A U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania, Rep. Lou Barletta (R), said there may be enough votes to impeach Barack Obama. As reported by the Republican Herald of Pottsville, Barletta said on WSBA’s “The Gary Sutton Show” on radio (audio below) that while he personally may not favor the House’s moving forward with articles of impeachment, there are likely more than enough votes.
I was actually dismissing the idea for those who [say] … ‘Why don’t we do something, why don’t impeach the president?’
Yet Barletta also stated that if the majority of the American didn’t support the move, then neither would he.
And I ran through the litany of the process, could it pass the House? Maybe, probably. Would it be accepted by the American people? Probably not. I wasn’t proposing it and I’m not advocating it.
Barletta rattled off a litany of what he believes to be legitimate charges that could effectively be levied against the Chief Executive. These include Obama’s having “violated the Constitution by repeatedly extending deadlines for individuals and businesses to comply with the Affordable Care Act…. ‘Once it was passed by Congress, it was a law and only Congress can change the law.'” He also hammered Obama for failing to give the mandatory 30-day notification to Congress prior to “the exchange of Taliban-held prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban members held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay.” Barletta also claimed that Obama doesn’t have the constitutional authority to waive the law on illegal immigration for children under 16. If and when impeachment passes the House of Representatives, it would then be the responsibility of the Senate to convict, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding. Inside the Beltway, the smart money has the GOP remaining in a holding pattern on articles of impeachment until after the 2014 elections, when the Republicans have a good chance of taking the majority in the Senate.
