchase” of a firearm is a “doctrine” created by the BATFE and the courts, rather than a “crime” enacted by Congress. However, she gave this “doctrine” the same power as an actual law. Justice Kagan’s 5-4 opinion states that the statute must be interpreted to convict Abramski, not because of the words Congress wrote in the statute, but because she perceives that not allowing the BATFE’s self-generated regulation to be treated as law would “frustrate the policy of the Gun Control Act of 1968“.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion explains that the best indication of what Congress’ policies are in the words of the statute passed into law and not in a self-generated regulation that was written by an unelected panel in the heart of some bureaucratic agency. Justice Scalia noted that, here, what Abramski did was not a crime.
The actual 1968 Gun Control Act never uses the term “actual buyer, but, rather, the statute refers to the “transferee” who is the person physically present and standing in the gun store. Federal law only prohibits transferring a gun to someone the transferee knows or has reason to believe is not eligible to possess it. Federal law does not prohibit an eligible person from buying a gun simply because he may later transfer it to another person legally eligible to possess it. However, the BATFE successfully convinced a majority of the Supreme Court that it did. Thus, it was not up to the BATFE or to the Supreme Court to write or rewrite a statute to incorporate a BATFE regulation.
Abramski is now a convicted criminal who will never again be able to legally touch a gun for violating a rule that was neither written by an elected representative nor signed into law by an elected executive officer. The Abramski ruling has implications far beyond merely the “gun” issue because, by implication, it empowers the vast number of federal government agencies, bureaus, administrations, departments and offices to write their own rules and regulations with the force of federal law. The United States is not in any way a republic, but is literally a “dictatorship” when rules and regulations promulgated by “diktat” enjoy the full force of law, up to and including imprisonment and the permanent loss of rights due to being a convicted felon.
This is no small academic point. This issue goes to the very heart of our representative government. If our elected representatives in Congress do not begin to act and quickly, our Republic is done for.
In light of the utter disregard and contempt for civilian elected authority which was repeatedly shown by the bureaucrats at the IRS, the Department of Justice, the BATFE, and the State Department during the last several years and even during the last several weeks, they clearly see themselves as untouchable and above the law. By diffusing responsibility and making “everyone in the bureaucracy to blame”, they make it so no one has to accept any blame, and so they can continue to write and enforce their own laws as they see fit, and remain unaccountable to any citizen or citizens representative.
While some of our Congress Representatives may appear to be angry, frustrated, indignant or incensed by the situation, they take no action to stop the corrupt practices of these bureaucratic accomplices to effectuate the Chief Executive’s extra-legal desires. A corrupt banana republic dictator can only implement his extra-legal objectives with the cooperation of a bureaucracy that is willing to comply with his illegal desires and is also inclined to illegally cover-up for him. For so many reasons, from State Department in Benghazi to the NSA, from the IRS to the BATFE, it is time, after 60 years of laxity, that the bureaucracy be brought to heel and shown that it is merely the implementer of the laws written by Congress, not the drafters of laws, the unthinking instruments of the Chief Executive or the embodiment of the law itself.
When the IRS shows such contempt for Congress as to destroy evidence, boldly lie, and to protect its own corrupt personnel from justice, it is Congress’ duty to act. When the State Department lies to the public about a YouTube video being the reason for the sacking of the American embassy in Libya and the murder of an ambassador, is caught in the silliness of the lie, and then continues to try to cover up or hide evidence from congressional inquiry, it is Congress’ duty to rein in this rogue Department. When the NSA goes before federal courts and Congress to argue that it has authority that exceeds the United States Constitution and its requirements that no search may be done without a lawful warrant, it is time for Congress to fulfill its own constitutional duty to defend the Constitution itself and even defend its own constitutional role as the actual writer of the laws.
The national media’s focus on President Obama here is a distraction. While there may not be sufficient political will in Congress to impeach this rogue president, it is not necessary for Congress to impeach him in order to rein in this lawless behavior by his rogue bureaucracy. It is the bureaucracy that must be taught that it must obey a higher law than merely the will of a transient executive. When these agencies refuse to comply or cooperate with Congress,which is fulfilling its own constitutional authority to oversee their operations, that agency itself must be stopped until and unless it comes into compliance. Any agency that willfully fails to cooperate or is thought to be frustrating or obfuscating congressional investigation should be cut off from funding.
The United States House of Representatives was given the power of the purse strings, the budgetary power, by our Constitution for a reason. If a part of the bureaucracy has gone rogue, it should have its budget zeroed out. Congress should shut them down. Congress should not pay their salaries, purchase equipment for them, or pay their utility bills. If the executive branch bureaucrats believe that they are only answerable to the executive branch, they should be harshly reminded by Congress of their full duties and where their legislated authority actually comes from by Congress completely shutting them down until they respect all of their duties and not just those they agree with. When Lois Lerner’s underlings and co-workers find themselves without a paycheck, it will be remarkable how quickly her missing e-mails will be found.
The bureaucracy must be tamed by Congress or the United States is a dictatorship and not a representative government. The bureaucrats must be answerable to the People’s representatives in Congress or else they are answerable to no one.
