A lawyer who sued President Obama and Congress members from his home state of Florida, alleging the Iran nuclear deal is unconstitutional, is asking for a ruling as soon as possible.
Congress is scheduled to vote Sept. 17 on the agreement, and lawmakers are trying to avoid putting themselves on the record, Larry Klayman argued in a request for an emergency status conference.
This week, he pointed out, the Obama White House announced it has the 34 Senate votes needed to uphold an expected presidential veto of the resolution of disapproval.
Klayman contends the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act signed May 22, 2015, is a treaty, and, therefore, the congressional process violates the Constitution. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required to ratify a treaty.
The process, pushed by Obama and adopted in Congress -- known as the Corker bill -- instead requires both chambers to agree on a "joint resolution of disapproval."
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"Now it would appear that even the illegal so-called 'Corker Bill' (Public Law 114-17), which violates the treaty approval provision of the U.S. Constitution, will not be effected since Democrats in Congress say they will filibuster it so that no vote will ever occur, however unconstitutional and illegal. The reason is so no senator or congressman will ever go on the record of supporting the highly unpopular Iran nuclear treaty," Klayman said.
"It it respectfully incumbent on this court to issue a ruling, in whatever form, setting forth that the failure to properly ratify the Iran treaty is illegal under the U.S. Constitution," Klayman wrote. "Just yesterday, Sen. Marco Rubio, to avoid legal and political responsibility for having violated plaintiff's rights by having voted for the Corker Bill, disingenuously claimed that the Iran nuclear treaty is not a treaty at all under law or the U.S. Constitution."
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He said the emergency meeting is needed to line up the defendants' response, "so that this court may issue declaratory ruling on the illegality of defendants' and Congress' actions.'"
WND reported the complaint argued 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 suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, named as defendants Barack Hussein Obama, Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida and his congressman, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., over the deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry.
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.
Klayman said 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."
"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."
This week, a 34th Democrat, Sen. Barbara Mukulski, D-Md., announced she would not support a veto override, which means the agreement could be approved with as few as 34 votes in the Senate, instead of requiring two-thirds support for approval.
The case seeks judgments that the Iran plan is unconstitutional, null and void.
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 treaty."
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."
Obama administration officials have argued it's not really a treaty, just an agreement, to which Republicans responded that a new president then could simply overturn it.
Klayman argued that 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.
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