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Seems hinky that he wouldn't consult Congress. Of course, Congress has made it their business to derail most (not to say "all") of his projects, so I can easily see why Obama would want to go around them.
It may very be that this broke the law, of course. But, if that's the case, he certainly wouldn't be the first President to do so while in office, right? There comes a point where you almost wonder what took him so long, however cynical that might sound.
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Well, there's a couple of flaws with that theory:
1. Obama promised "transparency" and a change in tactics from the previous administration. You can't go around acting like your
doesn't stink and then just end up using the same toilet. Obama's track record involving the NSA, IRS, and VA scandals isn't giving him much benefit of the doubt that he once had back in 2009. And even Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee said that Obama broke Constitutional law with the Bergdhal swap.
2. Obama had two years of a Democratically controlled congress with a filibuster-proof majority, and yet his projects still managed to misfire. His rollout of the Affordable Healthcare Act website was his signature legislation, yet the Democrats botched the rollout mostly due to the White House's detachment from how everything was being put together. Chuck Todd of NBC, who was originally a huge Obama supporter heavily criticized the President on this. How could you botch your signature project and maintain the appearance of competence? Chris Matthews of MSNBC, also a huge Obama supporter, criticized Obama by saying that he "doesn't want to be the Chief Executive" of the US government.
Too many things have gone wrong on his watch that he apparently had no knowledge of, and appeared to not want to know about. His "lead from behind" attitude could just as easily be blamed for the problems with his projects. The Republicans only took back the House Of Representatives in 2010, but the Democrats still retained the Senate. Bill Clinton lost the entire Congress to the Republicans in 1994 and dealt with a Republican controlled House and Senate for the last six years of his Presidency, yet Clinton managed to get a lot more accomplished with both houses of Congress lost to the Republicans -
and dealing with an impeachment hearing and a crisis in Kosovo at the same time - than Obama has with only one House out of the Democrats' control. So I don't think you can just "blame it on the Congress."