One of the things that was most stunning about the Biden bunch’s new eviction moratorium order is how Joe Biden basically admitted that it was likely unconstitutional but that he was going to do it anyway — knowing it was illegal — because it would buy him time.
Now, often Democrats don’t seem to understand or care about the rule of law. But to be so blatant about it when Biden swore an oath to uphold the Constitution is incredibly brazen.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley had a few things to say about Biden’s move and he wasn’t shy about it.
First, Turley said he was mystified by the Supreme Court decision in June and why they didn’t declare it unconstitutional then since the amorality made clear that they thought it was unconstitutional. But Kavanaugh ruled with the liberal majority to preserve the moratorium because it was about to expire anyway “It was a decision decoupled from the merits. The unconstitutionality of the law was treated as simply inconvenient or irrelevant given the expiration.”
Then he took on Biden, chastising Biden for his remarks. “The bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster…But there are several key scholars who think that it may and it’s worth the effort,” Biden said. Turley said given the liberal nature of law schools, the fact that most still declared this wasn’t constitutional said a lot, and that Biden still went against that, and still went against his obligation to uphold the Constitution.
Biden admitted that "the bulk" of the constitutional experts consulted said that extending the moratorium would be unconstitutional. Yet, he indicated that he would still like to pursue it due to a couple of scholars encouraging him.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 3, 2021
…What was astonishing is that Biden acknowledged that it is still likely unconstitutional but that they could tie it up in courts to get the money out in the interim…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 3, 2021
Biden said the quiet part out loud, according to Turley.
…That line would be at the start of filings in federal court to impose an injunction on the program. The President expressly acknowledged that they would seek a likely unconstitutional program hoping to get money out the door before the court killed the program.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 3, 2021
…President Biden took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to violate it when he can use the delay in any final order to get the money out the door. In so doing, he is admitting that he would be spending federal money without constitutional authority.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 3, 2021
Indeed. Turley is exactly right that Biden is completely blowing off his obligation and doing it blatantly, even declaring it as he does it. As I previously explained, not only did Biden disregard the Supreme Court decision, he disregarded his team’s statements from just the day before saying that they quadruple-checked the legality but weren’t able to justify the eviction moratorium legally.
So much for the rule of law.
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