Guest Editorial

BY LARRY KLAYMAN  |  DECEMBER 31, 2014

The emperor's political Christmas present

Larry Klayman explains latest court action in his suit against Obama amnesty
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larry klaymanThe “emperor in chief,” President Barack Hussein Obama, has struck again. His appointed judge, the Honorable Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued a ruling on the eve of Christmas eve dismissing the lawsuit Freedom Watch and I, on behalf of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, filed against Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the immigration enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This case challenged what even the emperor confessed, over 22 times in the past, would be an unconstitutional grab of power if he unilaterally took executive actions, bypassing Congress’ legislative prerogative, to modify the current immigration laws, which require that illegal aliens generally be deported, rather than be granted what is referred to as “deferred action.”

The professed grounds for Judge Howell’s Christmas present for the emperor: The courts have no say in stepping in to break up what she ruled was simply a political dispute between the executive branch and the legislative branch of government, even if constitutional issues are involved. For good measure, with lots of Yule-time pro-Obama sugar and spice, she added that Sheriff Arpaio could not demonstrate any injury from Obama’s amnesty for over 5 million illegal aliens, many of whom are criminals who wind up back in the sheriff’s jails, since they are not deported, at great expense to the Maricopa County taxpayer. Indeed, this increased strain on his office’s resources is clearly a harm that confers standing on the sheriff to bring suit.

The legal absurdity of Judge Howell’s ruling is self-apparent. But regrettably, it can also be explained by her past political background. For many years, she was a top legal aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, for the last many years the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that is until the new Republican-controlled Congress is sworn in Jan. 6. Sen. Leahy, who is just slightly right of Fidel and Raul Castro, two other “gentlemen” favorites of our emperor, as demonstrated by his recent opening of relations with communist Cuba, is a big backer of open borders and increased immigration. While I like Judge Howell as a person – indeed in a friendly way we traded niceties at the hearing on our motion to preliminarily block Obama’s unconstitutional power grab – she clearly is the product of Leahy’s having lobbied the president to make her a federal judge. And, indeed, this has paid off for Obama, Leahy and their leftist friends, at least for now.

After her ruling, which can be seen at www.freedomwatchusa.org, the White House boasted that the emporer’s new clothes – ones that allow him to flout the Constitution on immigration law despite his Justice Department’s prior advisory rulings and his own past admissions that this would be illegal – are the appropriate fit for the nation. But as the old expression goes, he who laughs last laughs best.

In this regard, within 20 minutes of Judge Howell’s legally bizarre, politically based ruling, I filed an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Early next week, I will seek to accelerate this appeal by filing a motion for expedited review by the D.C. Circuit and also file a petition for writ of certiorari prior to judgment to ask the Supreme Court to permit Sheriff Arpaio and me to “leapfrog” the D.C. Circuit and have the high court decide the constitutional and other related issues. Time is of the essence, I will argue, since by the Obama Justice Department’s own admissions at the hearing held before Judge Howell last Monday, the full force of the emperor’s executive actions effectively granting amnesty for over 5 million illegals will go into effect in February 2015. This needs to be stopped in its tracks before further damage is done to Sheriff Arpaio’s office, the people of Maricopa County, Arizona, and the nation as a whole.

I am confident that we will get an expedited review, either at the D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court level. That is because this case has monumental constitutional implications, ones that resemble the power grab by King George III in the years leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in my native town of Philadelphia, which is where I am privileged to be writing this column today. In these pre-Revolutionary War years, King George III had taken away the colonies’ power to adjudicate the crown’s felonies charges against its American citizens and instead sent them to the biased royal English courts in London. This was one of the prime reasons why our Founding Fathers separated from the crown and pledged their honor, sacred fortunes and lives to found a new nation. In recent years, the current monarch, Emperor Obama, has, like King George III, taken away the powers of the people’s elected representatives and claimed them as his own.

Today, in principle at least, We the People should not have to declare independence and wage a violent revolution to reclaim our God-given rights. Instead, in theory, the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a just judicial system, which was designed to vindicate our rights and protect us against unconstitutional and other illegal acts by the other two branches of government. But while inspired by the Creator, the likes of Washington, Franklin, Adams and Jefferson were not infallible. In later crafting our Constitution, they allowed for federal judges to be appointed by the president, and gave them lifetime tenure. By its very nature, this concept meant that we would have what are in effect “politicians in robes” on the federal bench, and that is apparently what we got with Judge Howell, no matter how nice and personable she is.

As we celebrate this holy season, paying respect and homage to Jesus’ birth and celebrating the New Year, let us pray that in the end, despite the political roots and biases of our federal judiciary, as we pursue our appeals, federal judges will rise above politics, do the right thing and preserve the powers granted to the people under our Constitution. If not, this could provide the final spark for the second American revolution, which given our current state of affairs may be increasingly inevitable in any event. Recent events show that even with its victory in the 2014 elections, the opposition Republican Party remains no more than a fat, neutered elephant and lacks the will and courage to challenge the emperor’s power grabs.

To help Larry Klayman with his class-action suit against Obama’s use of the NSA to violate American’s rights and to read more visit www.wnd.com.