House Judiciary Chair Goodlatte Dismisses Calls for Obama Impeachment
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Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call(NEW YORK) — House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, said Sunday on This Week that he won’t push for the impeachment of President Obama, despite recent calls by some Republicans.
“We are not working on or drawing up articles of impeachment,” Goodlatte told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday. “The Constitution is very clear as to what constitutes grounds for impeachment of the President of the United States. He has not committed the kind of criminal acts that call for that.”
Other Republicans, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, have rallied for impeachment charges against Obama. In a recent column published on Breitbart.com, Palin wrote “It’s time to impeach…The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored.”
While Goodlatte said Sunday morning that he won’t pursue impeachment, he did express support for House Speaker John Boehner’s efforts to sue Obama for overstepping presidential authority through his use of executive orders to modify aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
We do believe that the president is not enforcing the law,” Goodlatte said. “And that’s why [Speaker Boehner] and many of us in the Congress are getting ready to take legal action to stand up for the people’s right for their elected representatives to be the part of our government that passes laws, not a president with his pen and his cellphone.”
In his weekly address, Obama called the lawsuit against him “a political stunt that’s going to waste months of America’s time.”
Although Goodlatte stopped short of calling for Obama’s impeachment, he did criticize the President’s handling of the escalating border crisis in the U.S. and his recent request for $3.7 billion in emergency assistance.
“Yes, we should do targeted appropriations where it’s needed to make sure that we are able to detain people and send them back to their countries,” Goodlatte said. “But there is an awful lot that the president can do right now without any action on the part of the Congress. ”
Goodlatte suggested that President Obama should act to stop the flow of illegal immigration from Central America, saying he should “make it very clear that people who illegally enter the United States are going to be sent home.”
“This matter can be addressed if the president will exercise leadership and stop not enforcing the law. He doesn’t enforce law,” Goodlatte told Stephanopoulos. “He’s releasing criminal aliens back onto our streets that have been detained rather than making sure that they get sent back to their home countries.”
President Obama described the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border as a “humanitarian crisis” during a recent exclusive interview with Stephanopoulos.
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