‘Impeachable’: Legal Experts, GOP Lawmakers Warn Biden Against Invoking 14th Amendment On Debt Ceiling
Arjun Singh on May 10, 2023
Legal experts and GOP lawmakers are warning of severe consequences, including impeachment and a sovereign debt default, should President Joe Biden invoke the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the U.S. debt ceiling.
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Added to the Constitution after the Civil War, Biden has suggested that its text may enable him to pay existing U.S. debts by borrowing more money to do so, even without Congressional authorization.
However, legal experts and Republican lawmakers who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation disagreed. They have said that should Biden do so, it would bring about Congressional challenges and protracted legal battles that may eventually lead to a default.
“The president is sworn to uphold the Constitution and execute the laws — including the statutory debt ceiling — faithfully. The failure to do these things is obviously impeachable,” Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and Fox News legal contributor, told the DCNF. He added that invoking the 14th amendment “would be the most unconstitutional move of his presidency,” and that “any debt he purported to issue based on this deeply flawed interpretation of the amendment would be worthless.”
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, told the DCNF that “Nothing in the 14th Amendment gives the President the power of the purse. Under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, Congress—not the President—has the enumerated power to enforce Section 4,” and that it was “an action most legal scholars and even his own Treasury Secretary strongly disagree with.”
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that invoking the amendment would lead to a “constitutional crisis.” She added: “There is no way…other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling,” to avoid a default.
Other legal scholars, such as Jonathan Turley of The George Washington University, and lawmakers such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have also warned Biden against such a move, with McConnell saying that it was “not an option”.
Biden, by contrast, has cited Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe as an authority on the debt ceiling. Tribe, who has been a supporter of Democrats, has said that the U.S. must “pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can,” according to a New York Times op-ed he wrote on the subject.
Tribe also wrote that doing so would “not be usurping Congress’s lawmaking power or its power of the purse,” as Boebert has claimed. However, while stating that Tribe’s views were “legitimate,” Biden has acknowledged that the measure would likely face litigation in federal courts.
Attorney General Merrick Garland didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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