image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/06/Obama_Iran.jpg
President Obama. left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Activist lawyer Larry Klayman, a veteran of courtroom battles with presidents, including Bill Clinton and George Bush, is suing President Obama and others over the newly announced deal with Iran, alleging its ratification process is unconstitutional.
“A president cannot lawfully override or amend a treaty simply by issuing an order, even if he calls it an executive order or some other form of international agreement,”
the action, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, explains.
Klayman, founder of
Freedom Watch, previously has sued Cuban interests, Iranian officials and others.
His new complaint names as defendants Barack Hussein Obama, Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida and his congressman, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.
He alleges that the federal officials “acted in disregard of their obligations to uphold the U.S. Constitution” in support of a bill through which the Iranian deal – which could give Tehran hundreds of billions of dollars and allow it to pursue its nuclear program – is being ratified.
It explains that the Constitution empowers a president to make a treaty only if two-thirds of the U.S. Senate votes to ratify it.
“A president is delegated no other power in the Constitution, outside that procedure, to make any other form of international agreement,” he explained.
However, Klayman asserted, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act signed May 22, 2015, violates the Constitution by changing the method for ratifying treaties, who ratifies treaties and the minimum vote required.
The process, pushed by Obama and adopted in Congress, instead requires both houses to agree on a “joint resolution of disapproval” instead of having two-thirds of the members of the U.S. Senate approve it.
“The defendants gave away the carefully crafted protections of the U.S. Constitution meant to preserve the liberties and ‘provide for the common defense’ of American citizens,” Klayman explained. “Obama’s Iran treaty will release $150 billion in assets frozen after Iran’s acts of war in 1979 and repeatedly thereafter. INARA removes restrictions on oil sales and business. Iran will be flush with cash that will finance terrorism against the United States, Europe, and Israel and finance unrestricted development of nuclear weapons.”
The case seeks judgments that the Iran plan is unconstitutional, null and void.
The deal has been delayed many times in recent months. It was announced July 14 after being negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Obama already has obtained approval from the United Nations and the European Union, but the proposal has only just been given to Congress for its review.
The legislation under which it is being considered provides for a vote to disapprove the plan. Then, after an expected veto from Obama, it would require a supermajority in both the House and Senate to override the veto.
Klayman wrote: “Plaintiff brings this case for himself and others similarly situated because the defendants gave away, abrogated and undermined his constitutional rights, putting him in dangers, including the protections inherent in the Constitution requiring a two-thirds vote to ratify a treat.”
The complaint argues the Constitution is clear when it states the president shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur.”
That is an “essential constitutional protect to the rights and security of the citizens of Florida,” he explained.
But since the Islamic Republic of Iran on July 2, 1968, signed onto the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the U.S. and Iran already had a treaty.
Thus, any new one would require that the senior document be overridden.
But that takes more than an executive order, he said.
“The previously existing treaty between Iran and the United States on the same subject, the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, having been duly and properly ratified by a two-thirds vote in favor by the U.S. Senate, cannot now be constitutionally modified by the defendants without complying with the treaty ratification process,” his complaint notes.
He argues Obama’s attempts to push the plan through the U.N. was no more than “giving away American sovereignty in derogation of plaintiffs’ rights.”
“Barack Obama’s treaty with Iran is extremely dangerous to the plaintiff and the United States because under the treaty – if it is ratified to become legally valid – the U.S. government will release to Iran assets now valued at $150 billion which assets were frozen and held due to acts of war committed by Iran starting in 1979 against the U.S. Embassy, U.S. government employees and citizens, and the United States generally.
“That $150 billion in funding, plus unrestricted oil sales, will finance terrorism and warfare against the United States and the development of nuclear weapons, placing the plaintiff and the United States and its allies like Israel in Imminent danger.”
In return, Obama gets only “unenforceable and unverifiable promises” from Iran about restricting its nuclear development.
Klayman cites Supreme Court precedent that the Constitution is the controlling standard.
“As a result, a device, invention or scheme which departs from, changes or disregards the constitutional requirement of Article II, Sec. 2, Par. 2, of the Constitution – even in legislation validly enacted by the U.S. Congress – is unconstitutional and void under the same analysis previously applied by the Supreme Court,” the complaint states.
A primary problem, Klayman said, is that the law inverts the process so that “inaction is now treated as ratification.”
Another is that it sets up requirements for future Congresses on how to respond to the need for sanctions against Iran.
The Obama plan, he said, purports to “overrule” the U.S. Congress and dictates how Congress may handle legislation reinstating sanctions.”
The case seeks a declaratory judgment the law is unconstitutional and more.
“Barack Hussein Obama has conspired with persons and entities not named as defendants here, including the leaders of Iran, to violate the civil and constitutional rights of the plaintiff and in so doing violated the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985 to the injury of the plaintiff.”
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