Rep. Mike Kelly: “Greatest Betrayal of the Constitution”

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Frank Gaffney: One of the most egregious assaults on the intelligence of the American people is afoot at the moment. It is the claim that President Obama has fashioned a deal, an agreement, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, that will result in an end to that country’s decade long ambition to have nuclear weapons. I have been privileged to be in the company or witness close hand, twice in the past 48 hours or so, a man who has been very aggressively challenging what the President is up to. He is Congressman Mike Kelly, of my native state of Pennsylvania, and represents the people of the Third District there and he both joined us at an important rally that the Center for Security Policy co-sponsored on Wednesday and also took to the floor of the House yesterday, to really challenge what’s going on here, and I wanted to say personally to you Congressman on air, thank you for what you’ve been trying to do, and for the efforts you know are of just surpassing importance to stop this deal. Welcome sir.

Rep. Mike Kelly: Thank you Frank and thanks for your kind comments, but thank you for everything your doing for the American people. The ‘Gruber Effect’ is certainly in operation in almost every term with this administration, they rely on people not knowing what’s going on, and saying “well you know what, you just weren’t paying attention, you just didn’t know and so we were able to get it past you without you even noticing it”. I think that the efforts that you put forward, and the rest of our allies put forward, to protect the American people, they speak for themselves. Thank you so much for what you’re doing.

FG: When you hear, and I talk a little later in the program with Congressman Barry Loudermilk about this as well, members of the other side, all Democrats at this point I think, taking to the floor of the House and reading it seems verbatim the talking points of the administration on a whole host of issues. Ones that stick in my craw are particularly this idea that we’ve really foreclosed permanently the ability of the Iranians to pursue nuclear weapons ambitions, the idea that they have fashioned an airtight verification system, the idea that there will be greater stability in the region despite the $150 billion dollar windfall. Would you just give us a sense of how you try to provide a degree of sanity and a truth squad to such statements?

MK: Well, I think all of us would take a look now and we each represent, each person in Congress right now represents 705,000, in my case 687 Pennsylvanians from Pennsylvania’s third district. I do not represent just Republicans, I represent Democrats, and Libertarians, and Independents, and quite frankly just everyday Americans, and for people to choose their political party over the people they represent in reprehensible and quite frankly you cannot defend that, and when you choose to go that route, you know have on your record a stain that can never be erased. I think it is both hypocritical, it is pathetic, it is unconscionable that these people would stand up and pare it back facts, which they claim as facts, which they are unbelievable lies. It’s a testimony to the madness of what this administration has brought to our country.

FG: Yeah it really is the big lie it seems to me because the more it’s perpetuated the greater it takes on some semblance of truth when it doesn’t deserve it. Congressman, one aspect of this that’s particularly troubling, and again our guest is Congressman Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and also on the Education and the Workforce Committee, is what is being done to the constitutional process by essentially allowing something that is a treaty to be considered in a fashion that you know essentially side steps what the constitution requires be done with treaties. This is of concern both in this context of course that a very bad deal is being foisted upon on us on the basis of basically a small percentage of the Senate, entirely partisan at that, saying that they will support the President over their constituents’ interest. But it has further implications and I know you’ve been very concerned about what the administration is doing in another area as well, climate change. If the administration pursues a deal in Paris, that is also not considered as a treaty, how would you regard that as a threat both to our economy as well as the constitution?

MK: Well I think that we’ve learned through great painful experiences that this is a President that has a total disregard for the constitution, has total disregard for the separation of powers, and for anybody that says, “maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing”, he knows exactly what he’s doing, for God sake he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago, so he’s doing what he knows he can get away with, he’s doing what he knows will take a long time to work out in the court. It’s always your put on hold not just by this President but by the Department of Justice working with the Executive Branch to thwart all the provisions that are put in the constitution that protect the people, not the government. Everything in there protects the people from an overarching overreaching government, so I think Frank, when we look at this I think the game plan is pretty obvious. I think that we know going in because we’ve seen the game film now, we’ve seen the footage of how they play when they’re on the field. These are no longer just snap shots this is a running footage now almost seven years into the greatest betrayal of the constitution the American people have ever seen by a President, and so we look at that very carefully and we pull it apart and see where is it that we can stop the overreach of this President and this administration. It is stunning for a President that said early on that this will be the most clear and transparent administration ever. That we are looking at something that has never been more dark, and more murky, and one that is fraught with some many overreaches, and endangers the future of America as with this man who sits in the White House right now and the people who join with him and are complicit with the overthrow of the American government, as we know it to be in the way the founders had designed it. So I think we look at every turn, what it is we can do, what we have at our disposal, but most importantly our future is in jeopardy.

FG: Amen to that, and I think this is a case, the Iran deal specifically, where you have the overwhelming support of the American people behind you so this maybe kind of a tipping point where we are finally going to see the course correction that I know you’ve been working for so long now Congressman Kelly and that we so desperately need. Let men turn in closing, we only have about a minute or two left Congressman; when we last had you on, you were worried about another treaty engineered by this administration, the Arms Trade Treaty, and what it might me for our Second Amendment rights. In that case they did bring it forward as a treaty but they knew that it wouldn’t get through so they haven’t actually asked for the Senate’s advice and consent on it. Again the question is, is there any recourse really other than the Power of the Purse for Congress to try to prevent the abuses that you’ve just described and in each of these areas?

MK: And as you know that is the greatest power we have, the Power of the Purse, but in order for us to really use the Power of the Purse, we have to be in regular order, we cannot be working under a CR, a continued resolution, where we cede over them the Power of the Purse to the executive branch. When we go through the committee process, and when we go through the appropriations process. At that point Congress has the ability to limit the amount of moneys that are dedicated and appropriated for certain uses. When we go away from that system, when we go away from regular order, when we take authority out of the hand of Congress, and put it at the feet of the Executive Branch, we have nobody to blame but ourselves for losing that power. So I agree with you, the Power of the Purse is the most important power we have. But in so many cases since I’ve been here we’ve never been in regular order. We don’t go through the appropriations process, we don’t go through a process, which allows the peoples house, America’s House, to determine how the money will be spent that we collect. We are granted under powers of the constitution the power to tax, but we are also given the responsibility to spend it the right way, and we’ve walked away from that. I am highly critical of that process, I’m not arguing with leadership over it. I’m arguing with the future of the way we continue to conduct business here when we don’t take personal responsibility for the way our tax payer, our hard working American tax payer’s money is being spent, a continued resolution, and I know I’m repeating myself. When we are under a continued resolution we take away the Power of the Purse, because we go away from the appropriations process, which has always been handled by the House of Representatives, needs to be handled by the House of Representatives.

FG: This is not an accident comrade. This seems to be Harry Reid’s design and that of the Senate Democrats to ensure that you don’t have that power, by forcing no action on the appropriations measures in the Senate, that I can tell, and condemning us all to this abuse of the continuing resolution. Congressman Mike Kelly, thank you for your courage, your outspoken leadership, and your clarity on all these points. I hope you’ll come back to us again very soon.