Chuck Grassley Demands Legal Arguments Behind Obama’s ‘Pen and Phone’ Strategy

Photo Credit: APA top Senate Republican wants access to the legal opinions that justify President Obama’s plans to step up his use of executive orders.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter Monday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, asking for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to disclose to the public its opinions and analyses of the president’s executive orders.

Grassley’s request comes a week after Obama promised “a year of action,” which he would undertake even if Congress does not vote in favor of his proposals.

“In his State of the Union address earlier this week, the President made plain his intention to implement his agenda through aggressive use of these orders, whether or not the Congress and the American people agree,” Grassley wrote to Holder. “I am gravely concerned that the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution is threatened by the President’s determination to take unilateral action if he cannot persuade Congress and the American people of the merits of his ideas.”

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