Senate hearings are now underway on National Security and other matters which will clearly reveal who is violating his Oath Of Office and who is not. And some of the President's most visible followers are in danger of being exposed at these hearings as Constitutional Violators and Oath Breakers.
This is the exact Oath of Office that every high Government official except The President and the Federal Judges and Justices must take before they assume their offices:
"I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
For more about Oaths of Office, please see http://www.loveallpeople.org/oathsofoffice.html
Does their Oath Of Office tell them to obey the President, even when his orders are illegal? No it does not. On the contrary, it requires them to "support and defend" the Constitution, and to "bear true faith and allegiance" to it, even if the President is ordering them to violate it.
And the Constitution says that, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;" (Article VI)
So how can they be supporting and defending the Constitution, and bearing true faith and allegiance to it, when they are helping the President violate the duly enacted laws?
In particular, they have clearly violated the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) by spying on U. S. citizens without warrants, as that law requires. And they baldly assert that it is legal for them to do this, as well as to violate the anti-torture laws, or any other law the President wants to break, using his phony "signing statements" as if they had any legal force, and using the radical "Unitary Executive Theory" to justify almost unlimited Presidential power.
For more on this please see http://www.unitaryexecutive.net
They must obey the laws which are duly enacted by Congress, whether they like them or not, or whether they think they are a good idea or not. Even if they think that the President possesses certain magical "Inherent Powers" which allow him to break the laws under the Unitary Executive Theory, that decision belongs to the Supreme Court, not to the Executive Branch. The Laws must be followed, unless and until the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional.
The Country is slowly waking up to the fact that this President is in the midst of a huge power grab, taking power away from Congress and the Judiciary and giving it to the Executive Branch, moving toward a Military Dictatorship. And the President's phony "signing statements" have no legal bearing whatsoever on the meaning of a law, no matter what his in-house crony lawyers may tell him. The clear text of a law is the Law, unless and until the Supreme Court rules otherwise.
For more about this, please see http://www.bushmachine.com
And all other Civilian and Military personnel are likewise obligated to obey the laws, unless and until the Supreme Court rules that they are unconstitutional. Their moral and legal obligation is to the Constitution, not to our sadly misguided President.
Almost two million Americans have been killed or wounded while defending our Constitution and the Country which is built upon it. Nobody has the right to betray these noble soldiers of the past, simply because today's irresponsible President thinks it is okay to do so.
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