Republicans on the far right in Congress are already agitating to defund any executive action President Barack Obama takes on immigration reform.
Conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer said Thursday that he thought another government shutdown was a terrible idea, but also said he considered the forthcoming executive action to be an “impeachable offense.”
“Some say Republicans have no choice but to call out that perceived lawlessness and do something as politically unpopular as impeach him,” Fox News host Megyn Kelly told Krauthammer.
“Look, I believe it is an impeachable offense,” Krauthammer responded.
“This idea of prosecutorial discretion is really a travesty,” he added. “It is intended for extreme cases, for a case where you want to show mercy for an individual or two. Where it’s unusual incident, unusual circumstances and you say, ‘Okay, we’re going to give this person a pass.’ It was never intended to abolish a whole class of people subject to a law and to essentially abolish whole sections of a law. And that’s exactly what’s happening here.”
While Krauthammer chalked the executive order up to an “impeachable offense,” last summer he suggested that if the GOP would be walking straight into a trap set by the Democrats if they actually pursued impeachment.
“Such a calculation — amnesty-by-fiat to deliberately court impeachment — is breathtakingly cynical. But clever. After all, there is no danger of impeachment succeeding,” Krauthammer wrote at the time, calling it a “political bonanza for Democrats.”
