Sen. Ted Cruz Denounces Obama Administration's 'Lawlessness'

Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., told a Washington, D.C. audience today that "the pattern of lawlessness by [the Obama] Administration should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology."

His speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, came on the same day the Texas Republican released his fourth report on the Obama Administration's "abuse of power" and executive over-reaches.

Cruz's "Legal Limit Report No. 4? documents "76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power" and catalogues how Obama abused his power in Cruz's opinion.

During Cruz's remarks at the Federalist Society's annual Executive Branch Review Conference, he said that that "rather than any particular tree" the report "focuses on the entire forest" of Obama's lawlessness.

"How many of you have your cellphone?" the Senator asked his audience. "Please leave your cellphones on: I want to make sure President Obama hears everything we say," he joked.

"Rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. No one - and especially not the president - is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' Rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce," Cruz asserts in the 12-page report.

In his report, Cruz denounces "the Administration's disregard for current drug, immigration, welfare and marriage laws.

"The White House's false portrayal about events in Benghazi," and the "exemptions, waiver, and delays associated with the implementation of Obamacare."

Cruz, who is considered a potential GOP presidential contender, ended his speech by saying: "President Obama is not always going to be president. There will come another president and in time, there will even come a Republican president. And I ask all of those on the left who were so hacky about this how exactly they would feel about a Republican president exercising this power."

He added that a Republican president will presumably focus on different policies than a Democratic one.

"So rather than easing the work requirements of welfare" or implementing laws "to accept gay marriage," Cruz continued, "you might see a Republican president for example saying we're not going to enforce certain environmental laws, we're not going to enforce certain labor laws, we're not going to enforce a whole host of laws that our system has worked so hard to pass."