Reacting to President Biden’s response to the Supreme Court blocking his student loan handouts, one civil rights attorney expressed his disdain and disappointment with the president’s lack of legal understanding.
“Now he’s saying that we’ve got to find a way around the student loan amnesty and bailout. The Supreme Court smacked him down on all of those cases because the Constitution doesn’t support it,” Roger Severino, former Trump administration civil rights office director, said Friday on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast.”
“He thinks, like President Obama did, that with a pen and a phone, he could circumvent the law,” he continued. “And the Supreme Court has come time and again saying, ‘You do not have that authority, you’re not a king.'”
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Biden administration cannot go forward with its student loan debt handout program.
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“The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree.”
Biden announced via Twitter that he plans to address the nation on the matter Friday afternoon after he called the decision “unthinkable” and claimed “this fight isn’t over.”
Severino called Biden’s reaction a “coordinated attack” from the left on the Supreme Court to “discredit” the legal body.
“They’re pulling every trick in the book. They’re looking at travelogs of Supreme Court justices to see if they can pick something here or there, while ignoring the travel expenses and free trips that the liberal justices have received,” the attorney claimed of Democrats. “So this is a coordinated attack against a majority of the court that is restoring the Constitution to its proper place.”
“And that means it puts the president in his proper place,” Severino added. “He is bound by the Constitution, just like all of us are. And he has trouble accepting that fact.”
Biden’s student loan initiative, which had been on hold pending litigation, involved the federal government providing up to $10,000 in debt relief — and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients — for people who make less than $125,000 a year. The program was expected to cost the government more than $400 billion.
Biden’s administration had relied on a federal statute, called the HEROES Act, to enact the plan, claiming the law gave the secretary of education power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs… as the secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military national emergency.”
Severino encouraged President Biden to dust off his copy of the Constitution and take a refresher read-through.
“Read the decision for yourself and it is explained right there why the Constitution supports, for example, equal protection and a colorblind society, why there’s no authority for the president to invent a loan cancelation program, etc., etc.,” the civil rights attorney said.
“So, the words are there. If it gets out, then I think it’ll diminish a lot of the controversy that’s really a fabrication of folks on the left.”
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FOX Business’ Anders Hagstrom, Chris Pandolfo and Bill Mears and Fox News’ Shannon Bream contributed to this report.
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