White House Fights for Czars to Operate in Secret
October 11, 2011
Barack Obama’s appointment of dozens of “czars” to vaguely defined assignments with unspecified authority using unpublished budgets and secret levels of authority is “destabilizing to the rule of law and sound constitutional government,” according to a new comprehensive report on the president’s popular maneuver to prevent congressional oversight.
In fact, Obama has turned back several suggestions that officers of the nation who wield significant power should comply with the Constitution’s provision that such officers be appointed by the president “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” according to a newly released report called “President Obama’s Czars.”
It comes from Judicial Watch, the Washington-based government corruption fighter, whose president, Tom Fitton, has coordinated a concerted effort to uncover information about the nation’s “czars” and just exactly what they are doing.
“Barack Obama’s unconstitutional use of czars to help run his administration is at odds with republican, limited and accountable government,” the Judicial Watch analysis of the new report said today. “Obama has simply installed his radical leftist allies in various positions of power while thumbing his nose at Congress and the American people.”
The analysis continued, “As we document in this report, too many of these czars have proven to be corrupt or radicals (or sometimes both). No wonder the Obama administration fights tooth and nail to allow these czars to operate in secret.”
The report identified how easily Obama voids any attempt at transparency, including those efforts adopted by Congress and signed into law by the president himself.
A rider in a 2011 spending bill specifically ended funding for “certain highly controversial presidential advisor positions (climate change, the auto industry, health care, and urban affairs) was passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Obama in April 2011.”
However, Obama simply followed with a signing statement “essentially stating ‘he will continue to employ advisers as he sees fit,’” Judicial Watch reported.
Obama already has appointed, or had appointed, a total of 45 czars, the report said.
