As pointed out by Ted Cruz on Mark Levine's show today, Der Kyng has now committed a definitively impeachable offense, intentional violation of Faithful Execution.
(from Heritage Foundation)
The Take Care Clause (also known as the Faithful Execution Clause) is best read as a duty that qualifies the President's executive power. By virtue of his executive power, the President may execute the lawful and control the lawful execution of others. Under the Take Care Clause, however, the President must exercise his law-execution power to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Though the clause's antecedents can be traced as far back as the late seventeenth century, its more immediate predecessors were found in the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution and the 1777 New York Constitution. Both Constitutions granted their respective executives the "executive power" and also required them to execute the laws faithfully. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania and New York state executives understood that it was they, and not others, who were to see that the laws were faithfully executed.
The ratifying debates repeatedly evince the notion that the President had a duty to execute the law faithfully. Addressing the North Carolina ratifying convention, William Maclaine declared that the Faithful Execution Clause was "one of the [Constitution's] best provisions." If the President "takes care to see the laws faithfully executed, it will be more than is done in any government on the continent; for I will venture to say that our government, and those of the other states, are, with respect to the execution of the laws, in many respects mere ciphers." Not surprisingly, President George Washington clearly read the clause as imposing on him a unique duty to ensure the execution of federal law. Discussing a tax rebellion, Washington observed, "it is my duty to see the Laws executed: to permit them to be trampled upon with impunity would be repugnant to" that duty.
To be sure, the extent of the faithful-execution duty is rather unclear. Plainly, the President need not enforce every law to its fullest extent. Common sense suggests that the President may enjoy some discretion in order to gauge the costs and benefits of investigation, apprehension, and prosecution. Moreover, the pardon power (see Article II, Section 2, Clause 1) supplies a constitutional reason for concluding that the President need not enforce the law every time he feels there is a violation, for, notwithstanding his faithful-execution duty, the President may pardon an offense even before a trial or conviction. It is also possible that the clause does nothing more than incorporate the English Bill of Rights provisions that forbade the Crown from dispensing or suspending the law. Under this reading of the clause, the President can neither authorize violations of the law (he cannot issue dispensations) nor can he nullify a law (he cannot suspend its operation). He has, nonetheless, very wide discretion in enforcing the criminal law. |
