Back in June, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) talked to Janet Mefferd about President Obama’s decision against deporting undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, which naturally angered the notoriously anti-immigrant congressman. King agreed with Mefferd that the announcement was made for political purposes, arguing that Obama wants to “get a political benefit from the destruction that he is doing to the Constitution of the United States.”
He went on to claim that Obama has “really damaged” the reputation of the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as a professor, and also insisted that Obama is breaking his presidential oath of office. “This oath means nothing to him; the Constitution is an impediment to him,” King said, “I have hit the limit of my patience with trying to work my way towards an election and hopefully we will elect ourselves a new president.”
Days after the interview, the Supreme Court appeared to approve of the government’s ability to use “discretion in the enforcement of immigration law” in their ruling that overturned parts of Arizona’s SB 1070.
Mefferd: Now he’s doing it as a re-election strategy, do you think that that is the motivation for this?
King: I think it is and the timing of it would suggest that. The president is scheduled to give a speech today before the Hispanic leaders that are gathered together at the national level, the same group that Mitt Romney spoke to here a couple days ago. It seems to me that the timing of this is to be ahead of that speech so that he can get a political benefit from the destruction that he is doing to the Constitution of the United States. You know, this president taught constitutional law as an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago, one of the top five most respected law schools in the country year after year after year, and he has really damaged their reputation.
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King: It’s almost as if there is a team there in the White House that keeps track of everything the president says and whatever he gives his word on they have to set about breaking his word. The president has broken his own word so many times that it is hardly even a subject anymore. But it isn’t just the president’s word, this is his oath of office, ‘I do solemnly swear to the best of my ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States so help me God.’ That’s what he said. And in the Constitution, just shortly behind that oath, is the requirement that he, meaning the president, ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ and he is doing the exact opposite. This oath means nothing to him; the Constitution is an impediment to him. I have hit the limit of my patience with trying to work my way towards an election and hopefully we will elect ourselves a new president and get a new executive branch of government, this is a place where we have to draw a bright line.
