It was really only a matter of time before conservatives began invoking the “I-word” over President Obama’s decision to release five Taliban detainees from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
In the days following the prisoner swap that secured the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, some conservatives who have long fantasized about booting Obama from office believe they may finally have the goods for impeachment.
Andrew McCarthy, who’s written an entire book that builds a case for impeachment against Obama, said in an interview published Monday he would include the Bergdahl release as part of his “larger indictment” against the President.
McCarthy told the MailOnline that the release of “senior terrorists to the Taliban” represents a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs liked the sound of that. On Monday, he cited McCarthy’s impeachment talk in blasting Obama’s “extraordinary knack for doing the utterly wrong thing in the wrong way at seemingly the worst moment.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano took it from there on Tuesday, telling the gang on “Fox & Friends” that Obama “may very well have committed a federal crime by giving material assistance to a terrorist organization.”
Napolitano said impeaching Obama over the prisoner swap is a “very valid argument that people are going to start talking about.”
If it were up to at least one Republican running for office, the House of Representatives would have already started impeachment proceedings.
Randy Brogdon, a candidate for Oklahoma’s open U.S. Senate seat, said this week that he’s waiting on a Republican member of the House to hold Obama accountable for a “blatant violation of the law.”
Unfortunately for Brogdon, Allen West is no longer in the lower chamber. The former Florida congressman, one of many conservatives to go after Bergdahl’s father on Monday, also believes there’s a strong case for impeachment against Obama.
According to West, the case would be built around Obama’s failure to consult Congress within 30 days of the prisoner release from Guantanamo as he is required to under federal statute.
Obama insisted Tuesday in Poland that he did in fact consult with Congress on the prisoner swap and said that Bergdahl’s deteriorating health warranted immediate action.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said in a statement that the administration construed the 30-day requirement “not to apply to this unique set of circumstances, in which the transfer would secure the release of a captive U.S. soldier and the Secretary of Defense, acting on behalf of the President, has determined that providing notice as specified in the statute could endanger the soldier’s life.”
