There Are Literally No Limits On Biden’s Impunity
Biden Claims Power To Commit Genocide, With No Judicial Or Congressional Review
[Update – 2/3/24 – Like I said, there are no limits to Biden’s ability to conduct genocide. Federal judge dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, based on the “political questions” doctrine (read the opinion). But there can be no politics, because Biden bypassed Congress. ~~~ end update]
Donald Trump once infamously said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it.
Well, Joe Biden has just one upped him, and by a mile: Biden asserts that he can commit genocide and he can get away with it, i.e. his actions can not be reviewed or stopped by the US Courts or by the US Congress or by international institutions like the UN and the International Court of Justice.
According to the Biden Justice Department’s legal brief in response to the lawsuit by the Center For Constitutional Rights accusing the Biden administration of complicity in genocide, the federal courts have no jurisdiction to review his foreign policy decisions. That means that there are literally no institutional or legal limits on Biden’s powers to fund, to provide military aid to, and even to conduct genocide (and torture).
Biden also asserts the unreviewable power to violate treaties that have been ratified by the Senate.
When foreign political leaders like Victor Orban (Hungary) or Putin (Russia) or Erdogan (Turkey) assert Executive Power and take steps to eliminate the power or jurisdiction of the Courts, the US government (and media) immediately lambast them as authoritarians, tyrants, and dictators.
When foreign political leaders bypass, dissolve, or ignore their democratically elected Legislatures, US government calls them failed States or autocracies or banana republics.
When foreign governments violate international law or treaties, they are condemned and sanctioned for ignoring the “international rules based order”.
Biden has done all of the above and more:
- He bypassed Congress to unilaterally provide military aid to Israel, including at a time when Israel was In The Dock , credibly accused of conducting a genocide in Gaza (with US weapons);
- He vetoed UN efforts to impose a cease fire in Gaza and has since repudiated the International Court of Justice’s preliminary Order to force Israel to comply with the Genocide provisions of international law (and thereby violated the US mandatory duty under international law to prevent and punish genocide) and suspended humanitarian aid to Gaza.
- Without Congressional or UN authorization, he bombed and made war on several countries, risking all out regional war with Iran, to protect commercial shipping.
- And now, despite the fact that under the Constitution, treaties that are ratified by the Senate are the supreme law of the land, Biden, via his Justice Department legal brief, claims that US courts have no jurisdiction to review his actions to provide military aid – including not only complicity in but even the actual conduct of genocide (including torture).
Biden brief:
This suit raises quintessential political questions because Plaintiffs seek to have this Court superintend the Executive Branch’s foreign policy and national security judgment and compel the government to prevent Israel from purportedly committing genocide in Gaza. Under Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc., 503 F.3d 974 (9th Cir. 2007), the case is nonjusticiable, […]
Even if the Court concludes that the case is justiciable and that the FTCA does not bar the requested relief, Plaintiffs still fail to show that the Court has the authority to recognize a new cause of action against the United States under the ATS for claims of failing to prevent, and of complicity in, genocide. Under the Supreme Court’s framework in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), the serious separation-of-powers, foreign-policy, and national-security concerns implicated by Plaintiffs’ suit provide ample “sound reason[s]” for why the Court lacks such authority. Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 138 S. Ct. 1386, 1402 (2018) (citation omitted). […]
Plaintiffs seek to enjoin Defendants from providing military or financial assistance to Israel, including the sale or delivery of weapons and arms. Compl. at Prayer for Relief. They also seek to have the United States stop Israel from purportedly committing “genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza”; from bombing and maintaining an alleged siege on Gaza; and from allegedly forcing the evacuation or expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Id. But “[t]he decision to provide military [or financial] support to a foreign nation is a quintessential political question.” Abusharar v. Hagel, 77 F. Supp. 3d 1005, 1006 (C.D. Cal. 2014). In Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc., a suit against a manufacturer of equipment paid for by the United States and used by the Israeli military, the Ninth Circuit held that “‘a determination of whether foreign aid to Israel is necessary at this particular time is’ . . . inappropriate for judicial resolution.”
Biden claims his military aid is a “political question” over which the Courts have no jurisdiction. But he bypassed the “political branch” (i.e. Congress) in making those decisions by invoking his “commander in chief” powers under Article II of the Constitution. Thus, he is acting unilaterally as a King.
And the Biden brief added insult to injury, by questioning the reality of the “alleged”Israeli murders and by denying any responsibility – any – for the genocidal murder being conduced by Israel using US weapons, US military support, and billions of dollars of US taxpayer money:
Finally, Plaintiffs lack standing as their alleged injuries are the result of the military and other activities of an independent foreign sovereign over which this Court has no authority.
Does anyone recall the universal condemnation of the Bush administration’s “torture memos” by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo?
Biden has gone well beyond that, and he’s being cheered by US media and liberals.