WASHINGTON, August 2 (RIA Novosti) – It is unlikely that US President Barack Obama will be impeached, Fred Thompson, former Tennessee senator said.
“No party is going to give you, in any foreseeable future, two-thirds of a Senate vote to impeach a president of their party. It doesn’t matter what he does. It doesn’t matter what the facts are,” said Thompson, who started his career as a minority legal counsel to Republican senators during the Watergate hearings.
“One of the things I came away with is how much it took during the Watergate days to get Nixon on the verge of impeachment,” former senator said, adding that he thinks “impeachment is more difficult today.”
The possibility of President Barack Obama being impeached was addressed at an American Enterprise Institute panel discussion Friday on Watergate and the 40th Anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Discussion of Obama’s impeachment has been raised by Democrats and Republicans alike as the 2014 mid-term election comes closer. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner filed a lawsuit against Obama for altering elements of the Affordable Care Act after it had been passed by Congress, arguing that the President failed to “faithfully execute the laws.” On Wednesday, the House approved the filing of the lawsuit strictly on party lines.
“I think, number one, the Republican House will not vote to impeach President Obama,” said Michael Barone, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a conservative commentator.
“There is an intellectually serious case that this president is refusing to fulfill his constitutional duty,” he continued. “The Founders put into the phrase in the Constitution, the President shall faithfully execute the law not just as a sort of recommendation or suggestion. They did it for sound historical reasons.”
Former Senator Thompson cited the famous work by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The Imperial Presidency,” where Schlesinger made charges against Nixon that some critics have made against Obama. He cited the unilateral abolition of statutory programs, appropriation of war-making power, failure to consult Congress, and suspending legislation by executive order.
“The fact that we’re not, nobody is seriously talking about [impeachment], just goes to show you nowadays how high the bar is,” Thompson concluded.
