Judiciary Committee Should Move to Impeach Bush and Cheney
Since mid-December, members of the House Judiciary Committee Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) have called for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Cheney.
This should not be surprising, given the strength of the case for impeachment. What’s surprising is that it took so long for members of this committee, normally tasked with holding impeachment proceedings, to call for them.
They face huge political resistance on Capitol Hill. But they aren’t alone. Other Democratic members are joining them. Former senator and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern recently published an op-ed demanding impeachment proceedings for both Bush and Cheney. Bruce Fein, a Republican who served in the Reagan Justice Department, and many other constitutional scholars also argue for impeachment.
There is more than ample justification for impeachment. The Constitution specifies the grounds as treason, bribery or “high crimes and misdemeanors,” a term that means “great and dangerous offenses that subvert the Constitution.” As the House Judiciary Committee determined during Watergate, impeachment is warranted when a president puts himself above the law and gravely abuses power.
Have Bush and Cheney done that?
Yes. With the vice president’s participation, President Bush repeatedly violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval for presidential wiretaps. Former President Richard Nixon’s illegal wiretapping was one of the offenses that led to his impeachment. FISA was enacted precisely to avoid such abuses by future presidents.
Bush and Cheney were involved in detainee abuse, flouting federal criminal statutes (the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the anti-torture Act) and the Geneva Conventions. The president removed Geneva protections from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, setting the abuse in motion, and may have even personally authorized them.
The president and vice president also used deception to drive us into the Iraq war, claiming Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were in cahoots, when they knew better. They invoked the specter of a nuclear attack on the United States, alleging Hussein purchased uranium in Niger and wanted aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, when they had every reason to know these claims were phony or at least seriously questioned within the administration. Withholding and distorting facts usurps Congress’ constitutional powers to decide on going to war.
Can a commander-in-chief disobey laws on wiretapping or torture to protect the country in wartime?
No. The Constitution requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The Supreme Court ruled Harry S. Truman could not seize steel mills to prevent a strike, even during the Korean War. Nixon’s claim of national security as a justification for illegal wiretaps was also rejected in impeachment proceedings against him.
What then is the justification for taking impeachment “off the table”? Congressional leaders don’t defend the administration, nor do they contend that its actions are unimpeachable or less serious than Nixon’s. Instead they argue there is no time, or that impeachment proceedings would distract the Congress from other work, or divide the country. The subtext seems to be fear that impeachment could undermine Democratic election prospects in 2008.
But even these “pragmatic” arguments are wrong. Let’s take them one at a time:
Insufficient time. In the case of Nixon, the House officially instructed the Judiciary Committee to act in early February 1974. The committee finished voting on articles of impeachment July 29, less than six months later. No presidential impeachment proceeding had taken place for almost 100 years, so the committee had to start from scratch, analyzing the Constitution and developing procedures for the impeachment inquiry. Now that the relevant legal spade work is done and a road map for proper impeachment proceedings exists, Congress might conduct them even faster than in 1974.
Distraction. During Watergate, the impeachment inquiry didn’t prevent Congress from getting its work done. In fact, the House Judiciary Committee also worked on other matters during impeachment, just as the Senate did during its impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton.
Divisiveness. True, President Clinton’s impeachment was a highly partisan process that divided the country - because most Americans didn’t support it. They believed his conduct was reprehensible, but not an impeachable offense. Impeachment therefore had negative repercussions for the Republicans who instigated it.
Nixon’s impeachment united the American people. The process was bipartisan, demonstrating this wasn’t just a Democratic ploy to undo an election. The fairness of the process, the seriousness of purpose, the substantial evidence - all gave the public confidence that justice had been done. This reinvigorated the shared value that the rule of law and preservation of democracy are more important than any president or party.
This value is again asserting itself in grassroots impeachment movements across America. The Vermont Senate, several state Democratic parties, and many municipal governments have adopted resolutions supporting impeachment. More state legislatures would have acted except for pressure from Washington. Many polls show a majority of Americans support impeaching Cheney (a Nov. 13 American Research Group poll says 70 percent of Americans believe he abused his office), and slightly less than a majority support impeaching Bush.
Stonewalling such widespread public sentiment is itself divisive, leading at least half the country to feel their concerns about upholding the Constitution are being ignored. Only a serious airing of evidence in hearings would heal the split.
Undermining election prospects. When the impeachment process began, Nixon had just been reelected in one of the largest landslides in history. Few, if any, worried about whether impeachment was a political winner for Congress or the Democrats. Public opinion simply forced Congress’ hand when Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. After the Judiciary Committee conducted impartial hearings and voted on impeachment, Congress’ approval ratings soared. Republicans were swamped in the November 1974 elections.
Whether or not they bring electoral rewards in 2008, impeachment proceedings are the right thing to do. They will help curb the serious abuses of this administration, and send a strong message to future administrations that no president or vice president is above the law.
Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (eholtzman@herrick.com) served on the House Judiciary Committee during proceedings toward Nixon’s impeachment. She coauthored the 1973 special-prosecutor statute, and cowrote (with Cynthia L. Cooper) the 2006 book “The Impeachment of George W. Bush.”
© 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer
Take matters into your own towns hands! Look what Battleboro Vermont is doing. It’s so cool. They vote in March to indict Cheney and Bush! Check it out
In the meantime, write, call, email, and generally raise hell with your congress critters.
IMPEACH the DICK NOW!!!! Then the SHRUB!!!
I really do wish this could happen. At the very least it would recover the idea of impeachment as a just and honourable way to deal with criminals in high office, instead of the international joke it became when the bible-thumpers impeached Bill for his sins.
Thank you, Elizabeth Holtzman, for again laying out clearly the case for impeachment of Bush and Cheney. The objections of Pelosi, Conyers, and the rest of the democrats in Congress who are in opposition to initiating impeachment hearings have been shown by you to be insubstantial. The democrats must now think seriously about how the position they have been taken will be considered ten, twenty and more years from now. They are failing to do their constitutional duty by not impeaching when impeachment is clearly in order. I predict that if they do not change their position, they will be voted out of office en mass during the next couple of election cycles.
Zoya: Don’t wish, act! Bother your congressperson by calling his or her office every day and demanding the he/she fulfill his or her constitutional duty. This is not a time to sit on the sidelines wishing something will happen. Rebel farmer has the right idea. These miscreant special interest dependent so-called “representatives” need to hear from their real constituents for a change instead of just the lobbyists for the rich and corporations who are who they usually pay attention to.
Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury secretary, says that Bush/Cheney and their National Security Council decided to attack Iraq during their second week in office, fully seven months before 9/11. All they needed was an excuse.*
They fixed the facts around this goal. The many false statements they made to justify the Iraq War were hardly the result of poor intelligence reports.
Wexler, McGovern, Fein, Holtzman and many more are right about impeachment proceedings. Speaker Pelosi, we owe it to our country!
(* See “The Price of Loyalty” by Ron Suskind, pages 70-86.)
hang a sword over all their necks: email Kucinich and ask him to stand as a write-in candidate.
reply@kucinichforcongress.com
Never have two high public officials more richly deserved impeachment, conviction and removal from office than GW Bush and Richard Cheney. Certainly, Richard Nixon (whom I had earlier supported when I was young and even more foolish), deserved to be removed from office, an embarrassment Nixon escaped only by resigning. However, there is not the slightest possibility that Bush and Cheney, who have without the slightest doubt committed the most serious “high crimes and misdemeanors” against this nation and its constitution, will take that more honorable route. Moreover, it is a sad irony that the comic farce impeachment of Bill Clinton seems to give these high criminals protection, since there are those who would plead that we can’t start impeaching every president. Clinton deserved to have been censured for gross stupidity and lying under oath, but Bush and Cheney deserve impeachment and removal from office for what they have done.
Imagine it’s the year 2012. We did not pursue impeachment, instead trying to “get along” with each other. The spirit of ‘08 has faded, as the issues continue to be clouded with buzz words like patriotism (support the troops), progress (cut corporate taxes) and national security (fear terrorism). We have become our own enemy. Democracy has been severely bruised. Will we recover? We had the chance in ‘08, and we blew it. Yes, Speaker Pelosi, you did get re-elected: but was it worth it?
Impeach! Impeach! I DON’T HAVE TOO MANY YEARS LEFT ON THIS EARTH, SO I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE IT KNOWING THAT THIS BUNCH OF CROOKS CONTINUED UNCHECKED.
End the occupation of Iraq, (the war was over when they proclaimed, “Million Accompliched”).
Elect progressives whereever you can and work to restore the U. S. and its Constitution.
Stand along a busy road with a sign that says, “Honk to Impeach”. It’s deafening!
Ms. Holzman’s work (and arguments) along with those of Marjorie Cohn are a partial answer to those who ask where the legal community is on the subject of the very NECESSARY impeachment. There is no america if there is no premise, promise or possibility of justice. Sadly, after Clinton’s sexual indiscretions, oral sex probably became more common in teens who are hardly ready for sex of any sort. In the present administration, senseless violence, immature bravado, macho posturing fostering a perception that might makes right is ALSO being copied, and it could lead to quite a morally bankrupt generation of people who look to leadership for its role modeling.
Bush and his neo con handlers are a scourge to humanity’s existence, the political/social equivalent of a new strain of the bubonic plague. I would love to see the White House disinfected… too bad Tom Delay gave up his TRUE calling.
While I agree with everything in this Op-ed, I also think that legal action should be pursued.
The administration has not only subverted the law but it has also caused great harm to many people by forcing the country into a war where huge numbers of Americans and Iraqis have been killed or seriously wounded. The financil costs are astronomical. People are sued every day for far less.
There needs to be some kind of accountability that future leaders will know they face if they are caught having taken such actions. I think it would be at least a partial deterent.
I just love that everyone continues to ignore the name of the man who first called for the impeachment of Cheney back in April…DENNIS KUCINICH. Sure, I appreciate more people getting into the act, but give credit where it’s due. Or do we “disappear” him here, also?
Thank you Philadelphia Inquirer for publishing this op-ed. Usually we’re the only ones reading these opinions here on Common Dreams. An MSM mention is a good thing…this is what we need more of…
Naaaaa! Our problems aren’t just Cheney/Bush. 60,000,0000 people voted for these thugs in the last general election. Stop and think of what kind of dis-information program we have allowed to take place in this country. We have a lot bigger problems then Cheney/Bush. You would give the neo-cons marters to stuff down our throat from now on. Those people run the news media. You would be picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barge.
See, our concept is, that we are successful at this capitalism stuff because we wrote the book on how to make it work. People from other countries send their kids to America to learn how to BE successful at this stuff. What we have to do is figure out why we don’t even read our own book! What is in the book on successful capitalism, is that we got successful because we learned from or mistakes. We found out that illigal monopolies causes the
whole system to grind to a halt. If one guy owns everything
who is he going to trade with? Duh!! Our problems are because we don’t do the stuff that will make our country successful. We just allow the big guys to buy up all the little guys. And we DO it because we are following that free open market place idea, that doesn’t work.
FEAR NOT! DC and the ESTABLISHMENT ELITISTS are deep in the throes of self-destruction…….. you can only propagate inbreeding so long before suffering mortal consequence.
It’s not going to happen. Pelosi is not all that unhappy about any of it.
Sounds good, but ain’t. The bare bringing of charges, the impeachment process we suffered through with Bill, may be enough to bar any and all subsequent proceedings via the Double Jeopardy provision of the Constitution. I prefer to get the money back and reduce all those responsible to a life like the residents of New Orleans and SW Alabama experienced after katrina.
My question is how do WE THE PEOPLE proceed with our impeachment proceedings, since the congress is inept and spineless. All we’re doing is spinning our wheels and repeating the same thing. We need an independent citizen’s committee to impeach these two. How do we get it started?
Kucinich is introducing Articles of Impeachment tomorrow!
http://peacecandidates.com/blog/nadia/01/24/kucinich_introduce_impeachment
If Congress refuses to impeach WE THE PEOPLE MUST SET UP OUR OWN IMPEACHMENT TRIBUNAL AND CONDUCT IT OUTSIDE OF THE COUNTRY IF NECESSARY. I’M SURE VENEZUELA’S CHAVEZ WOULD OBLIGE US WITH A VENUE TO CARRY OUT THE PROCEEDINGS. CONGRESS IS A DISGRACE AND COMPLICIT WITH THE BUSH/CHENEY/NEOCON CRIMINALS. TIME TO TAKE THINGS INTO OUR OWN HANDS.
I am not a friend of capital punishment, but it seems to me that according to the law Bush, Cheney, and possibly Pelosi and others are supposed to be not just impeached but executed. I kid you not, the punishment for conspiring to wage war against another country is death.
peace candidate: Thanks for the link. Kucinich is a man for our times. I just wish more people would wake up and see that he is one of the few who really cares about our country and the direction we’re taking. In a perfect world, he’s our next president. Here’s to a perfect world! Satya
If you are tired of the crimes, corruption, and wars of the Clinton/Bush presidencies, then I suggest you vote Green Party in 2008.
If the US had a constitution like the Venezuelan constitution, they would have been able to recall Bush in a referendum triggered by the people. They could have done that for Cheney and Pelosi too. I am not convinced the people want these guys out, but it could have been possible under the Venezuelan constitution. Unlike the US constitution, the Venezuelan constitution gives so many rights to the people that it makes them interested in its contents.
Unimpeached, Bush and Cheney will engage in untold wingnut hysteria reflected in scorched earth slash and burn tactics in hatred so strong that they would rather return the earth to ashes rather than passing the political baton to a liberal. Theirs is a form of brain froth found only in rabid animals incapable of self control and civilized behavior. Nancy Pelosi will look upon the ruins and remark, gee who could have imagined this?
The corporate media made Nancy Pelosi Promise that if the Dems won Congress in 2006, they wouldn’t impeach Bush.
I am a Black male, and you current crop of White Liberals are the most gutless —- the most yellow backed people I’ve ever observed in my entire life.
You white liberals don’t even know how to debate a right winger. I debate right wingers all the time, and when I’m through with them, they run for cover.
When they talk about the Clinton sex scandals (which they uncovered with a $90 million investigation into the President’s sex life), you liberal cowards just go on the defensive.
Never forget, the best defense is an offense. I throw back into the right wingers faces how Selene Walters, in the April 29, 2991 issue of People Magazine said Ronald Reagan Raped her.
I throw in the faces of right wingers how George W Bush is the only President in history ever sued for rape (Margie Schoedinger filed a rape and sexual harrassment lawsuit against George W Bush in Ft Bend County Texas on December 2, 2002).
But you liberals shy away from talking about sex scandals, because so many of you are bi-sexual and homosexual.
I’m not slamming gays, but that’s the only explanation I can come up with.
I mean April 29, 1991 issue of People Magazine - sorry
SkySonja: Stand along a busy road with a sign that says, “Honk to Impeach”. It’s deafening!
Good idea. Why not make a video and post it online?
Several have mentioned the fact that Kucinich has been trying to impeach these bastards for quite some time now. But it’s amazing that Holtzman so blithely ignores this. She mentions the half-assed effort of the House Judiciary Committee (Tammy Baldwin, for one, has admitted their effort stands no chance of ever being acted on) but she seems to follow the media’s act of insisting Kucinich doesn’t actually exist. What is with these people? Cries for impeachment have been ceaseless by numerous groups for 7 goddamn years (ever heard of Ramsey Clark?), and NOTHING happens. How many more breathless articles can we all read about the need to impeach, as if it’s never really been mentioned before? Next January, when Bush is about to leave office and hopefully the country for good, there will STILL be articles about how necessary it is to impeach him and his puppet master. How absolutely idiotic we must seem to the rest of the world.
What about article V? What about the flaws in the constitution? Does that not need to be addressed? The people have no real power if impeachment is the only recourse and that is not in the hands of the people. The result is obvious.
Writ of Mandamus. Force the bureaucrats to do their job. Their job is to impeach officials who have committed criminal acts.
I still believe that impeachment is off the table because the MSM would have to cover it. It couldn’t go away like the Iraq war has. If done properly with the emphasis on our founding documents and the numerous abuses of them by these (and a long line of other) criminals WE the People would be so empowered that probably 500 of our 537 elected Feds would never be returned to office and many would be headed for jail. Once INFORMED our consent would be withdrawn from the entrenched status quo and the people might stay organized long enough to demand and get real changes: corporate UN-personhood, public campaign financing, fair taxation with accountable representation etc. We the people could “take care of business” so to speak (including the MSM) before getting on with our quarrels over gay marriage and what-not.
IMPEACH them??? I just watched Bush deliver the State Of The Union “Mess” Address. I watched it for about ten minutes before I turned it off in anger and disgust. At least 95% of our Congress, were cheering and giving long standing ovations, to the man they should be impeaching. They will NEVER impeach him, they all must be using mind altering drugs.
Bu$hCo has the goods on the Dems in Congress, and many of them were complicit in 9/11. THAT’S why the assholes won’t get impeached.
Can you imagine that Americans would ever trust their gov’t again if the truth about 9/11 ever got out? It is why Sibel Edmonds has been gagged by a judge - because the whole rickety house of cards would come crashing down.
American Lawyers have the organization and financial capacity to prosecute an investigation of those standing in the way of impeachment. It would seem to be their special responsibility to do so. Historically in times of great crisis we sometimes see the emergence of a great mind and leader. I fear that that person or persons are reluctant because there is no public to stand with them. They probably conclude that at this time it would be a fools mission and they are probably correct. Things will have to get considerably worse.