Former Republican Rep. Allen West two days ago called for President Obama’s impeachment over his decision to swap five known terror leaders for a soldier whose behavior is under investigation, arguing Obama apparently violated U.S. law forbidding material aid to terror groups.
Nevertheless, Obama defended his decision Thursday, saying he offered no apologies for releasing five Guantanamo detainees – who had been determined to be too dangerous to be freed – in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been accused of desertion.
West, in a promotion for his political action committee, took aim at Obama’s unapologetic stance.
“Obama and his aides have lost their minds,” he said in an email for the Allen West Guardian Fund.
West’s outrage reverberated throughout his comments.
“One of his aides was quoted as saying the administration believed it had won another ‘kill bin Laden moment’ that would earn them praise,” West said, “Praise?!! Even Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called the released terrorists the ‘hardest and toughest of all’ and ‘wanted war criminals.’
“One is suspected of war crimes including the murders of thousands and another was ‘directly associated’ with Osama bin Laden and was an Afghan drug lord,” West said.
“Consider this – this is Obama is his own words: ‘That’s been true of all the prisoners that were released from Guantanamo. There’s a certain recidivism rate that takes place. Is there a possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us? Absolutely.”
West earlier was among critics saying that dealing with terrorists for Bergdahl was the last straw and that impeachment should be considered.
“I call upon the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives; Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to draft articles of impeachment,” West wrote Tuesday, “as no one is above the law in America.”
West argued Obama signed into law in December the National Defense Authorization Act, which makes it a crime against the nation to offer or provide any material support to terror groups.
The problem was explained by Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, who supported West’s opinion.
“We have a federal statute which makes it a felony to provide material assistance to any terrorist organization. It could be money, maps, professional services, any asset whatsoever, include human assets,” he said.
Napolitano argued it is likely the five terrorist leaders will rejoin the campaign against the United States, which constitutes material support.
Just a day earlier, Andrew McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who brought the evidence that convicted perpetrators of the first Islamic terror bombing of New York’s World Trade Center, said Obama likely broke the federal law against supporting terror.
Transferring the five terrorists to Qatar in exchange for the release of Bergdahl “violates the law against material support to terrorism,” McCarthy told the the Daily Mail of London.
McCarthy was assistant U.S. attorney in New York. He led the 1995 prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and nearly a dozen others charged with the bombing, which failed to bring down the towers but killed six and injured more than a thousand.
West wrote Tuesday that Obama used an Article 2 signing statement to deem unconstitutional a measure he had signed into law contained in the National Defense Authorization Act.
“The law stated that he must advise Congress within 30 days about any plans to transfer detainees from Gitmo,” West wrote. “Obama basically stated that this was ‘unconstitutional’ and that his unilateral action fell within his purview. Once again Obama used selective discretion as to what law he feels he must adhere to — in this case it has severe ramifications for our national security.”
He said the five Guantanamo Bay detainees “were senior Taliban officials, basically members of Mullah Omar’s inner circle.”
“This is aiding and abetting the enemy, which goes along with the collusion of this administration with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations and supplying weapons and arms to Islamists,” West wrote. “Obama just released the leadership of a terrorist organization, and what did we get in return? A deserter, who by his own self-proclamation harbors anti-American sentiments – which it seems that Susan Rice, our esteemed national security adviser, didn’t even realize his heinous actions – or maybe as usual she just lied about it again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that Barack Hussein Obama’s unilateral negotiations with terrorists and the ensuing release of their key leadership without consult – mandated by law – with the U.S. Congress represents high crimes and misdemeanors, an impeachable offense.”
Napolitano said it’s clear Obama did “the very thing that government is prohibited from doing under federal law.”
The action, Napolitano said, “defies” Obama’s oath of office, which is to “faithfully” enforce federal law.
“He may very have committed a federal crime by giving material assistance to a terror organization,” he said.
Impeachment, he said, is “a very, very valid argument.”
Roll Call reported the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee also joined the conversation.
“My perception is he broke the law by not informing Congress 30 days before,” Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., said in an appearance on MSNBC.
“We will be holding hearings. I’m sorry that this is being portrayed as a Republican issue. Democrats also voted for this law. It was important for our national security,” he said.
McKeon noted the law passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of Congress and the president signed it.
“And although he said now he had a disclaimer along with it that he apparently didn’t support the law, he did sign it,” the congressman said.
A book also has made a case for impeaching Obama. “Impeachable Offenses,” by Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott, has been called a blueprint for impeaching Obama, outlining the high crimes, misdemeanors, bribery and other offenses committed against the U.S. Constitution.
The Daily Mail called “Impeachable Offenses” “explosive,” saying the book contains a “systematic connect-the-dots exercise that the president’s defenders will find troublesome.”
Among the offenses enumerated in the book before the Bergdahl deal erupted:
- Obamacare not only is unconstitutional but illegally bypasses Congress, infringes on states’ rights and marking an unprecedented and unauthorized expansion of IRS power.
- Sidestepping Congress, Obama already has granted largely unreported de facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens using illicit interagency directives and executive orders.
- The Obama administration recklessly endangered the public by releasing from prison criminal illegal aliens at a rate far beyond what is publicly known.
- Illicit edicts on gun control in addition to the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation intended, the book shows, to collect fraudulent gun data.
- And more.
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