Editorial-Opinion June 2016

His name is Andrew S. Hanen. He is a United States District Court Judge down in Brownsville, Texas. He is a hero of mine.

For the past seven years, it has been clear to me that the highest law enforcement officer in the nation, Attorney General Eric Holder, had been abusing the law.

On May 19, 2016, Judge Andrew Hanen, in legal parlance, called Holder’s lawyers liars and banned them from showing up in his court again. In his decision, Judge Hansen wrote…

“Now, however, having studied the Government’s filings in this case, its admissions make one conclusion indisputably clear: the Justice Department lawyers knew the true facts and misrepresented those facts to the citizens of the 26 Plaintiff States, their lawyers and this Court on multiple occasions…

“The Government has now conceded that, at the very time Government counsel told the Court and opposing counsel that no action was taking place, over 100,000 three-year deferred action renewals were being processed. 

“How the Government can categorize the granting of over 100,000 applications as not being ‘anything’ is beyond comprehension. The duty of candor to the Court would certainly require that one mention the fact that the DHS was going forward with that part of the 2014 DHS Directive. This was not a curve ball thrown by the Government; this was a spitball which neither the Plaintiff States nor the Court would learn of until March 3, 2015. 

“The duties of a Government lawyer, and in fact of any lawyer, are threefold: (1) tell the truth; (2) do not mislead the Court; and (3) do not allow the Court to be misled.

“The Government’s lawyers failed on all three fronts. Their misconduct in this case was intentional, serious and material. In fact, it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct.”

Some federal lawyers have been legal thugs for the past seven years. This is only one example of their abuse of power.

Eric Holder is the only Attorney General ever found in Contempt of Congress for withholding documents from Congress in the failed and infamous “Fast and Furious” gun-running fiasco.

Before the Supreme Court, the Obama Administration has lost 23 cases unanimously. This president can’t even get the two judges he appointed to agree with him.

Under the current regime, this nation has suffered from not being a nation of laws, but one of executive decree. And it was one of these decrees that caused 26 states to sue the federal government, and in the course of that suit, Judge Hanen finally called out the Department of Justice.

Some of our so-called public servants have been lying to us.

The question is, what, if anything, will be done about it?

In the abuse of conservative groups by the IRS, Lois Lerner has been protected by the Attorney General’s Office. The IRS Commissioner is now being impeached by the House of Representatives for withholding information that the Congress has a right to see.

In the abuse of our nation’s veterans, VA leadership continues to fail, to lie and to be sustained by this administration.

In the death of Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV, the president boasts of “ending two wars,” suggesting that Keating and his brothers in arms are not at war.

In the face of rapid expansion of power and might by China and Russia, our military is forced to scrounge parts from museum equipment because they don’t have spare parts.

Yet the Obama Administration is able to give benefits to more than 100,000 migrants, in less than 100 days, do it illegally, and then lie about doing it in court.

Now, finally, someone has called them on their thuggery and stopped it cold. Thank you, Judge Hanen.

It is my sincere hope that we will return to being a nation of laws.

Like many of you, I once swore an oath. I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The federal lawyers in Judge Hanen’s court are, to me, domestic enemies. I hope that Judge Hanen’s ruling will end the legal thuggery and begin a restoration to the rule of law.