Posted by Tina
Senator Ted Cruz…bold…decisive…and on the side of the law. Read the full article by Senator Cruz at Politico for background information. Here’s the plan:
The approach I recommend entails a three-step process, and McConnell and Boehner should seize this opportunity to demonstrate leadership and make it happen.
First, both leaders should formally declare that President Obama has not submitted the agreement to Congress as required by Corker-Cardin. The terms of Corker-Cardin are clear: The president may not suspend any sanctions against Iran until he submits the entire agreement to Congress and gives Congress an opportunity to review it. The president has failed to submit widely reported but undisclosed side deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency that bear directly on the inspections regime at issue in the Iran agreement. Therefore, the president has not submitted a complete agreement as Corker-Cardin requires, and the 60-day clock for congressional review did not begin to run. As a result, critically, federal law prohibits the Obama administration from lifting sanctions under the agreement.
Second, Leader McConnell should schedule a vote on a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that, if the agreement had been introduced as a treaty, it would not be ratified. This will put senators on record and will make clear that there is insufficient support in the Senate for approving the agreement as a treaty.
Third, given President Obama’s regrettable history of lawlessness, it is reasonable to assume that he will simply ignore the law and declare that he is lifting sanctions under the agreement anyway. On that assumption, we should make clear to the CEOs of banks holding frozen Iranian funds that their misplaced reliance on the president’s lawlessness would not necessarily excuse them from the obligation to comply with existing federal sanctions laws. And if they release billions in funds to Khamenei, they risk billions in civil (and possibly even criminal) liability once President Obama leaves office. Having spent years advising major corporations in private practice, I can say that their general counsels will likely tell them their legal exposure is real, which could well result in the banks deciding not to release the funds to Iran, despite the president’s actions.
This three-pronged approach is the only course we can take to actually stop the release of more than $100 billion to the regime in Tehran, which is the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism and which will use these funds to attack America and our allies.
And to reiterate, it is possible to stop the president because federal law—the explicit terms of Corker-Cardin—says so.
DO people get how serious this is?
Related: House passes resolution saying Obama ignored law on Iran deal, by Charles Hoskinson, Washington Examiner.
I do and I am appalled. George Will has it right. Obama’s Iran Deal Is “Constitutional Vandalism.”
Well that’s two of us Pie