The good folks at Hillbuzz are asking if Obama could be arrested if the Slaughter Solution is used.

I'm going to set aside the mind bottling fact that we are even discussing this option for a moment and focus on that question. 

While my immediate response is hell yes, it's not that simple.  The issue is whether or not such a signature would be a crime.  I just managed to claw through crim law and have blessedly not done a damn thing with criminal law since then.  Off the top of my head, I can't think of a statutory violation.  A blatant violation of Constitutional requirements isn't actually a crime in the sense of there being a specific statute under which Obama could be charged.  Depending on how the Supremes rule, it may fall under an Honest Services violation.  But beyond that, I'm not sure such a signature would constitute a criminal violation.

There's also a distinction between illegal and criminal.  This is clearly improper and any "law" passed in this fashion would be void ab initio.  Again, that does not equate to criminality.

Now, that's not to say that Obama can't be impeached.  Impeachment proceedings aren't precisely criminal.  My position is that if this occurs, every single Senator, Congressman and Pres. Obama should be thrown out of office instantly for violating their oaths of office.  It's the mechanism of that which is problematic.  Actual arrests are rather horrifying to consider.  But then again, so is the shredding of the Constitution.

So my analysis would be that this isn't a criminal action (and I'm really really not going down the treason road that way lies madness) but it would and should be impeachable.

You know, for all the Left shrieked about Bush shredding the Constitution, I seem to recall that all of those actions were actually voted on and proceeded through Congress in the proper way.  Projection much?

h/t Alice H.

Posted by: alexthechick at 07:34 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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