North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones lamented that many of his Republican colleagues in Congress outright flee the idea of impeaching President Obama — that the Founding Fathers put the safeguard in the Constitution for a reason and that simply weighing the option is only doing due diligence.
And in the case of Mr. Obama and his runaway executive orders, the option of impeachment is definitely a worthy debate to hold, he said during an interview on Newsmax TV.
“I have been saying down in my district — whenever you reward someone that’s committed a crime, then you as that individual, if there’s an impeachment, which was authorized by those who developed the Constitution — then that’s what you should consider,” Mr. Jones said, BuzzFeed also reported.
Mr. Jones expressed frustration that few in the House would even talk about the I-word, impeachment.
“You know, but nobody wants to talk even about impeachment,” he said, Newsmax reported. “And I don’t want that as an option except [for] this reason: Why in the world are we going to spend millions and millions of the taxpayers’ dollars going to the federal courts to challenge president Obama on this [immigration executive order] decision and have it thrown out of courts? Here we go against as a nation — can’t pay our bills — we’re going to go to court and play a little political theater?”
Mr. Jones said such a show would “make everybody feel good,” but then the courts would simply kick the case out, Newsmax reported.
He added, somewhat sarcastically: “Use what the Constitution says — but no, we won’t do that,” Newsmax said.
“[There are] probably no more than 20, and probably more like 12 or 14,” who serve in the House and are open to discussing impeachment, he said.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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