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Diane Alexander, dalexander@democracy21.org
Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer released a statement today supporting the passage of the two Articles of Impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee and scheduled to be voted on by the full House this week.
The Wertheimer statement concluded:
Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer released a statement today supporting the passage of the two Articles of Impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee and scheduled to be voted on by the full House this week.
The Wertheimer statement concluded:
The statement continued:In engaging in these activities, President Trump violated a cardinal principle that is fundamental to our democracy, our constitutional system of government and our sacred right to vote: Only Americans are permitted to participate in and decide our elections, not foreign countries, and not foreign interests. Period. No exceptions.
President Trump, however, personally and directly solicited a foreign country to interfere in our presidential election to benefit his personal political interests.
This was a frontal attack on our democracy.
The record is irrefutable that President Trump engaged in impeachable actions as set forth in Article I of the Impeachment Articles.The statement said:The President also directly attacked and engaged in obstruction of the impeachment powers provided to Congress in Article I of the Constitution.
Trump ordered his entire Administration to refuse to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry. He directed Executive Branch agencies and officials to ignore subpoenas, refuse to testify and refuse to turn over any documents to Congress regarding the House impeachment inquiry. The President even directed private citizens who are no longer in government to refuse to cooperate with the proceeding. (Fortunately for the country, a number of courageous public servants defied his order to ignore congressional subpoenas and testified before the House Intelligence Committee.)The Wertheimer statement said:The conduct of President Trump in the Ukraine affair flagrantly contradicted our democratic norms and values and attacked the integrity of our elections. President Trump's actions cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged, since failing to formally do so would establish the actions as precedents for future conduct and be used to validate future attempts by Trump to rig the 2020 elections.
The President must be held formally accountable by the House, regardless of what the Senate does.Read the full statement below or here.
Passage of Impeachment Articles is Essential to Holding President Trump Accountable for Gross Abuse of His Powers and Violation of His Oath
Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
Democracy 21 supports the passage of the two Articles of Impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee and scheduled to be voted on by the full House this week. Passage of the Articles is essential to holding President Trump accountable for his gross abuse of his presidential powers and for violation of his oath of office.
Contrary to the President's absurd claim, Article II of the Constitution does not give him "the right to do whatever I want as president." The Founders established the powers of Congress first, in Article I, for a reason. They gave Congress the constitutional right to oversee the President and executive branch and to remove the President from office for impeachable offenses.
The evidence presented in the House impeachment inquiry, including testimony by courageous public servants, is essentially uncontroverted and establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that the President's wrongful conduct warrants his impeachment.
The starting point in this case is the President's obvious goal: he wanted the President of Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation of Joe Biden in order to damage Biden's chances of defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Biden has been leading in national polls to be the Democratic nominee to oppose Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
In other words, Trump wanted a foreign country to intervene in our elections in order to damage a political opponent and thereby serve Trump's personal political benefit. All of the events at issue flowed from Trump's goal of using a foreign country to inflict political harm on a political opponent.
Trump withheld a White House meeting and $400 million in military assistance appropriated by Congress and desperately needed by our ally Ukraine to defend itself from a military incursion by our adversary, Russia. At the same time, in what amounts to extortion, Trump pressured Ukraine President Zelensky to announce a corruption investigation of Biden. Trump engaged his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland and others to help carry out his goal.
Trump was clearly holding military assistance to Ukraine and a White House meeting hostage until Ukraine "paid" Trump with the Biden corruption investigation in order to get those important benefits freed up.
In a moment of candor, the President's own White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, stated that the Trump's actions involved a "quid pro quo" effort by the President to obtain the Biden investigation he sought. Although Mulvaney later tried to walk back his claim, the die had been cast in his original comment.
Sondland, operating as President Trump's agent to obtain the Biden investigation, also described the withholding of a White House meeting and military assistance as a "quid pro quo" effort by Trump to get President Zelensky to announce the Biden corruption investigation.
Trump released the military assistance to Ukraine only after the whistleblower complaint unleashed an impeachment inquiry, although Ukraine still hasn't received all of the funds appropriated by Congress.
It is beyond question that Trump wanted to damage a potentially strong opponent in the 2020 presidential election and that he used the powers of the presidency to try to achieve this result.
In short, Trump used the presidency to attempt to rig the 2020 presidential election for his personal political benefit.
It is also clear that the President's efforts to accomplish this went far beyond his one phone call to President Zelensky on July 25 requesting "a favor," but instead was an ongoing effort over a period of months to get Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation of Biden. It is questionable whether Trump even cared if the investigation was ever carried out, since all he needed politically was the ability to say that Biden was under investigation for corruption.
Trump's campaign to get a corruption investigation of Biden involved:
In engaging in these activities, President Trump violated a cardinal principle that is fundamental to our democracy, our constitutional system of government and our sacred right to vote: Only Americans are permitted to participate in and decide our elections, not foreign countries, and not foreign interests. Period. No exceptions.
President Trump, however, personally and directly solicited a foreign country to interfere in our presidential election to benefit his personal political interests.
This was a frontal attack on our democracy.
The record is irrefutable that President Trump engaged in impeachable actions as set forth in Article I of the Impeachment Articles.
The President also directly attacked and engaged in obstruction of the impeachment powers provided to Congress in Article I of the Constitution.
Trump ordered his entire Administration to refuse to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry. He directed Executive Branch agencies and officials to ignore subpoenas, refuse to testify and refuse to turn over any documents to Congress regarding the House impeachment inquiry. The President even directed private citizens who are no longer in government to refuse to cooperate with the proceeding. (Fortunately for the country, a number of courageous public servants defied his order to ignore congressional subpoenas and testified before the House Intelligence Committee.)
According to Impeachment Article II, President Trump "sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the" House. Impeachment Article II states that "In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry."
The conduct of President Trump in the Ukraine affair flagrantly contradicted our democratic norms and values and attacked the integrity of our elections. President Trump's actions cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged, since failing to formally do so would establish the actions as precedents for future conduct and be used to validate future attempts by Trump to rig the 2020 elections.
The President must be held formally accountable by the House, regardless of what the Senate does.
It is incumbent on the House of Representatives to renounce and reject President Trump's irresponsible, indefensible, un-American, unpatriotic actions by passing Article I and Article II of the Articles of Impeachment.
The House must affirm that President Trump is unfit to serve as President.
Democracy 21 is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to making democracy work for all Americans. Democracy 21, and its education arm, Democracy 21 Education Fund, work to eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics, prevent government corruption, empower citizens in the political process and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. The organization promotes campaign finance reform and other related political reforms to accomplish these goals.
(202) 355-9600“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States."
More than 90 civil society groups on Thursday urged congressional Democrats to "stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers" by renewing "without new safeguards" a highly controversial surveillance authorization historically abused by federal agencies.
Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—a controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—without first enacting privacy reforms.
“Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to six senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
Free Press Action & 90 civil-society groups call on Democratic leaders to stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without new safeguards.Our statement: www.freepress.net/news/massive...
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:32 AM
The groups—which include the ACLU, Center for Biological Diversity, Color of Change, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, and UltraViolet Action—cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's xenophobic deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.
As Free Press Action explained Thursday:
Congress has until April 20 to reauthorize Section 702. Stephen Miller is a leading advocate for extending Section 702 without any reforms, and President Trump is now openly supporting this approach. The groups urge Democratic members of Congress to refuse to reauthorize these powers without key reforms, including reforms to the government’s warrantless querying of communications of people in the United States without prior court approval. Such surveillance allows government officials to conduct sweeping backdoor searches, accessing the private communications of millions of people.
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. "These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts by Miller to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”
The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.
I've long been sounding the alarm on Section 702 of FISA, and secret, legal loopholes the government uses to spy on Americans. The program is up for reauthorization in April and I'll be fighting like hell to make sure the current program doesn’t get rubber stamped.
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— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) March 11, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, which would protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance by requiring authorities to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications.
The civil society groups that signed the letter are also urging lawmakers to fix the "overbroad" expansion of electronic communication service providers and remove barrier to the FISA legal process.
"There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration," said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. "People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA."
“This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda," Ruddock added. "Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of Miller and others in the Trump administration.”
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado said that “Democrats do not want this or any administration to have the power to trawl through Americans’ private emails and texts without warrants. Democratic leaders need to listen to the people and not just rubber-stamp the spy powers that Miller is asking for."
"This extends beyond partisan politics," Hammado continued. "No president should have the powers to hoover up Americans’ private communications, force janitors and security guards to spy on other Americans for them, or circumvent court orders by purchasing sensitive information about people in the United States from data brokers."
"As the government’s plans to supercharge surveillance with AI come into view," she added, "Congress must enact real reforms to curb invasive government spying.”
“Israel’s military attorney general just gave his soldiers license to rape—so long as the victim is Palestinian," said one Israeli rights group.
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday dismissed the indictments of five soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in July 2024—an attack that sparked worldwide outrage.
The IDF spokesperson's office said the decision to drop the indictments of five reserve members of Force 100—a special unit of the military police responsible for guarding and controlling high-risk detainees—"was made following an examination of all the considerations, evidence, and relevant circumstances."
"Among the factors taken into account were the complexity of the evidentiary basis in the case and the implications of the release of the security detainee to the Gaza Strip, which created significant consequences for the evidentiary aspect of the case," the office added. "These developments created exceptional circumstances that affect the ability to continue the criminal proceedings while preserving the right of the defendants to a fair trial.”
The dismissal of the indictments, according to The Jerusalem Post, does not mean the soldiers have been exonerated.
The five soldiers were caught on video assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024. Although they used riot shields in a bid to conceal the nearly 15-minute attack, medical reports cited in the case show the victim suffered serious rectal injuries requiring surgery, a ruptured bowel, punctured lung, and fractured ribs. An Israeli medical staffer said that the victim arrived at the hospital in critical condition.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—welcomed the dismissal of the indictments, which he said had "damaged Israel's reputation in the world in an unprecedented manner."
Israeli President Israel Katz raised eyebrows by asserting that "the role of the IDF's legal system is to protect and safeguard IDF soldiers who engage heroically in war against cruel monsters, and not the rights of the terrorists of Hamas."
Netanyahu and Katz both called the prosecution of the Sde Teiman reservists a "blood libel."
The Defense Minister of Israel says it was "blood libel" to go after Israeli soldiers caught on camera raping a Palestinian.
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— Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 9:24 AM
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich similarly welcomed the dismissals, declaring that "now all that's left is to ensure that the ousted military advocate general stands trial.”
Smotrich was referring to Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted last year to authorizing the leak of the Sde Teiman assault video in order to "confront the false propaganda against the law enforcement officials in the military" by those who denied the allegations against the soldiers.
Human rights groups and others condemned the decision to kill the case, with the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) posting on social media that "Israel's military attorney general granted his soldiers a rape license—as long as the victim was Palestinian."
PCATI said that dismissing the indictments "adds to a long series of decisions and actions taken by the army... which cover up the violent violations that have occurred in Israeli prisons and detention facilities Increasingly since October 7, 2023."
Contrasting the failure to hold the reservists accountable with the draconian prison sentences given to Palestinians who resist Israel's illegal occupation, US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said on Bluesky: "Just so that we are clear, Israel drops criminal charges on five Israeli soldiers who were caught on camera sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee. But Israel will keep kids in prison for decades because they were throwing rocks? Make it make sense."
Canadian journalist Justin Ling said that "the abuse inflicted on Palestinian detainees at Sde Teiman prison—including the murder of a Palestinian doctor—was inhumane."
"This one case, brought because the abuse was *caught on camera*, was a small sign that rule of law in Israel still worked," he added. "The Israeli government has dropped the case."
Israeli-American academic Shaiel Ben-Ephraim also noted the strength of the case, including the video footage of the assault.
"They had witness testimony," he added. "It was a slam-dunk case. Guards I talked to in Sde Teiman said this case was just the tip of the iceberg. And now they are dropping the charges. Of course."
Former Palestinian prisoners, IDF soldiers, and Israeli medical professionals have all said they witnessed torture and other abuse of detainees at Sde Teiman and other facilities. Victims ranged in age from children to the elderly.
Israeli physicians who served at Sde Teiman have described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations. Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have recounted rape and sexually assault by male and female soldiers, electrocution, maulings by dogs, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, and other torture.
The New York Times reported on the case of one prisoner who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
According to an analysis by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, at least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons and military detention centers during the war. Many bodies of former Palestinian prisoners returned by Israel have shown signs of torture, execution, and mutilation.
The IDF has announced investigations into the deaths of dozens of Palestinian prisoners in its custody during the genocidal war on Gaza launched after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
Nine Israeli soldiers were initially arrested in connection with the recorded Sde Teiman assault. Five of them were indicted in February 2025.
While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape of the Sde Teiman prisoner, others rallied around the accused soldiers—especially on the far right. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hailed the reservists as “our best heroes.” Smotrich called them “heroic warriors.”
Smotrich and others demanded an investigation into the video showing the attack—not in order to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find out who leaked the damning footage.
The soldiers' arrests outraged many on the Israeli right. At least one Cabinet member and several members of the Knesset, Israel's legislative body, joined a mob that in August 2024 stormed two military bases where they believed the arrested suspects were being held.
Other Israelis, including journaist Yehuda Schlesinger, called for legalizing the torture of Palestinian prisoners, because "they deserve it," and "it's great revenge."
Last year, Israel blocked a request from United Nations sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid attendant scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.
With the intervention of two more nations, 18 have now joined in support of the case, initially brought by South Africa.
The Netherlands and Iceland have joined the case before the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
On Wednesday, both nations filed declarations under Article 63 of the ICJ statute, which allows parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to intervene in cases involving the interpretation of that convention.
The case was filed in 2023 by South Africa, which cited numerous instances of Israeli leaders using genocidal rhetoric amid an onslaught of attacks against civilians.
Since October 2023, official estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health have found that more than 72,000 people have been killed, though independent reviews have placed the death toll much higher.
Several independent humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israel-based organization B'Tselem, have concurred with the intervening parties that Israel's conduct has constituted "genocide."
Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention defines "genocide" as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Among these acts are killing, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about their destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, or forcibly transferring their children to other groups.
In its filing before the ICJ, the Netherlands—home to The Hague, where the ICJ is located—argued that Israel's forcible displacement of more than 1 million civilians, killing of more than 20,000 children according to official estimates, and blocking humanitarian aid to use starvation as a weapon of war, are all acts that, when paired with statements from Israeli officials, imply genocidal intent.
The Dutch urged judges on the court to "take account of starvation or the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid for the purpose of establishing specific intent, in particular when this occurs on the basis of a concerted plan of a consistent pattern of conduct.”
Iceland in particular emphasized Israel's conduct toward the children of Gaza, saying that "attacks on children, including killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm, require special scrutiny as they are particularly indicative of intent to destroy the group."
The pair of European nations brought the total of countries participating in the proceedings up to 18—among them are Belgium, Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey.
The United States, under the Trump administration, meanwhile, has cut off foreign aid to South Africa for its role in launching the case against Israel, which receives billions of dollars in US military assistance annually.
Iceland's intervention in the genocide case marks the first time it has participated in a substantive case before the ICJ, according to the Icelandic news outlet RÚV.
"With Iceland's participation in South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice, we are using our voice in support of international law and human rights," said its minister for foreign affairs, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. "And we can be proud of that."
While its decisions are legally binding and could require Israel to cease violations of the Genocide Convention, the ICJ is not a criminal court.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have each been issued arrest warrants as part of separate war crimes proceedings by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which have thus far not been enforced.