“No Kidding! No Joke!” Liberals Call on Biden to Commit Unconstitutional Acts in his Final Days

With the end of the Biden Administration in sight, liberal pundits seem to be striving to prove that the only difference between a lawbreaker and a law-abiding citizen is the ability to get away with the crime. Popular figures on the left from Michael Moore to Keith Olbermann are calling on President Joe Biden to commit overtly unlawful acts in his final 100 days in office, including targeting his political opponents. In one of the few statements of Moore with which I agree, he stated that this is “no joke.” It certainly is not.

It is the same logic used by looters that they have a license for illegality. However, this constitutional looting would endanger not just the Constitution but the country as a whole if Biden were to heed this advice.

In a posting on Substack, Moore told Biden that it was time to yield to temptation and check off a liberal 13-item “bucket list” of demands, tossing aside questions of legality or constitutionality in the process.

“You’re not done. You’ve still got 100 days left in office! And the Supreme Court has just granted you super powers — AND immunity! You don’t answer to anyone. For the first time in over 50 years, you don’t have to campaign for anything…“You have full immunity! No kidding! No joke! That’s not hyperbole! You can get away with anything! And what if anything means everything to the people?”

The list includes emptying death row, canceling all student and medical debt, halting weapons shipments to Israel, ending the death penalty, declaring the Equal Rights Amendment a constitutional amendment, and granting clemency to nonviolent drug offenders.

Other pundits have pushed Biden and Democrats to take some of the actions on Moore’s list before the end of the administration.

Many of these items could only be fulfilled by knowingly gutting the Constitution and assuming the powers of a monarch. That includes just canceling all student and medical debt in defiance of both the courts and Congress.

As discussed in my most recent column, others have added to that bucket list.

Take Olbermann who, while insisting that he is fighting to “save democracy,” has called upon Biden to target political opponents like Elon Musk with deportation: “If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity. Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”

These calls come in the midst of a counter-constitutional movement led by law professors. Moreover, the disregard for such legal authority has been voiced by liberal academics like Harvard Professor Lawrence Tribe. Indeed, his past “just do it” approach was not dissimilar in advice to Biden.

For example, the Biden administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Biden admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him the move was unconstitutional. But he ignored their advice and went with that of Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe, the one person who would tell him what he wanted to hear. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.

The false premise of the recent calls is that the Court removed all limits on the presidency in its recent ruling on presidential immunity. The fact that law professors are repeating this clearly erroneous claim is a measure of the triumph of rage over reason today.

As I have previously written, I am not someone who has favored expansive presidential powers. As a Madisonian scholar, I favor Congress in most disputes with presidents. However, I saw good-faith arguments on both sides of this case and the Court adopted a middle road on immunity — rejecting the extreme positions of both the Trump team and the lower court.

As I previously wrote, the Court followed a familiar approach:

The Court found that there was absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions.

The Court has often adopted tiered approaches in balancing the powers of the branches. For example, in his famous concurrence to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), Justice Robert Jackson broke down the line of authority between Congress and the White House into three groups where the President is acting with express or implied authority from Congress; where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area); and where the President is acting in defiance of Congress.

The Court separated cases into actions taken in core areas of executive authority, official actions taken outside those core areas, and unofficial actions. Actions deemed personal or unofficial are not protected under this ruling.

It is certainly true that the case affords considerable immunity, including for conversations with subordinates. However, as Chief Justice John Roberts lays out in the majority opinion, there has long been robust protections afforded to presidents.

There are also a host of checks and balances on executive authority in our constitutional system. This includes judicial intervention to prevent violations of the law as well as impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors.

What is interesting is not just what is stated but implied. Courts would quickly enjoin such efforts, but figures like Moore suggest that it would not matter. If so, Biden would not only flagrantly violate the Constitution, but then defy the authority of the federal courts. That includes unilaterally declaring an unratified amendment as ratified based on a meritless claim by the far left.

So President Biden would violate the Constitution, refuse to yield to the courts, and pursue his “bucket list” of priorities without any legal restraints. All would be done in defense of democracy. It shows how the line between tyranny and democracy can be lost in an age of rage.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

207 thoughts on ““No Kidding! No Joke!” Liberals Call on Biden to Commit Unconstitutional Acts in his Final Days”

Of Michael Moore’s 13 propositions, five are pardons or commutations, well within constitutional presidential auctoritas. Propositions 4, 5, 6, and 7 are also within the president’s constitutional auctoritas over international relations and the military. Four propositions (1, 2, 3, and 12) are more legislative and not in the president’s constitutional auctoritas. It would not be a criminal act for the president to sign executive orders to those effects but all should rightly be nullified by the coequal legislative and judicial parts.

Anonymous says:

October 18, 2024 at 8:27 PM

using an archaic word to try and impress, you sound pompously and fake-ly ignorant.

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If it is unconstitutional for the POTUS to declare an unratified amendment as official, then why do we still suffer under the 16th Amendment that was never ratified by the requisite number of States?

“… Popular figures on the left from Michael Moore to Keith Olbermann are calling on President Joe Biden to commit overtly unlawful acts in his final 100 days in office, …”

The best is yet to come, Biden will sign blanket-pardon and commute the sentences of the entire Democratic Party on Tuesday the 24th of December Christmas Eve Day.

“halting weapons shipments to Israel” how is that a bad thing?

S. Meyer says:

October 15, 2024 at 1:58 PM

If one could think and was intelligent the question is, how is that a good thing?

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1. Anonymous says:
  
  October 16, 2024 at 1:08 AM
  
  List is too long to post here.
  
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  1. S. Meyer says:
    
    October 16, 2024 at 8:44 AM
    
    That is OK. Post the five most important things. Don’t be bashful. With a long list, you should be able to pick out five things easily. Feebleminded people can’t handle that minimal challenge.
    
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  2. RHardikus says:
    
    October 17, 2024 at 12:57 AM
    
    Coward…
    
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RHardikus says:

October 17, 2024 at 12:52 AM

Seriously???

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Anonymous says:

October 17, 2024 at 1:18 AM

The only ones arguing for halting weapons shipments to Israel are the enemies of America and Israel: Russia, China, Iran and their proxies, assorted IslamoCommuNazis, and other enemies of Civilization.

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Who put MM back together? And why?

Turley wrote:
For example, the Biden administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Biden admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him the move was unconstitutional. But he ignored their advice and went with that of Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe, the one person who would tell him what he wanted to hear. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.
-=-

I wonder if the irony is missed by Turley and the others.
By irony, I mean here you have Biden doing unconstitutional things because he has one lawyer (retired law professor Tribe) telling him that its ok to do it while other legal scholars say don’t do it.
Yet Biden’s DoJ via Smith is prosecuting Trump in one of his trials because he listened to one lawyer, yet in conversations w other lawyers, Trump ignored their advice. This too happened in GA as well. But it was Smith who is trying to dump unproven ‘evidence’ before the election and trial. Note that the MSM will never compare Biden’s acts to those of Trump. (Turning a blind eye to Biden, while going after Trump.)

To be clear, Trump will win these cases and Engoron’s decision will be smacked down by the appellate court. (Engoron and James should be disbarred over their fiasco, but that’s another matter)

-G

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JONATHAN TURLEY

“No Kidding! No Joke!” Liberals Call on Biden to Commit Unconstitutional Acts in his Final Days

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