CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin: Obama 'clearly broke the law'

It's obvious to everyone that the Obama administration broke the law when it released 5 Gitmo detainees in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's freedom. Quietly, as I pointed out yesterday, higher ups within the President's organization are admitting as much.

Again, from the Washington Post:

A senior administration official, agreeing to speak on the condition of anonymity to explain the timing of the congressional notification, acknowledged that the law was not followed. When he signed the law last year, Obama issued a signing statement contending that the notification requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on his powers as commander in chief and that he therefore could override it. "Due to a near-term opportunity to save Sergeant Bergdahl's life, we moved as quickly as possible," the official said. "The administration determined that given these unique and exigent circumstances, such a transfer should go forward notwithstanding the notice requirement."

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Still, Obama's faithful media allies are desperate to give him an out. It's killing them to admit that their hero, the greatest President in American history, has so blatantly ignored a law that he himself signed. Never mind the fact that he does it all the time - particularly with health care. This one is big, it's tough to cover for, and that makes their lives difficult. Yesterday, CNN and New Yorker Magazine legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin appeared with Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer asked:

"You've looked at the law, you've looked at the signing statement, you've gone through it. Did the President break the law by engaging in this deal?"

For a Harvard educated East Coast liberal, Toobin's response was impressively blunt.

"Oh, I think he clearly broke the law. The law says 30-days' notice. He didn't give 30-days' notice. Now, it is true that he issued a signing statement, but signing statements are not law. Signing statements are the President's opinion about what the law should mean. Now, it may be that the law is unconstitutional - a violation of his powers as commander in chief - but no court has held that. The law is on the books and he didn't follow it."

Blitzer then trotted out the laziest of all left-wing canards. "Bush did it too." Toobin agreed, saying that every President since Roosevelt has issued signing statements. ...But then he pointed out the obvious Democrat hypocrisy. "But liberals," Toobin said, "were outraged by George W. Bush's signing statements. They thought he was deciding which laws he was going to follow and which laws he wasn't." Wolf was incredulous. He kept trying to bring everything back to Bush, but in the end it doesn't matter. Arguing that Bush "also broke the law" in no way excuses Obama from doing the exact same thing. Obama's critics "have a very good point here," Toobin concluded. "That you have a law on the books and you have a direct contradiction. It matters whether people follow the law or not." The video appears below. Be sure to "like" Robert Laurie over on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. You'll be glad you did.