So now it’s the pardon power. To this point, in making a mockery of his core constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully, the broad law-enforcement discretion the Constitution vests in the executive branch has been President Obama’s preferred sleight of hand. In reality, “prosecutorial discretion” is merely a resource-allocation doctrine peculiar to criminal law: a recognition of the obvious fact that enforcement resources are finite; that it is neither possible nor desirable that every penal infraction be prosecuted; and therefore that priorities must be established about which cases should be pursued, which left to state law-enforcement to handle, and which overlooked. The doctrine has never been what the president has turned it into: a license not merely to ignore but to rewrite laws — not just penal laws; any laws — with which he disagrees on policy grounds. Thus is “prosecutorial discretion” the subterfuge for usurping congressional law-making power — the maze of unilateral waivers, amendments, and whole-cloth weaving that marks Obama’s enforcement of the “Affordable” Care Act, the immigration laws, and other federal statutes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
