Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said President Obama's plan to grant amnesty to 4.5 million illegal immigrants was "an impeachable offense."
Krauthammer said that prosecutorial discretion, which Obama is invoking to justify his executive action, is only meant for extreme cases in which one or two individuals are prevented from being deported.
"I believe it is an impeachable offense," Krauthammer told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday.
"This idea of prosecutorial discretion is really a travesty. It is intended for extreme cases. for a case where you want to show mercy for individual or two where it's unusual incident unusual circumstances and you say, okay, we're going to give this person a pass. it was never intended to abolish a whole class of people subject to a law and to essentially abolish whole sections of a law."
Krauthammer said Obama's executive action threat resembles a South American dictator more than an American president.
"That's the way the system is in Venezuela. If the the caudillo isn't able to get stuff done through congress, he issues a decree and that's it, and he'll arrest anybody who gets in the way," Krauthammer said. "The whole American system is designed that it has to be a collaboration between the Congress and the president. Congress has to pass it, he has to sign it. That's the way the damn thing works."
Krauthammer pointed out that Obama's claim that he "waited and waited" for Congress to pass immigration reform was a "cynical" justification for signing an executive order.
"He was in control of the congress, the Democrats had majorities for two years, in '09 and '10, he could have proposed and passed any immigration reform he wanted. He didn't propose it, he waited, and now he says I waited for Republicans. Where were you when you had control of the congress? You can't just say 'I waited,'" Krauthammer said.
"You cannot simply issue decrees. We don't rule by decree in this country. I mean, Obama says he's a constitutional scholar. The interesting part as you showed earlier, he knows that he shouldn't be doing this, but I think he's reached a point in his presidency he's not ever going to be on the ballot again even indirectly, and he doesn't care."