THE DEMOCRATS’ IMPEACHMENT ROAD MAP; IT’S FINISHED, AND READY TO GO: The Complete Case against George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney and all other Guilty Subordinates subject to Impeachment, and/or, Civil, and/or ,International Prosecution for criminal actions and for the commission of, or contribution to crimes against Humanity.
But First A Bit Of Perspective: “A crowded elevator smells different to a short person than it does to all the tall people crowding him. Right now this short person feels like he’s in a politically crowded elevator…and it smells really bad!”
PICTURE THIS: A folksy, self-consciously plainspoken Southern politician rises to power during a period of profound unrest in America. The nation is facing one of the half-dozen or so of its worst existential crises to date, and the people, once sunny, confident, and striving, are now scared, angry, and disillusioned.
This politician, a ''Professional Common Man,'' executes his rise by relentlessly attacking the liberal media, fancy-talking intellectuals, shiftless progressives, pinkos, promiscuity, and welfare hangers-on, all the while clamoring for a return to traditional values, to love of country, to the pie-scented days of old when things made sense and Americans were indisputably American. He speaks almost entirely in ''noble but slippery abstractions''-Liberty, Freedom, Equality-and people love him, even if they can't fully articulate why without resorting to abstractions themselves.
Through a combination of factors-his easy bearing chief among them (along with massive cash donations from Big Business; disorganization in the liberal opposition; a stuffy, aloof opponent; and support from religious fanatics who feel they've been unfairly marginalized)-he wins the presidential election.
Once in, he appoints his friends and political advisers to high-level positions, stocks the Supreme Court with ''surprisingly unknown lawyers who called [him] by his first name,'' declaws Congress, allows Big Business to dictate policy, consolidates the media, and fills newspapers with ''syndicated gossip from Hollywood.'' Carping newspapermen worry that America is moving backward to a time when anti-German politicians renamed sauerkraut ''Liberty Cabbage'' and ''hick legislators...set up shop as scientific experts and made the world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution,'' but newspaper readers, wary of excessive negativity, pay no mind.
Given the nature of ''powerful and secret enemies'' of America-who are ''planning their last charge'' to take away our freedom-an indefinite state of crisis is declared, and that freedom is stowed away for safekeeping. When the threat passes, we can have it back, but in the meantime, citizens are asked to ''bear with'' the president.
Sure, some say these methods are extreme, but the plain folks are tired of wishy-washy leaders, and feel the president's decisiveness is its own excuse. Besides, as one man says, a fascist dictatorship ''couldn't happen here in America...we're a country of freemen!''
While more paranoid readers might be tempted to draw parallels between this scenario and sundry predicaments we may or may not be in right now, the story line is actually that of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel ''It Can't Happen Here,'' a hastily written cautionary note about America's potential descent into fascism, recently reissued by New American Library in a handsome trade edition with a blood-spattered cover design.
At its center, ''It Can't Happen Here'' is no different from these prior efforts. It's just carried out on a bigger, more hyperbolic scale: Lewis takes that Babbitt mentality-the entrenched incuriosity, the smug certitude, the conformity, the complacency-and combines it with the growing desperation of the times to envision an end of America as we know it.
It's an unsettling read, especially in a day and age where wags and politicos on both sides compulsively accuse one another of plotting to destroy America. Other such books, most recently Philip Roth's ''The Plot Against America,'' ask whether a fascist dictatorship can happen here. But whereas Roth manipulates history in order to show what could have happened, imagining an America so blinded by celebrity adulation that it elects an isolationist, anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh president, Lewis suggests that it already has happened, in little pockets all over America: in bridge club meetings, Rotary luncheons. No invading army will be needed to turn America fascist. Instead, the catalyst will come from within, and when it does it will speak colloquial American, and it will come waving the Stars and Stripes.
However broad its themes, ''It Can't Happen Here'' echoes its time, sometimes literally. The Depression was dragging on, the New Deal was on the rocks, FDR was vulnerable, and the GOP had foundered. People were desperate for strong leadership, and as a result there was a real threat coming from numerous quasi-populist movements led by fire-breathing demagogues promising deliverance.
Among these groups was the Share Our Wealth movement, spearheaded by Senator Huey Long, a former Louisiana governor best known as the inspiration for Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's ''All the King's Men.''
Long sought to radically redistribute the nation's wealth and impose an income gap, which, while socialist on its face, was more a cynical ploy for votes than a fast-held ideology. Equally prominent was sulfurous radio personality Father Charles Coughlin's Union of Social Justice, a nativist movement that proposed abolishing the Federal Reserve to reverse the Depression. Both groups were as corrupt as they were illogical, and FDR feared they would combine, unseat him, and replace American democracy with a strain of Hitlerism suited to America's unique temperament.
Driven by his support of Roosevelt and informed by the insights of his second wife, Dorothy Thompson, a pioneering journalist who more than anyone helped bring home the full horrors of Hitler's rise, Lewis cranked out the book in two months in 1935, in the hope that it would help avert what he felt was a looming catastrophe. In order to do so effectively, though, he would have to mine the collective prejudices and disenchantments inherent in the American character.
Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recent president might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is.
To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy. Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became one of America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware of the domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he and Thompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fate for the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer, Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as "it."
If "it" denotes the police state American-style as imagined and satirized by Lewis, complete with concentration camps, martial law, and mass executions of strikers and other dissidents, then "it" hasn't happened here and isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
For contemporary Americans, however, "it" could signify our own more gradual and insidious turn toward authoritarian rule. That is why Lewis's darkly funny but grim fable of an authoritarian coup achieved through a democratic election still resonates today -- along with all the eerie parallels between what he imagined then and what we live with now.
For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tension between the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protections afforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbing realization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated at any moment.
Such foreboding, which would have been dismissed as paranoia not so long ago, has been intensified by the unfolding crisis of political legitimacy in the capital. George W. Bush has repeatedly asserted and exercised authority that he does not possess under the Constitution he swore to uphold. He has announced that he intends to continue exercising power according to his claim of a mandate that erases the separation and balancing of power among the branches of government, frees him from any real obligation to obey laws passed by Congress, and permits him to ignore any provisions of the Bill of Rights that may prove inconvenient.
Whether his fellow Americans understand exactly what Bush is doing or not, his six years in office have created intense public anxiety. Much of that anxiety can be attributed to fear of terrorism, which Bush has exacerbated to suit his own purposes -- as well as to increasing concern that the world is threatened by global warming, pandemic diseases, economic insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and other perils with which this presidency cannot begin to cope.
As the midterm election showed, more and more Americans realize that something has gone far wrong at the highest levels of government and politics -- that Washington's one-party regime had created a daily spectacle of stunning incompetence and dishonesty. Pollsters have found large majorities of voters worrying that the country is on the wrong track. At this writing, two of every three voters give that answer, and they are not just anxious but furious. Almost half are willing to endorse the censure of the president.
Suspicion and alienation extend beyond the usual disgruntled Democrats to independents and even a significant minority of Republicans. A surprisingly large segment of the electorate is willing to contemplate the possibility of impeaching the president, unappetizing though that prospect should be to anyone who can recall the destructive impeachment of Bush's predecessor.
The reasons for popular disenchantment with the Republican regime are well known -- from the misbegotten, horrifically mismanaged war in Iraq to the heartless mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In both instances, growing anger over the damage done to the national interest and the loss of life and treasure has been exacerbated by evidence of bad faith -- by lies, cronyism, and corruption.
Everyone knows -- although not everyone necessarily wishes to acknowledge -- that the Bush administration misled the American people about the true purposes and likely costs of invading Iraq. It invented a mortal threat to the nation in order to justify illegal aggression. It has repeatedly sought, from the beginning, to exploit the state of war for partisan advantage and presidential image management. It has wasted billions of dollars, and probably tens of billions, on Pentagon contractors with patronage connections to the Republican Party.
Everyone knows, too, that the administration dissembled about the events leading up to the destruction of New Orleans. Its negligence and obliviousness in the wake of the storm were shocking, as was its attempt to conceal its errors. It has yet to explain why a person with few discernible qualifications, other than his status as a crony and business associate of his predecessor, was directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. By elevating ethically dubious, inexperienced, and ineffectual management the administration compromised a critical agency that had functioned brilliantly during the Clinton administration.
To date, however, we do not know the full dimensions of the scandals behind Iraq and Katrina, because the Republican leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives abdicated the traditional congressional duties of oversight and investigation. It is due to their dereliction that neither the president nor any of his associates have seemed even mildly chastened in the wake of catastrophe. With a single party monopolizing power yet evading responsibility, there was nobody with the constitutional power to hold the White House accountable.
Bolstered by political impunity, especially in a time of war, perhaps any group of politicians would be tempted to abuse power. But this party and these politicians, unchecked by normal democratic constraints, proved to be particularly dangerous. The name for what is wrong with them -- the threat embedded within the Bush administration, the Republican congressional leadership, and the current leaders of the Republican Party -- is authoritarianism.
The most obvious symptoms can be observed in the regime's style, which features an almost casual contempt for democratic and lawful norms; an expanding appetite for executive control at the expense of constitutional balances; a reckless impulse to corrupt national institutions with partisan ideology; and an ugly tendency to smear dissent as disloyalty. The most troubling effects are matters of substance, including the suspension of traditional legal rights for certain citizens; the imposition of secrecy and the inhibition of the free flow of information; the extension of domestic spying without legal sanction or warrant; the promotion of torture and other barbaric practices, in defiance of American and international law; and the collusion of government and party with corporate interests and religious fundamentalists.
What worries many Americans even more is that the authoritarians can excuse their excesses as the necessary response to an enemy that every American knows to be real. For the past five years, the Republican leadership has argued that the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- and the continuing threat from jihadist groups such as al Qaeda -- demand permanent changes in American government, society, and foreign policy. Are those changes essential to preserve our survival -- or merely useful for unscrupulous politicians who still hope to achieve permanent domination by their own narrowly ideological party? Not only liberals and leftists, but centrists, libertarians, and conservatives, of every party and no party, have come to distrust the answers given by those in power.
The most salient dissent to be heard in recent years, and especially since Bush's reelection in 2004, has been voiced not by the liberals and moderates who never trusted the Republican leadership, but by conservatives who once did.
Former Republican congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, who served as one of the managers of the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the House of Representatives, has joined the American Civil Liberties Union he once detested. In the measures taken by the Bush administration and approved by his former colleagues, Barr sees the potential for "a totalitarian type regime."
Paul Craig Roberts, a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and a former Treasury official under Reagan, perceives the "main components of a police state" in the Bush administration's declaration of plenary powers to deny fundamental rights to suspected terrorists. Bruce Fein, who served as associate attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, believes that the Bush White House is "a clear and present danger to the rule of law," and that the president "cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses." Syndicated columnist George Will accuses the administration of pursuing a "monarchical doctrine" in its assertion of extraordinary war powers.
In the 2006 midterm election, disenchanted conservatives joined with liberals and centrists to deliver a stinging rebuke to the regime by overturning Republican domination in both houses of Congress. For the first time since 1994, Democrats control the Senate and the House of Representatives. But the Democratic majority in the upper chamber is as narrow as possible, depending on the whims of Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a Republican-leaning Democrat elected on an independent ballot line, who has supported the White House on the occupation of Iraq, abuse of prisoners of war, domestic spying, the suspension of habeas corpus, military tribunals, far-right judicial nominations, and other critical constitutional issues. Nor is Lieberman alone among the Senate Democrats in his supine acquiescence to the abuses of the White House.
Even if the Democrats had won a stronger majority in the Senate, it would be naive to expect that a single election victory could mend the damage inflicted on America's constitutional fabric during the past six years. While the Bush administration has enjoyed an extraordinary immunity from Congressional oversight until now, the deepest implication of its actions and statements, as explored in the pages that follow, is that neither legislators nor courts can thwart the will of the unitary executive. When Congress challenges that presidential claim, as inevitably it will, then what seems almost certain to follow is not "bipartisanship" but confrontation. The election of 2006 was not an end but another beginning.
The question that we face in the era of terror alerts, religious fundamentalism, and endless warfare is whether we are still the brave nation preserved and rebuilt by the generation of Sinclair Lewis -- or whether our courage, and our luck, have finally run out. America is not yet on the verge of fascism, but democracy is again in danger. The striking resemblance between Buzz Windrip [the demagogic villain of Lewis's novel] and George W. Bush and the similarity of the political forces behind them is more than a literary curiosity. It is a warning on yellowed pages from those to whom we owe everything.
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
(A PROPOSAL. THE REAL ARTICLES WILLBE WRITTEN BY THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE.)
Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheneyfor high crimes and misdemeanors.
http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/articles.html
Resolved, that President George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush and his team for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article I
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has conspired to exceed his constitutional authority to wage war, in that:
On March 19, 2003, George W. Bush invaded the sovereign country of Iraq in direct defiance of the United Nations Security Council. This constitutes a violation of Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter and a violation of Principal VI of the Nuremberg Charter. According to Article VI of the United States Constitution "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;". George W. Bush has thus acted in violation of the supreme Law of the Land by the following acts:
Invading Iraq with United States military forces.
Sacrificing the lives of thousands of American troops.
Killing tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and conscripts.
Rejecting possibilities for peaceful resolution of the conflict by rejecting acts of compliance by Saddam Hussein with the United Nations Resolutions, and ignoring the findings by Hans Blix that inspections were working to disarm Iraq.
Violating the Geneva Convention by abducting and transporting human beings to prisons in foreign countries where they can be tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment.
Article II
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has subverted the principles of democracy, by the following acts:
Providing misinformation to the United Nations Security Council, Congress, and the American people overstating the offensive capabilities of Iraq, including weapons of mass destruction, as justification for military action against Iraq.
Repeatedly manipulating the sentiments of the American people by erroneously linking Iraq with the terrorist attacks of September 11th by Al-Qaeda.
Repeatedly claiming that satellite photos of sites in Iraq depicted factories for weapons of mass destruction in contradiction with the results of ground inspections by United Nations teams.
Stating that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" in his State of the Union Address after being told by the CIA that this was untrue and that the supporting documents were forged.
Influencing, manipulating and distorting intelligence related to Iraq with the intention of using that intelligence to support his goal of invading Iraq.
Repeatedly ordering the NSA to place illegal wiretaps on American citizens without a court order from FISA.
Retaliating against whistle-blowers who try to point out errors in statements made by President Bush.
Directing millions of dollars in government funds to companies associated with White House officials in no-bid contracts that pose serious conflicts of interest. One example is Halliburton, of which Richard Cheney was once CEO.
Article III
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has threatened the security of the American people, by the following acts:
Diverting military resources from pursuing known terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden who have repeatedly attacked the United States of America.
Generating ill will among the peoples of the world with an offensive and aggressive foreign policy.
Weakening the effects of International Law by defying the United Nations thus encouraging other nations to violate International law by example.
Diverting the National Guard to foreign wars where they are unavailable to serve the needs of American citizens at home who, for example, are suffering from Hurricane Katrina.
Appointing unqualified personnel to critical government positions as political favors where their incompetence places American citizens at risk. An example being the appointment of Mike Brown as head of FEMA.
Proposing military strategies involving the first use of tactical or low yield nuclear weapons in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, which is an inherently destabilizing strategy that encourages participants in a conflict to strike before the other side can do so.
Wherefore, George Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.
DRAFT IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION AGAINST PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
By FRANCIS A. BOYLEPROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SCHOOL OF LAW
108nd Congress H.Res.XX
1st Session
Impeaching George Walker Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors.
_______________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January __, 2003
Mr./Ms. Y submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
_______________________________________________
A RESOLUTION
Impeaching George Walker Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of all of the people of the United States of America, against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
ARTICLE I
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has attempted to impose a police state and a military dictatorship upon the people and Republic of the United States of America by means of "a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations" against the Constitution since September 11, 2001.
This subversive conduct includes but is not limited to trying to suspend the constitutional Writ of Habeas Corpus; ramming the totalitarian U.S.A. Patriot Act through Congress; the mass-round-up and incarceration of foreigners; kangaroo courts; depriving at least two United States citizens of their constitutional rights by means of military incarceration; interference with the constitutional right of defendants in criminal cases to lawyers; violating and subverting the Posse Comitatus Act; unlawful and unreasonable searches and seizures; violating the First Amendments rights of the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government for redress of grievances; packing the federal judiciary with hand-picked judges belonging to the totalitarian Federalist Society and undermining the judicial independence of the Constitution's Article III federal court system; violating the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and the U.S. War Crimes Act; violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; reinstitution of the infamous "Cointelpro" Program; violating the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Convention against Torture, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; instituting the totalitarian Total Information Awareness Program; and establishing a totalitarian Northern Military Command for the United States of America itself. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE II
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. U.S. soldiers in the Middle East are overwhelmingly poor White, Black, and Latino and their military service is based on the coercion of a system that has denied viable economic opportunities to these classes of citizens. Under the Constitution, all classes of citizens are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, and calling on the poor and minorities to fight a war for oil to preserve the lifestyles of the wealthy power elite of this country is a denial of the rights of these soldiers. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE III
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has violated the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and the United Nations Charter by bribing, intimidating and threatening others, including the members of the United Nations Security Council, to support belligerent acts against Iraq. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE IV
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prepared, planned, and conspired to engage in a massive war and catastrophic aggression against Iraq by employing methods of mass destruction that will result in the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom will be children. This planning includes the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and the use of such indiscriminate weapons and massive killings by aerial bombardment, or otherwise, of civilians, violates the Hague Regulations on land warfare, the rules of customary international law set forth in the Hague Rules of Air Warfare, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I thereto, the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles, the Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956). In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE V
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the United States to acts of war without congressional consent and contrary to the United Nations Charter and international law.
From September, 2001 through January, 2003, the President embarked on a course of action that systematically eliminated every option for peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis. Once the President approached Congress for consent to war, tens of thousands of American soldiers' lives were in jeopardy - rendering any substantive debate by Congress meaningless. The President has not received a Declaration of War by Congress, and in contravention of the written word, the spirit, and the intent of the U.S. Constitution has declared that he will go to war regardless of the views of the American people. In failing to seek and obtain a Declaration of War, George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE VI
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has planned, prepared, and conspired to commit crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive war against Iraq in violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles, the Kellogg-Brand Pact, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), numerous other international treaties and agreements, and the Constitution of the United States. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
(In memory of Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez - R.I.P. - and H. Res. 86, 102nd Cong., 1st Sess., Jan. 16, 1991.)
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, and Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, by Clarity Press. He can be reached at: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU
IS THERE REALLY A LEGAL CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH?
http://mhpbooks.com/aoi.html
Saying aloud what’s being said behind the scenes in the corridors of power . . .
FEBRUARY 21, 2006 – In these highly-charged political times, it is the word that dare not speak its name: impeachment. Democrats and other opponents of the President, as well as people in the media, are afraid to raise the topic for fear of being called too partisan or extreme.
But the startling revelation of the President’s warrantless wiretapping campaign may be the straw that broke the camel's back: In the halls of Congress and on the front pages of a growing number of mainstream periodicals, impeachment is being discussed more and more openly. And many leading constitutional scholars agree: there has never been so strong a case for impeachment since Richard Nixon.
In ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH, Michael Ratner, Bill Goodman and other experts at one of our nation's leading institutions of constitutional scholarship, the Center for Constitutional Rights, set out the legal arguments for impeachment in a clear, concise, and objective discussion. In four separate articles of impeachment detailing four separate charges –warrantless surveillance, misleading Congress on the reasons for the Iraq war, violating laws against torture, and subverting the Constitution’s separation of powers – it is, say the CCR attorneys, a case of black letter law, with abundant evidence.
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH details that evidence, the relevant laws and the legal precedents. It also explains what the Constitution says about impeachment – an informative discussion further illuminated by supplemental material that includes a history of impeachment, explanation of its procedures, and the previous articles of impeachment brought against Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
With leading Republicans calling for investigations of the domestic spying campaign, a special prosecutor investigating the suppression of evidence used to launch the Iraq war, and hearings on innumerable instances of torture, ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH may be more timely than any of us would like to admit.
Published on Friday, May 7, 2004 by Roll Call (Washington, DC)
Rangel Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Rumsfeld
by Ethan Wallison
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), a lead critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld amid Congressional outrage over the Pentagon's handling of charges of prison abuse by U.S. soldiers.
"I think that this rises to the point that it's a high crime and misdemeanor if he disappointed the president, kept information from the Congress and kept this information from the American people," Rangel said on the House floor.
Among the prospective charges against Rumsfeld included in the Rangel's impeachment measure are that the Defense chief "contributed to an atmosphere of lawlessness" that permitted the abuses to take place, and "abdicated his role" in allowing such a breakdown in discipline.
The articles also charge that Rumsfeld "urged and oversaw" the removal of Saddam Hussein under a "false premise" - namely, that the United States was under threat of "imminent" attack from weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq's dictator was in league with al Qaeda in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The latter allegations have been a matter of semantic argument for more than a year between Democrats and the GOP, which has contended that neither Rumsfeld nor the Bush administration had used either premise in their arguments for Hussein's ouster.
Republicans were quick to dismiss suggestions that Rumsfeld's impeachment was warranted - or had the slightest chance of success.
"I think to bring up impeachment under these circumstances is ludicrous and absurd," Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday.
Chabot, echoing remarks that have resounded among GOP lawmakers, praised Rumsfeld for his overall handling of the Iraq war. "I think he's done an exemplary job."
Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), a military reservist and a key player in defense matters, described calls for impeachment as a "reach" and an "overreaction," noting that Congress was still awaiting the results of investigations into the prison abuse.
Buyer also cited the dismissal of several key members in the military chain of command as evidence that the military is working through the problems Rangel cited. Among those dismissed was the brigade commander responsible for Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, where many of the abuses are alleged to have taken place.
"That's no small matter," Buyer said, noting that the commander was a one-star general.
Rangel's remarks came on a day of wrenching floor debate over how the House would respond to the mushrooming abuse scandal.
Republicans and Democrats fought over the wording of a resolution condemning the actions of soldiers implicated in the scandal thus far, with Democrats calling for a full Congressional investigation.
Some Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), demanded Rumsfeld's resignation.
Much of the opprobrium surrounding the Defense secretary resulted from a disclosure, earlier, that the Pentagon withheld information from the White House and Congress about ongoing and months-long investigations into abuse of detainees in Iraq.
© 2004 Roll Call Inc
H. Res. 1106
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush,
President of the United States of America, and other
officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPESENTATIVES DECEMBER 8, 2006
Ms. McKINNEY introduced the following Resolution:
RESOLUTION
Resolved, that George Walker Bush, President of the United States,
is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that
the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the
United States Senate:
Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the
name of itself and of all the people of the United States of
America, against George Walker Bush, President of the
United States of America, and other officials, in
maintenance and support of its impeachment against him
for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that:
ARTICLE I. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has demonstrated a
pattern of abuse of office and of executive privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself.
This conduct includes the following: Manipulating Intelligence and Lying to Justify War. In violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of America, in preparing the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full intelligence picture that he was being given, by
redacting information by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, and actively manipulating the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs by pressuring the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide intelligence such that “the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy” as revealed in the “Downing Street Memo.”
To this end, President George Walker Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States of America.
By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false and misleading statements linking Iraq tothe attacks of September 11, 2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions being either false, or based on “fixed” intelligence, with the intent to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of
America.
ARTICLE II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.
In violation of his oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office.
This conduct includes the following:
Failure to Uphold Accountability.
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of office to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take responsibility for, investigate or
discipline those responsible for an ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has failed to hold to account include but are not limited to the following top-level officials in his administration:
(a) Richard Cheney. In violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency to “fix” their intelligence estimates of the danger posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) Condoleezza Rice, In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq’s alleged
weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought
help in developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby Conoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for their negligence or violations of law, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
Wherefore, by their aforementioned conduct, George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney and Condoleezza Rice warrant impeachment, trial and removal from office.
ARTICLE III. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS
ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law.
This conduct includes the following:
Illegal Domestic Spying.
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 USC Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic
surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive
power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a
few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on 20 April, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: “any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way.
When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so,” whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding Founders.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat of arbitrary government, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
THE WORDS OF BARBARA JORDAN REMAIN TRUE TO THIS DAY!
delivered 25 July 1974, House Judiciary Committee
This text will be replaced by the flash music player.
var so = new SWFObject("playerSingle.swf", "mymovie", "192", "67", "7", "#FFFFFF");
so.addVariable("autoPlay", "no");
so.addVariable("soundPath", "http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/barbarajordannixonimpeachment34444444444.mp3");
so.write("flashPlayer");
click for pdf click for flash
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague Mr. Rangel in thanking you for giving the junior members of this committee the glorious opportunity of sharing the pain of this inquiry. Mr. Chairman, you are a strong man, and it has not been easy but we have tried as best we can to give you as much assistance as possible.
Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people."
Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.
"Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?" "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men."¹ And that's what we're talking about. In other words, [the jurisdiction comes] from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers -- and the judges the same person.
We know the nature of impeachment. We've been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the executive if he engages in excesses. "It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."² The framers confided in the Congress the power if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive.
The nature of impeachment: a narrowly channeled exception to the separation-of-powers maxim. The Federal Convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term "maladministration." "It is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention: "We do not trust our liberty to a particular branch. We need one branch to check the other."
"No one need be afraid" -- the North Carolina ratification convention -- "No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity." "Prosecutions of impeachments will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community," said Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, number 65. "We divide into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused."³ I do not mean political parties in that sense.
The drawing of political lines goes to the motivation behind impeachment; but impeachment must proceed within the confines of the constitutional term "high crime[s] and misdemeanors." Of the impeachment process, it was Woodrow Wilson who said that "Nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction; but nothing else can."
Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: Appropriations, Tax Reform, Health Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, Housing, Environmental Protection, Energy Sufficiency, Mass Transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.
This morning, in a discussion of the evidence, we were told that the evidence which purports to support the allegations of misuse of the CIA by the President is thin. We're told that that evidence is insufficient. What that recital of the evidence this morning did not include is what the President did know on June the 23rd, 1972.
The President did know that it was Republican money, that it was money from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, which was found in the possession of one of the burglars arrested on June the 17th. What the President did know on the 23rd of June was the prior activities of E. Howard Hunt, which included his participation in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, which included Howard Hunt's participation in the Dita Beard ITT affair, which included Howard Hunt's fabrication of cables designed to discredit the Kennedy Administration.
We were further cautioned today that perhaps these proceedings ought to be delayed because certainly there would be new evidence forthcoming from the President of the United States. There has not even been an obfuscated indication that this committee would receive any additional materials from the President. The committee subpoena is outstanding, and if the President wants to supply that material, the committee sits here. The fact is that on yesterday, the American people waited with great anxiety for eight hours, not knowing whether their President would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States.
At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the actions the President has engaged in. Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention. "If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached."
We have heard time and time again that the evidence reflects the payment to defendants money. The President had knowledge that these funds were being paid and these were funds collected for the 1972 presidential campaign. We know that the President met with Mr. Henry Petersen 27 times to discuss matters related to Watergate, and immediately thereafter met with the very persons who were implicated in the information Mr. Petersen was receiving. The words are: "If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached."
Justice Story: "Impeachment" is attended -- "is intended for occasional and extraordinary cases where a superior power acting for the whole people is put into operation to protect their rights and rescue their liberties from violations." We know about the Huston plan. We know about the break-in of the psychiatrist's office. We know that there was absolute complete direction on September 3rd when the President indicated that a surreptitious entry had been made in Dr. Fielding's office, after having met with Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Young. "Protect their rights." "Rescue their liberties from violation."
The Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable "who behave amiss or betray their public trust."4 Beginning shortly after the Watergate break-in and continuing to the present time, the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to thwart the lawful investigation by government prosecutors. Moreover, the President has made public announcements and assertions bearing on the Watergate case, which the evidence will show he knew to be false. These assertions, false assertions, impeachable, those who misbehave. Those who "behave amiss or betray the public trust."
James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregard the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, conceal surreptitious entry, attempt to compromise a federal judge, while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice. "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."
If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.
Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That's the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
*I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.*
¹ Federalist, No. 65
² Federalist, No. 65
³ Federalist, No. 65
4 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States
* = text within asterisks absent from this audio
Also in this database: Barbara Jordan: 1976 DNC Keynote Address
rticles of Impeachment
Submitted by bob fertik on Sat, 2005-11-05 14:32. About ImpeachPAC
Articles Drafted by the Center for Constitutional Rights
Uranium Articles of Impeachment
Blog Entries on "Articles of Impeachment".
John Bonifaz: The President's Impeachable Offenses
Phil Burk: Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Jason Feldman: Articles of Impeachment Of George W. Bush, President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States and Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense of the United States.
National Lawyers Guild (with Memorandum of Law)
John Russell: The Case for Impeachment
PatriotDaily.com: Bush's Impeachment As Serial Law Violator
Comparison of suggested Articles by Phil Burk
Nixon's Articles of Impeachment.
Submit your own.
Historical Precedents
Rep. Henry Gonzalez: Articles of Impeachment against Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Bonifaz: The President's Impeachable Offenses
Articles of ImpeachmentofPresident George W. BushandVice President Richard B. Cheney,Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, andAttorney General Alberto Gonzales
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:
1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.
2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.
4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.
5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.
6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.
18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.
20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature.
BACKGROUND NOTES
FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF
THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD B. CHENEY, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD H. RUMSFELD, AND ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN DAVID ASHCROFT
Provisions on Impeachment in the U.S. Constitution
British Experience With Imperial Power and Abuse
The Intention of the Founders to Grant the Power of Impeachment
Impeachment of U.S. Presidents
President George W. Bush and Other Named Officials Have Committed Impeachable Offenses of Unprecedented Danger to the Constitution and People of the United States
We Must Act Now to Prevent Catastrophe and Ensure Accountability
[To see the current Articles of Impeachment, click here]
PROVISIONS ON IMPEACHMENT IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who have acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal.
The power of impeachment is a vital part of the Constitution. It was among the proposals first presented to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Its terms were debated repeatedly and remained prominently in the text from the first drafts of the Constitution to the final document. Impeachment is more fully and carefully detailed in substance and procedure than any other power delegated to the Congress by the Constitution. Provisions relating to impeachment appear six times in text of the Constitution and once in an Amendment. They are:
1. Article I, which creates the legislative branch of government, in Section 2, para. 4 provides:that the House of Representatives... "shall have the sole power of impeachment."
2. Article I, Section 3, para. 6 provides: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present."
3. Article I, Section 3, paragraph 7 provides:Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
4. Article II, which creates the Executive branch, in Section 2 provides the President:...shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
5. Article II, Section 4 provides:The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of , Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
BRITISH EXPERIENCE WITH POWER AND ABUSE
Impeachment was incorporated into the Constitution directly from the British practice and experience to a unique degree. Federalist No. 65, written by Alexander Hamilton cited Great Britain as "the model from which [impeachment] has been borrowed."
Impeachment in Britain had been a key weapon in the long struggle of the Parliament against the tyranny of the King. Because the Parliament and the Courts lacked power to remove, or limit the King, impeachment was used against officers of the King who carried out his tyrannical orders. Between 1620 and 1640 during the reigns of James I and Charles I the House of Commons voted more than 100 impeachments against officers of the Crown.
The impeachment of the Earl of Strafford in 1642 charging "he hath traitorously subverted the Fundamental Laws...to introduce Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government Against Law..." arose from the conflict between Charles I who asserted "the will of the Prince was the source of law" and parliamentarians who believed with Sir Edward Coke that law had "independent existence of its own, set above the King as well as above his subjects". Strafford's impeachment began early in the struggle of the Long Parliament to "prevent the English monarchy from hardening into an absolution of the type then becoming general in Europe". His impeachment is understood today to be "a great watershed in English Constitutional history of which the Founders were aware." 1
After the execution of Charles I in 1648, during the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, there were no impeachments. With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 a stronger Parliament asserted greater power to control arbitrary acts of the King by impeachments for lesser offenses of "negligent discharge of duties" and "improprieties in office."
Just weeks before the Constitutional Convention in 1787 the first efforts to impeach Warren Hastings, Governor General of India began. The articles of impeachment charged Hastings with mal-administration, corruption in office and cruelty toward the Indian people. These articles are reminiscent of the charges against King George III in the American Declaration of Independence eleven years earlier. Indeed the Declaration of Independence could be thought of as a declaration of grounds for removal of the King and his distant government, or a declaration of independence in the absence of the power of impeachment. The Hastings impeachment was of great interest in the Convention, cited prominently by George Mason in the debates and well known by the delegates.
By 1787, the British Parliament had used the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" as a standard for impeachment for more than 400 years.
In Britain, impeachment had been called "...the most powerful weapon in the political armory, short of civil war." It was referred to as "the chief institution for the preservation of the government" in the House of Commons in 1677 and served to curtail the concentration of absolute power in the King and establish constitutional government and supremacy of law as fundamental principle. Impeachment played an historic and heroic role in England's long and bloody struggle to free itself from the despotism of Monarchs.
1 - See Raoul Berger, Impeachment, The Constitutional Problems, Harvard University Press, 1973 at p. 30-40.
6. Article III which creates the Judicial branch of government, in Section 2, paragraph 3 provides:The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.
7. Amendment XXV to the Constitution ratified on February 10. 1967 provides in Section 1:In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
The power of impeachment was placed in the Constitution to protect the Constitution and the people from a despotic, or lawless President.
THE INTENTION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION IN PLACING THE POWER OF IMPEACHMENT IN THE CONGRESS
In answer to the colonial experience with absolutist monarchy, the Articles of Confederation created a purely legislative form of government in which there was no King, or Chief Executive. Ministers answered directly to Congress. Removal of government officials was at the will of the Congress. Impeachment was not needed. The legislative form of government created by the Articles of Confederation did not work. It proved ineffective in accomplishing the purposes of government and diffused responsibility and accountability for acts of government, making reform difficult.
Delegates at the Constitutional Convention quickly decided that a strong executive was essential to effective government. They created the office of the President and vested "The executive Power" in it. The direct means provided in the Constitution for preventing and correcting abuse of executive power was impeachment. The debates on impeachment focused "...principally on its applicability to the President."2
Seeking to create a strong, but responsible executive, delegates at the Convention intended, in the words of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, that "the maxim would never be adopted here that the Chief Magistrate could do no wrong." 3
George Mason, defending provisions for the impeachment of the President in the Constitutional Convention, asked "Shall any man be above justice? Above all Shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?" 4
Benjamin Franklin favored Congressional power to impeach and remove the President to prevent tyranny and recourse to assassination.Edmund Randolph, who would become the first Attorney General under the Constitution and later be forced to resign from the Washington Cabinet on accusation of "Treason", argued for the impeachment power, observing "The Executive will have great opportunity of abusing his power; particularly in time of war when the military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands." Without the power to impeach he saw the remedy in "tumults and insurrections." 5
James Wilson, a major participant in the Constitutional Convention, speaking in the Pennsylvania ratification convention argued that for all the power vested in the President, "not a single privilege is annexed to his character, far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment." 6
The great concern of the Constitution was that there never be an imperial presidency disregarding law and usurping powers of the government and the people. This is further revealed by two provisions in Article II of the Constitution. The final clause of Article II, Section 3, which follows the recitation of Presidential powers and duties set forth in Sections 2 and 3, provides "he shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed..." The last paragraph of Article II, section 1 prescribes the Oath or Affirmation to be taken "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office" ... "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
By the impeachment power, the authors of the Constitution intended to prevent the emergence of a tyrant, or despot in the form of a President who could destroy "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
2 - High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Selected Materials on Impeachment. Constitutional Grounds for Impeachment by the Impeachment Inquiry Staff of the House Judiciary Committee, Funk and Wagnells, 1974 at p 5.
3 - The Records of the Federal Convention 66 (M. Farrand ed. 1911).
4 - 2 Farrand 65.
5 - 2 Farrand 65.
6 - J. Elliot, The Debates In The Several State Conventions On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution, 29 Ed. p. 74.
IMPEACHMENT HISTORY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
A casual reading of the history of impeachment by the Congress might lead one to believe its use, contrary to its clear purpose, "had sunk in this country to the ouster of dreary little judges for squalid misconduct." 7 It has been our good fortune not to have been confronted with the tyrannies of our own Kings and their attendants and forced to struggle for freedom from their despotism. Still the existence of the impeachment power in the Constitution has been present and raised publicly, often prominently, during the administration of every American president.
In 1974, to aid the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary in its consideration of possible grounds for the impeachment of President Nixon, C. Vann Woodward, distinguished professor of history at Yale University, serving as Editor and Director, with the assistance of fourteen prominent historians, compiled a 398 page "Authoritative History of Accusations of High Crimes and Misdemeanors from George Washington to Lyndon Johnson." 8
Charges of misconduct and threats of impeachment against the President, or his civil officers are found in every Presidential administration. Most often the charges have involved corruption which was present in many and prominent in the administrations of Presidents Tyler, Buchanan, Grant and Harding. Sometimes they have involved personal misconduct. Some charges reflect "politics as usual" and are an abuse of the impeachment power itself seeking political advantage. But on many occasions the charges have claimed usurpation of power not delegated to the President, abuse of delegated Presidential power and serious criminal conduct destructive of constitutional government and the rule of law.
While the Constitutional definition of conduct that is impeachable, read with the gloss of history, seems clear, the range of definitions adopted by members of the Congress have stretched from serious felony crimes alone to whatever the Congress says it is. The most extreme definition of impeachable conduct ever proposed in Congress is found in the words of Gerald R. Ford spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1970 when he introduced the notorious articles of impeachment against Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court of the United States:
"What then is an impeachable offense? The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history..." 9
See, generally, Irving Brant, Impeachment, Trials and Errors, Knopf, 1972.
If Ford gave the "only honest answer" to his own question, then the words of the Constitution mean nothing. The Congress could remove the President for any act, or failure to act, it might choose. It was Ford who later, as President pardoned Richard Nixon, immediately after Nixon's resignation as President. Ford himself had been appointed Vice President by President Nixon after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew.
If the impeachment power is limited to serious felony crimes only, it may fail to protect against usurpations and abuses of power that threaten constitutional government, but are not crimes.
A brief comment on impeachable misconduct raised in public debate during the first Presidential administration will indicate the magnitude and frequency of impeachment as a national concern. 10 The administration of President Washington is generally considered to be among the least political and most honorable of all.
Among the most serious accusations were those against Alexander Hamilton of "nothing less than conspiracy to subvert the liberty of his country" by changing the form of the government prescribed in the Constitution from a federal to a national state copying the British financial system in order "to return to the rule of aristocrats and kings."
Hamilton was charged with corruption in selecting William Duer as his Under Secretary of the Treasury. Duer, a notorious speculator, soon resigned owing the government $200,000. His later speculation lead to the first financial panic of the new nation in 1792. Hamilton was subject to lengthy intensive investigation by the House of Representatives for this and other conduct.
Jefferson, among other acts, was charged with using government funds to finance Philip Freneau when Freneau started the National Gazette, a pro Jefferson newspaper.
Both Jefferson and Hamilton were accused of accepting bribes from foreign governments.
Edmund Randolph who served Washington as both Attorney General and Secretary of State was accused of treason and accepting bribes from the French government and corruption for agreeing to foment civil strife in the Whisky Rebellion in 1794 on the basis of French documents captured by the British and irregularties in State Department financial accounts. Confronted with evidence that he accepted bribes from France by President Washington and his War and Treasury Secretaries, Randolph endeavored to explain, apparently failed and then resigned. He was never prosecuted, but his public career ended.
President Washington was personally accused after signing the Jay Treaty with England of participation in a British- Federalist conspiracy to destroy republican government in the U.S. He refused to deliver papers relating to the negotiation of the Treaty to the House of Representatives which was investigating conduct which led to the Treaty.
The Constitutional impeachment power of the Congress has been a conscious presence in the conduct of the Presidency. It has surfaced frequently in public statements and accusations addressing controversial acts of the President and his principal civil officers. It has acted as a powerful deterrent to usurpation and abuse of power by the President. While impeachment has resulted in a completed trial in the Senate in only one case involving the President, it has affected Presidential conduct constantly and led to resignations of many officials and one President.
President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Lincoln, as the nation entered the difficult post Civil War period of reconstruction was accused of the many crimes, even conspiring in the assassination of Lincoln. He was most aggressively charged with frustrating the implementation and execution of Congressional acts and effectively nullifying some laws dealing with reconstruction. The charge for which he was finally impeached and tried in the Senate was violation of the Tenure of Office Act by removal of Secretary of War Stanton whose role in enforcing reconstruction legislation in the former Confederacy was critical. The House vote for Impeachment was 126 to 47. The Senate failed by a single vote to meet the 2/3's requirement set in the Constitution to convict.
Historians still debate whether President Johnson was the victim of radical Republican political anger, or had seriously acted to frustrate the enforcement of reconstruction laws and to "take care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in a matter of great consequence to the nation.
Two of the last seven Presidents have faced impeachment crises. President Nixon was forced to resign in the face of the threat of impeachment. Had there been no impeachment power in the Congress, he surely would not have resigned. Part of President Nixon's problem was the credibility his acts gave to charges that his was an imperial Presidency. When Nixon designed uniforms for White House Guards that looked more appropriate for Buckingham Palace than the White House he was forced by ridicule to change back to customary uniforms.
C. Van Woodward, in his Introduction, The Conscience of the White House says of the charges against President Nixon, "Heretofore, no president has been accused of extensively subverting and secretly using established government agencies to defame or discredit political opponents and critics, to obstruct justice, to conceal misconduct and protect criminals, or to deprive citizens of their rights and liberties." 11
Maybe Woodward is right, but his report is replete with similar and worse allegations in circumstances far more dangerous to the United States. It is, however, clear that such offenses are subject to impeachment.
President Bill Clinton was impeached in December 1998 on three Articles of Impeachment by votes ranging from 229-205 to 221-212. The votes were highly partisan with only five Democrats voting for impeachment. The charges were for perjury, false and misleading testimony and obstruction of justice, all committed in legal proceedings involving allegations of extra-marital sexual conduct. The charges were less serious to Constitutional government than allegations against most previous Presidents. Representative Bob Livingston, Republican and speaker elect of the House of Representatives, resigned from Congress in January 1999 after the disclosure of his extra marital affairs hoping to set an example for President Clinton. The example was not followed and the matter ended without a trial in the Senate.
Allegations of impeachable offenses have been made in the administration of every President.
7 - Berger, op cit, at p. 3, citing Joseph Borkin, The Corrupt Judge (New York, 1962).
8 - Published as Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct, Delacorte Press, 1974.
9 - 116 Cong.Rec.H. 3113-3114 (daily edition April 15, 1970).
10 - See Responses of the Presidents To Charges of Misconduct, op. Cit George Washington, 1789-1797, at pp. 1-21.
11 - Responses Of The Presidents To Charges Of Misconduct, Op. Cit. at p. xxvi.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AND OTHER NAMED OFFICIALS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE COMMITTED IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES OF UNPRECEDENTED DANGER TO THE CONSTITUTION AND PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
Draft Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and other named officials of the United States charge the most serious crimes known to law and history. Nothing in the experience of the impeachment power under the Constitution compares. The conduct charged threatens the Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law and the lives of unknown thousands, or millions of people by their act and example.
The alleged impeachable acts of President George W. Bush include:
1. Ordering and directing "first strike" war of aggression against Afghanistan causing thousands of deaths;
2. Removing the government of Afghanistan by force and installing a government of his choice;
3. Authorizing daily intrusions into Iraqi airspace and aerial attacks including attacks on alleged defense installations in Iraq which have killed hundreds of people in time of peace;
4. Authorizing, ordering and condoning attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties are unavoidable;
5. Threatening the use of nuclear weapons and ordering preparation for their use;
6. Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming his personal intention to change its government by force;
7. Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, murder, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners;
8. Authorizing, ordering and condoning violations of rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eight Amendments to the Constitution and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international protections of human rights;
9. Authorizing, directing and condoning bribery and coercion of individuals and governments to obtain his war ends;
10. Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda and concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment to create a climate of fear and hatred and destroy opposition to his war goals.
President Bush is accused of Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. No crimes are greater threats to the Constitution of the United States, the United Nation Charter, the rule of law or the future of humanity.
MAXIMUM EFFORT TO SECURE FULL CONSIDERATION OF IMPEACHMENT IS THE DUTY OF EVERYONE.
Impeachment is the means by which We The People of the United States and our elected representatives in Congress can prevent further crimes by the President and the human catastrophe they threaten and force accountability for crimes committed.
Congressional proceedings for impeachment can bring about open, fearless consideration of the most dangerous acts and threats ever committed by an American President. If courageously pursued, they can save our Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law, the lives of countless people and leave open the possibility of peace on earth. Each of us must take a stand on impeachment now, or bear the burden of having failed to speak in this hour of maximum peril.
- - Ramsey ClarkJanuary 15, 2003
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.RES.1106
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the... (Introduced in House)
HRES 1106 IH
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1106
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 8, 2006
Ms. MCKINNEY submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
RESOLUTION
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of all the people of the United States of America, against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that:
ARTICLE I. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: `I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States', George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has demonstrated a pattern of abuse of office and of executive privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself. This conduct includes the following:
Manipulating Intelligence and Lying To Justify War
In violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of America, in preparing the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full intelligence picture that he was being given, by redacting information by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief, and actively manipulating the intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs by pressuring the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide intelligence such that `the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' as revealed in the `Downing Street Memo'. To this end, President George Walker Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States of America. By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false and misleading statements linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions being either false, or based on `fixed' intelligence, with the intent to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
ARTICLE II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
In violation of his oath to `faithfully execute the office of President of the United States', George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office.
This conduct includes the following:
Failure To Uphold Accountability
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of office to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take responsibility for, investigate or discipline those responsible for an ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has failed to hold to account include but are not limited to the following top-level officials in his administration:
(a) RICHARD CHENEY- In violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency to `fix' their intelligence estimates of the danger posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) CONDOLEEZZA RICE- In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought help in developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for their negligence or violations of law, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
Wherefore, by their aforementioned conduct, George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice warrant impeachment, trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE III. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to `take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed', George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law.
This conduct includes the following:
Illegal Domestic Spying
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 U.S.C. Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on April 20, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: `any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so', whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding Fathers. Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat of arbitrary government, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
IMPEACHMENT RESOURCES
ABA CNN NY Times PBS NewsHour Washington Post
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article02/18.html
Main Index > Cases and Codes > U.S. Constitution > Article II
previous Annotations p. 18
Section 4. Impeachment
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
IMPEACHMENT 747
Few provisions of the Constitution were adopted from English practice to the degree the section on impeachment was. In Eng land, impeachment was a device to remove from office one who abused his office or misbehaved but who was protected by the Crown. 748 It was a device that figured in the plans proposed to the Convention from the first, and the arguments went to such questions as what body was to try impeachments and what grounds were to be stated as warranting impeachment. 749 The attention of the Framers was for the most part fixed on the President and his removal, and the results of this narrow frame of reference are reflected in the questions unresolved by the language of the Constitution.
Persons Subject to Impeachment
During the debate in the First Congress on the ''removal'' controversy, it was contended by some members that impeachment was the exclusive way to remove any officer of the Government from his post, 750 but Madison and others contended that this position was destructive of sound governmental practice, 751 and the view did not prevail. Impeachment, said Madison, was to be used to reach a bad officer sheltered by the President and to remove him ''even against the will of the President; so that the declaration in the Constitution was intended as a supplementary security for the good behavior of the public officers.'' 752 The language of Sec. 4 does not leave any doubt that any officer in the executive branch is subject to the power; it does not appear that military officers are subject to it 753 nor that members of Congress can be impeached. 754
Judges .--Article III, Sec. 1, specifically provides judges with ''good behavior'' tenure, but the Constitution nowhere expressly vests the power to remove upon bad behavior; it has been assumed that judges are made subject to the impeachment power through being labeled ''civil officers.'' 755 The records in the Convention make this a plausible though not necessary interpretation. 756 And, in fact, twelve of the fifteen impeachments reaching trial in the Senate have been directed at federal judges. 757 So settled apparently is the interpretation that the major arguments, scholarly and political, have concerned the question whether judges, as well as others, are subject to impeachment for conduct which does not constitute an indictable offense and the question whether impeachment is the exclusive removal device with regard to judges. 758
Impeachable Offenses
The Convention came to its choice of words describing the grounds for impeachment after much deliberation, but the phrasing derived directly from the English practice. The framers early adopted, on June 2, a provision that the Executive should be removable by impeachment and conviction ''of mal-practice or neglect of duty.'' 759 The Committee of Detail reported as grounds ''Treason (or) Bribery or Corruption.'' 760 And the Committee of Eleven reduced the phrase to ''Treason, or bribery.'' 761 On September 8, Mason objected to this limitation, observing that the term did not encompass all the conduct which should be grounds for removal; he therefore proposed to add ''or maladministration'' following ''bribery.'' Upon Madison's objection that ''[s]o vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate,'' Mason suggested ''other high crimes and misdemeanors,'' which was adopted without further recorded debate. 762 The phrase in the context of impeachments has an ancient English history, first turning up in the impeachment of the Earl of Suffolk in 1388. 763
Treason is defined in the Constitution; 764 bribery is not, but it had a clear common-law meaning and is now well covered by statute. 765 High crimes and misdemeanors, however, is an undefined and indefinite phrase, which, in England, had comprehended conduct not constituting indictable offenses. 766 In an unrelated action, the Convention had seemed to understand the term ''high misdemeanor'' to be quite limited in meaning, 767 but debate prior to adoption of the phrase 768 and comments thereafter in the ratifying conventions 769 were to the effect that the President at least, and all the debate was in terms of the President, should be removable by impeachment for commissions or omissions in office which were not criminally cognizable. And in the First Congress' ''removal'' debate, Madison maintained that the wanton removal from office of meritorious officers would be an act of maladministration which would render the President subject to impeachment. 770 Other comments, especially in the ratifying conventions, tend toward a limitation of the term to criminal, perhaps gross criminal, behavior. 771 While conclusions may be drawn from the conflicting statement, it must always be recognized that a respectable case may be made for either view.
Practice over the years, however, insofar as the Senate deems itself bound by the actions of previous Senates, would appear to limit the grounds of conviction to indictable criminal offenses for all officers, with the possible exception of judges.
The Chase Impeachment .--The issue was early joined as a consequence of the Jefferson Administration's efforts to rid itself of some of the Federalist judges who were propagandizing the country through grand jury charges and other means. The theory of extreme latitude was enunciated by Senator Giles of Virginia during the impeachment trial of Justice Chase. ''The power of impeachment was given without limitation to the House of Representatives; and the power of trying impeachments was given equally without limitation to the Senate. . . . A trial and removal of a judge upon impeachment need not imply any criminality or corruption in him . . . [but] nothing more than a declaration of Congress to this effect: You hold dangerous opinions, and if you are suffered to carry them into effect you will work the destruction of the nation. We want your offices, for the purpose of giving them to men who will fill them better.'' 772 Chase's counsel responded that to be impeachable, conduct must constitute an indictable offense. 773 Though Chase's acquittal owed more to the political divisions in the Senate than to the merits of the arguments, it did go far to affix the latter reading to the phrase ''high Crimes and Misdemeanors'' until the turbulent period following the Civil War. 774
The Johnson Impeachment .--President Johnson was impeached by the House on the ground that he had violated the ''Tenure of Office'' Act 775 by dismissing a Cabinet chief. The theory of the proponents of impeachment was succinctly put by Representative Butler, one of the managers of the impeachment in the Senate trial. ''An impeachable high crime or misdemeanor is one in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest, and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted, or, without violating a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper motives or for an improper purpose.'' 776 Former Justice Benjamin Curtis controverted this argument, saying: ''My first position is, that when the Constitution speaks of 'treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors,' it refers to, and includes only, high criminal offences against the United States, made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done, and I say that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every provision of the Constitution on the subject of impeachment.'' 777 The President's acquittal by a single vote was no doubt not the result of a choice between the two theories, but the result may be said to have placed a gloss on the impeachment language approximating the theory of the defense.
Later Judicial Impeachments .--With regard to federal judges, however, several successful impeachments in this Century appear to establish that the constitutional requirement of ''good behavior'' and ''high crimes and misdemeanors'' may conjoin to allow the removal of judges who have engaged in seriously questionable conduct, although no specific criminal statute may have been violated. Thus, both Judge Archbald and Judge Ritter were convicted on articles of impeachment that charged questionable conduct probably not amounting to indictable offenses. 778 It is possible that Members of Congress may employ different standards with regard to judges who have life tenure than they do with regard to other officers of the Government who either serve for a term of years or who serve at the pleasure of others who serve for a term of years, but such a differentiation places a substantial burden upon the language of the Constitution.
With regard to the three most recent judicial impeachments, Judges Claiborne and Nixon had previously been convicted of criminal offenses, while Judge Hastings had been acquitted of criminal charges after trial. The impeachment articles charged both the conduct for which he had been indicted and trial conduct. Clearly, he was charged and convicted with criminal offenses, it being a separate question what effect the court acquittal should have. 779
The Nixon Impeachment .--For the first time in over a hundred years and for only the second time in the Nation's history, Congress moved to impeach the President of the United States, a move forestalled only by the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974. In the course of the proceedings, there recurred strenuous argument with regard to the nature of an impeachable offense, whether only criminally- indictable actions qualify for that status or whether the definition is broader, and, of course, no resolution was reached. 780
A second issue arose that apparently had not been considered before: whether persons subject to impeachment could be indicted and tried prior to impeachment and conviction or whether indictment could only follow the removal from office. In fact, the argument was really directed only to the status of the President, inasmuch as it was argued that he embodied the Executive Branch itself, while lesser executive officials and judges were not of that calibre. 781 That issue similarly remained unsettled, the Supreme Court declining to provide some guidance in the course of deciding a case on executive privilege. 782
Judicial Review of Impeachments .--It was long assumed that no judicial review of the impeachment process was possible, that impeachment presents a true ''political question'' case. That assumption was not contested until very recently, when Judges Nixon and Hastings challenged their Senate convictions. 783 But federal courts, setting the stage for Supreme Court consideration, held the challenges to be nonjusticiable, that the Constitution's conferral on the Senate of the ''sole'' power to try impeachments demonstrated a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of trial procedures to the Senate to decide without court review. 784
Upon at last reaching the question, the Court has held that a claim to judicial review of an issue arising in an impeachment trial in the Senate presents a nonjusticiable question, a ''political question.'' Supp.6 Specifically, the Court held that a claim that the Senate had not followed the proper meaning of the word ''try'' in the impeachment clause, a special committee being appointed to take testimony and to make a report to the full Senate, complete with a full transcript, on which the Senate acted, could not be reviewed. But the analysis of the Court applies to all impeachment clause questions, thus seemingly putting offlimits to judicial review the whole process.
Footnotes
[Footnote 747] Impeachment is the subject of several other provisions of the Constitution. Article I, Sec. 2, cl. 5, gives to the House of Representatives ''the sole power of impeachment.'' Article I, Sec. 3, cl. 6, gives to the Senate ''the sole power to try all impeachments,'' requires that Senators be under oath or affirmation when sitting for that purpose, stipulates that the Chief Justice of the United States is to preside when the President of the United States is tried, and provides for conviction on the vote of two-thirds of the members present. Article I, Sec. 3, cl. 7, limits the judgment after impeachment to removal from office and disqualification from future federal office holding, but it allows criminal trial and conviction following impeachment. Article II, Sec. 2, cl. 1, deprives the President of the power to grant pardons or reprieves in cases of impeachment. Article III, Sec. 2, cl. 3, excepts impeachment cases from the jury trial requirement.
[Footnote 748] 1 W. Holdsworth, History of English Law (London: 7th ed. 1956), 379-385; Clarke, The Origin of Impeachment, in Oxford Essays in Medieval History, Presented to Herbert Salter (Oxford: 1934), 164.
[Footnote 749] Simpson, Federal Impeachments, 64 U. Pa. L. Rev. 651, 653-667 (1916).
[Footnote 750] 1 Annals of Cong. 457, 473, 536 (1789).
[Footnote 751] Id., 375, 480, 496-497, 562.
[Footnote 752] Id., 372.
[Footnote 753] 3 W. Willoughby, op. cit., n.294, 1448.
[Footnote 754] This point was established by a vote of the Senate holding a plea to this effect good in the impeachment trial of Senator William Blount in 1797. 3 A. Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington: 1907), 2294-2318; F. Wharton, State Trials of the United States During the Administrations of Washington and Adams (Philadelphia: 1849), 200-321.
[Footnote 755] See National Comm. on Judicial Discipline & Removal, Report of the National Comm. on Judicial Discipline & Removal (1993), 9-11. The Commission was charged by Congress, P. L. 101-650, 104 Stat. 5124, with investigating and studying problems and issues relating to discipline and removal of federal judges, to evaluate the advisability of developing alternatives to impeachment, and to report to the three Government Branches. The report and the research papers produced for it contains a wealth of information on the subject.
[Footnote 756] For practically the entire Convention, the plans presented and adopted provided that the Supreme Court was to try impeachments. 1 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 22, 244, 223-224, 231; 2 id., 186. On August 27, it was successfully moved that the provision in the draft of the Committee on Detail giving the Supreme Court jurisdictions of trials of impeachment be postponed, id., 430, 431, which was one of the issues committed to the Committee of Eleven. Id., 481. That Committee reported the provision giving the Senate power to try all impeachments, id., 497, which the Convention thereafter approved. Id., 551. It may be assumed that so long as trial was in the Supreme Court, the Framers did not intend that the Justices, at least, were to be subject to the process.
[Footnote 759] 1 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 88, 90, 230.
[Footnote 760] 2 id., 172, 186.
[Footnote 761] Id., 499.
[Footnote 762] Id., 550.
[Footnote 763] 1 T. Howell, State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Present Times (London: 1809), 90, 91; A. Simpson, Treatise on Federal Impeachments (Philadelphia: 1916), 86.
[Footnote 764] Article III, 3.
[Footnote 765] The use of a technical term known in the common law would require resort to the common law for its meaning, United States v. Palmer, 16 U.S. (3 Wheat.) 610, 630 (1818) (per Chief Justice Marshall); United States v. Jones, 26 Fed. Cas. 653, 655 (No. 15,494) (C.C.Pa. 1813) (per Justice Washington), leaving aside the issue of the cognizability of common law crimes in federal courts. See Act of April 30, 1790, Sec. 21, 1 Stat. 117.
[Footnote 766] Berger, Impeachment for ''High Crimes and Misdemeanors,'' 44 S. Calif. L. Rev. 395, 400-415 (1971).
[Footnote 767] The extradition provision reported by the Committee on Detail had provided for the delivering up of persons charged with ''Treason, Felony or high Misdemeanors.'' 2 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 174. But the phrase ''high Misdemeanors'' was replaced with ''other crimes,'' ''in order to comprehend all proper cases: it being doubtful whether 'high misdemeanor' had not a technical meaning too limited.'' Id., 443.
[Footnote 768] See id., 64-69, 550-551.
[Footnote 769] E.g., 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Constitution (Philadelphia: 1836), 341, 498, 500, 528 (Madison); 4 id., 276, 281 (C. C. Pinckney: Rutledge): 3 id., 516 (Corbin): 4 id., 263 (Pendleton). Cf. The Federalist, No. 65 (J. Cooke ed., 1961), 439-445 (Hamilton).
[Footnote 770] 1 Annals of Cong. 372-373 (1789).
[Footnote 771] 4 J. Elliot, op. cit., n.769, 126 (Iredell); 2 id., 478 (Wilson).
[Footnote 772] 1 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs (Philadelphia: 1874), 322. See also 3 A. Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington: 1907), 739, 753.
[Footnote 773] Id., 762.
[Footnote 774] The full record is S. Smith & T. Lloyd (eds.), Trial of Samuel Chase, An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . . . (Washington: 1805). On the political background and the meaning of the trial and acquittal, see Lillich, The Chase Impeachment, 4 Amer. J. Legal Hist. 49 (1960).
[Footnote 775] Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 430.
[Footnote 776] 1 Trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States on Impeachment (Washington: 1868), 88, 147.
[Footnote 777] Id., 409.
[Footnote 778] ten Broek, Partisan Politics and Federal Judgeship Impeachments Since 1903, 23 Minn. L. Rev. 185 (1939).
[Footnote 779] Grimes, Hundred-Ton-Gun Control: Preserving Impeachment as the Exclusive Removal Mechanism for Federal Judges, 38 UCLA L. Rev. 1209, 1229-1233 (1991).
[Footnote 780] Analyses of the issue from different points of view are contained in Impeachment Inquiry Staff, House Judiciary Committee, Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachments, 93d Congress, 2d sess. (1974) (Comm. Print); J. St. Clair, et al., Legal Staff of the President, Analysis of the Constitutional Standard for Presidential Impeachment (Washington: 1974); Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, Legal Aspects of Impeachment: An Overview, and Appendix I (Washington: 1974). And see R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems (Cambridge: 1973), which preceded the instant controversy. The House Judiciary Committee recommended three articles of impeachment, for conduct at least one of which, refusal to honor the Committee's subpoenas, was not an indictable offense, and a second that mixed indictable and nonindictable offenses. Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, H. Rept. No. 93-1305, 93d Cong., 2d sess. (1974). Mr. Nixon's resignation of course precluded further action on the issue, although the articles were submitted to and ''accepted'' by the House of Representatives. 120 Cong. Rec. 29219-29362 (1974).
[Footnote 781] The question first arose during the grand jury investigation of former Vice President Agnew, during which the United States, through the Solicitor General, argued that the Vice President and all civil officers were not immune from the judicial process and that removal need not precede indictment, but as to the President it was argued that for a number of constitutional and practical reasons the President was not subject to the ordinary criminal process. Memorandum for the United States, Application of Spiro T. Agnew, Civil No. 73-965 (D.Md., filed October 5, 1973). Courts have specifically held that a federal judge is indictable and may be convicted prior to removal from office. United States v. Claiborne, 727 F.2d 842, 847-848 (9th Cir.), cert. den., 469 U.S. 829 (1984); United States v. Hastings, 681 F.2d 706, 710-711 (11th Cir.), cert. den., 459 U.S. 1203 (1983); United States, v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124, 1142 (7th Cir.), cert. den. sub nom., Kerner v. United States, 417 U.S. 976 (1974).
[Footnote 782] The grand jury had named the President as an unindicted coconspirator in the case of United States v. Mitchell, et al., No. 74- 110 (D.D.C.), apparently in the belief that he was not actually indictable while in office. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the President's claim that the grand jury acted outside its authority, but finding that resolution of the issue was unnecessary to decision of the executive privilege claim it dismissed the petition for certiorari of the President as improvidently granted. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 687 n. 2 (1974).
[Footnote 783] Both sought to challenge the use under Rule XI of a trial committee to hear the evidence and report to the full Senate, which would then carry out the trial. The rule was adopted in the aftermath of an embarrassingly sparse attendance at the trial of Judge Louderback in 1935. National Comm. Report, op. cit., n.755, 50-53, 54-57; Grimes, op. cit., n.779, 1233-1237.
[Footnote 784] Nixon v. United States, 744 F.Supp. 9 (D.D.C. 1990), affd. 938 F.2d 239 (D.C.Cir. 1991), cert. granted, 112 S.Ct. 1158 (1992). However, in Hastings v. United States, 802 F.Supp. 490 (D.D.C. 1992), the court did reach the merits and held that at least in the instance of Judge Hastings, who had been acquitted in court of the criminal charges for the conduct relied on by the Senate, he was entitled to a trial before the full Senate without the interposition of the trial committee.
[Footnote 6 (1996 Supplement)] Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993). Nixon at the time of his conviction and removal from office was a federal district judge in Mississippi.
http://judiciary.house.gov
Rep. John Conyers
Bio
08.04.2006
The Constitution in Crisis
Final "Constitution in Crisis" ReportSix Years of Unchecked Abuses -- Had Enough?
Cross Posted at Daily Kos
Today, I am releasing the final version of my report, the "Constitution in Crisis." The report, which is some 350 pages in length and is supported by more than 1,400 footnotes, compiles the accumulated evidence that the Bush Administration has thumbed its nose at our nation's laws, and the Constitution itself.
Approximately 26 laws and regulations may have been violated by this Administration's misconduct.
Our Constitution established a tri-partite system of government, with the notion that each branch of government would act as a check on the other two. Unfortunately, for the last six years, the Republicans in Congress have largely viewed themselves as defenders of the Bush Administration, instead of a vital check on overreaching by the Executive Branch. By doing so, I believe they have acted to the detriment of our Constitutional form of government.
We have seen so many transgressions by this Administration that it is easy to forget last week's scandal amid this week's new outrage. I am hopeful that compiling all of these events of the last few years will help wake all of us up to the gravity of these matters and the cumulative damage to our country.
We have a mountain of reports that strongly indicate that this Administration was well aware that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they told the Congress and the American people the opposite in order to satisfy a predetermination to go to war. The "smoking gun" of these reports is the Downing Street Memoranda, contemporaneous reports from the highest reaches of the British government recounting meetings with their American counterparts, meetings where the facts were being fixed around the policy of going to war.
We have a mountain of statements from Administration officials making claims designed to conflate Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda, and corresponding mountains of reports that credible intelligence officials in our government disputed such claims. We also have evidence showing that government officials instituted policies which endorsed the use of torture in violation of U.S. law and international treaties.
We have scores of sources indicating the Administration engaged in a concerted effort to discredit and defame anyone who came forward to expose these outrages, and have largely done so without consequence. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson dared to question whether Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, Administration officials retaliated against him by outing his wife as an undercover C.I.A. operative. When General Eric Shinseki and others in the military dared to dispute the Administration's wildly optimistic assessments of what was needed to pursue the Iraq conflict, he was summarily replaced. The pattern repeats itself with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Economic Adviser Larry Lindsey. And Cindy Sheehan. And the list goes on and on.
The American people have paid the price for this strategy of deception followed by, in the words of one anonymous Republican official, "slime and defend." We have paid with the lives of more than 2,500 of our sons and daughters in uniform and in hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxes.
The Administration also appears to have used the war on terror as an excuse to eviscerate the basic protections afforded to us in the Constitution. There have been warrantless wiretaps of law-abiding Americans, in clear contravention of federal law, not to mention the creation of a huge unchecked database of the phone records of innocent Americans.
All the while, the Republican Congress sits idly by. Rather than performing its constitutional duty as a co-equal branch, it has chosen to stymie any and all efforts at oversight. After six long years of deceptions, attacks and yes, outright lies, I am convinced the American people have had enough.
Joseph A. Palermo
Bio
12.14.2006
Articles of Impeachment Against President George W. Bush
READ MORE: George W. Bush, United States, Iraq, William (Prince)2, New Jersey, Hoboken, National Security Agency
Here are four Articles of Impeachment as put forth by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Each of the four have substantial supporting documentation, which includes the Congressional Record, private correspondence from government officials, public statements by President Bush and other Administration officials, press accounts, and court documents. I have written below verbatim the Articles of Impeachment from a book by William Goodman, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, entitled: Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, (Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House Publishing, 2006).
Article I
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch, and failing to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by directing or authorizing the National Security Agency and various other agencies within the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance outside of the statutes Congress has prescribed as the exclusive means for such surveillance, and to use such information for purposes unknown but unrelated to any lawful program of electronic surveillance from Congress, the press, and the public. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article II
The impeachment of George W. Bush, President of the United States, is warranted by his initiation and continuation of the Iraq war. The initiation and continuation of the war constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor and is illegal as well. In undertaking that war, George W. Bush violated his oath of office and constitutional obligation that the laws be faithfully executed.
George W. Bush has subverted the Constitution, its guarantee of a republican form of government, and the constitutional separation of powers by undermining the rightful authority of Congress to declare war, oversee foreign affairs, and make appropriations. He did so by justifying the war with false and misleading statements and deceived the people of the United States as well as Congress. He denied the electorate the right to make an informed choice and thereby undermined democracy.
George W. Bush also committed fraud against the United States by lying to and intentionally misleading Congress about the reasons for the Iraq war.
George W. Bush acted contrary to his trust as president, and subverted the constitutional government to the prejudice of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal of office.
Article III
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional and international rights of citizens and non-citizens by arbitrarily detaining them indefinitely inside and outside of the United States, without due process, without charges, and with limited -- if any -- access to counsel or courts.
George W. Bush has abused his power and failed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States by allowing his administration to condone torture, failing to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for torture, and officially refusing to accept the binding nature of a statutory ban on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
George W. Bush has offended our system of government by attempting to expand his power at the expense of the other two branches of government. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article IV
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws by faithfully executed, has arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:He has violated federal law by conducting surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, as is required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was specifically enacted to check executive power.
He has engaged in mass detentions both in and outside of the United States without permitting any judicial review of such detentions.He has formally declared his intent to violate the laws enacted by Congress by appending a "signing statement" to legislation that asserts his right to carve out exceptions to legislation as he sees fit, thereby arrogating to himself legislative powers reserved solely to Congress.
In all of this, George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
For many leading Democrats who will be taking charge of the 110th Congress in January the idea of taking steps to impeach George W. Bush is "off the table." I understand their hesitancy to invoke such a drastic remedy that our nation's founders so thoughtfully included in our Constitution for addressing unlawful actions by a President. But I agree with Henry Hyde, James Sensebrenner, Lyndsey Graham, Trent Lott, and other wise leaders that the rule of law is so important to our society and to our form of republican government that we must check the powers of the Chief Executive when there is evidence of a failure on the part of the President to uphold his oath of office. Our democracy depends on it.
Excerpt: Articles of Impeachment
Center for Constitutional Rights. Posted March 6, 2006.
A new book lays out four clear legal arguments that point to impeachment of President Bush as a necessary remedy for the violation of our Constitution.
It Can Happen HereJoe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books
Editor's Note: this is an excerpt from the Center for Constitutional Right's new book, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush," reprinted with permission from Melville House, 2006.)
INTRODUCTION
How can it be that we are yet again debating another presidential impeachment? Still weary from the Clinton impeachment battles and now completely exhausted from the momentous changes brought about by both 9/11 and this president -- changes that include the Iraq war, indefinite detentions around the world, torture, domestic wiretapping, and more -- we have all we can do to understand and perhaps resist some or all of these measures on an ad hoc basis. While any of the individual acts and policies outlined in the following articles would constitute an impeachable offense, taken as a whole, as a pattern and practice, they constitute something far more sinister, a plan to significantly weaken, if not destroy, our democracy.
As a consequence this nation is confronted with a grave constitutional crisis. We have a president staunchly committed to acquiring unprecedented amounts of power and using it in ways that conflict with the Constitution of the United States, international law, and the common understanding of morality. In short, although the president has sworn to uphold the Constitution, he is doing just the opposite. He is dismantling the Constitution of the United States. Primarily, his apparent purpose is to gather even more power -- power unchecked by judicial or congressional scrutiny -- to a presidency already bloated with power.
Simultaneously, summary arrests, in the United States and around the world, torture, indefinite detention, illegal surveillance, and suppression of free speech and protest have become commonplace. Yet worse, as all of this has happened the government has sought to eliminate any judicial oversight of its activities by weakening the judicial system in innumerable ways. The president has also disregarded Congress and thereby attempted to weaken its role. The consequence has been that the fundamental building block of American democracy, our system of separation of powers, has come under lethal attack.
How did it come about that we are in the constitutional crisis in which we find ourselves today? Before we discuss the reasons for this, or even the historical context, it seems useful to introduce some of the terminology and details that surround impeachment, the Constitution's nuclear option.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that the president may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." This was the mechanism that the framers of the Constitution provided Congress to protect itself from executive overreaching. Clearly the framers drafted this provision in the context of what they viewed as the history of their time, i.e., the conflict between the actions of the English king and the ideals of the English law. Thus, for the framers, impeachment was a key element of American democracy in that it provided an ultimate means to curtail abuses of, or unconstitutional expansion of, executive powers.
While bribery and treason were technically defined crimes that would inevitably subvert the Constitution, the more general and less defined concept of high crimes and misdemeanors was intended to identify that activity whereby the executive overstepped the bounds of public office or failed to faithfully execute the laws. Hamilton viewed it as an abuse or violation of the public trust. Thereby the framers provided a much more general category whereby the Constitution would also surely be subverted.
To place the present moment into the context of history, in 1868 President Andrew Johnson was acquitted by only one vote of the accusation of denying Congress its power. It was claimed that the president, unmindful of the oath that obliged him to faithfully execute the laws, denied that the legislation passed by Congress was either valid, or that he was required to comply.
President Clinton was impeached in 1999 for perjury and obstruction of justice. The circumstances of this impeachment, involving as they did, a personal affair, were unusual and are not applicable to the current situation. More pertinent, however, is the threatened impeachment and, ultimately, the resignation of Richard Nixon.
In 1974 President Nixon resigned before the House Judiciary Committee could vote on articles of impeachment. Those articles accused him of violating his constitutional oath 1) to faithfully execute the office of the president; 2) to protect and defend the Constitution; and 3) to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He did this by means of false and misleading statements, withholding information from Congress, condoning false statements, misuse of the CIA, and deceiving the people of the United States, as well, with false or misleading statements.
These are both the formal criteria and the precedents against which, when presented with the evidence, the reader may make a decision as to whether there is a valid basis for the impeachment of the current president.
Nine months after George W. Bush was sworn in as president, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and murdered thousands. An active negligence of constitutional duties and boundaries commenced.
"You are either with us or you are with the terrorists," proclaimed the president. His attorney general, John Ashcroft, similarly declared:
"[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."
The message was clear: Opposition and dissent were treason and concern for constitutional rights was a technicality, a phantom that played into the hands of terrorism. Out of this antagonism to the Constitution that had long predated the attacks of 9/11 (as will be detailed) grew the full-blown attack on the system of checks and balances and the Bill of Rights that the following articles detail.
While these charges delineate a history for which one person, even the president of the United States, cannot be fully responsible and probably not even fully aware, this president was more than a willing accomplice to the severe damage to which our Constitution has been subjected. He has been an enthusiastic perpetrator of that damage. More importantly, when he swore to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution, he should not have been merely mouthing words or repeating slogans. It is the thesis of this book that this promise must forever be embedded in the protoplasm of the man or woman who takes the oath. If it is not, we will all pay the price. If it is not, and if this oath is violated, the only just remedy is impeachment.
WILLIAM GOODMANLegal DirectorCenter for Constitutional Rights
TEN REASONS TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT
Steve WatsonInfowars.netTuesday, December 5, 2006
"THE ACT OF WRITING UP ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT IS NOT DIFFICULT. YOU JUST WRITE THEM ON A PIECE OF PAPER,"
-US Rep. McKinney (D-GA)-
Remember what Bill Clinton was impeached for when reading the following ten reasons why George W Bush should be impeached:
North American Union, Amnesty program, Killing sovereignty
The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally been reported on by mainstream news outlets.
The framework on which the American Union is being pegged is the NAFTA Super Highway, a four football-fields-wide leviathan that stretches from southern Mexico through the US up to Montreal Canada .Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the Pan American Union is the final jigsaw piece for the total dismantling of America as we know it.
Illegal legislation / Re-writing law: Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, Wiretapping
The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens. Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.
Neo-Con government mouthpieces and others are claiming that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which heralded the official end of the "great experiment" of the American democratic republic, does not affect U.S. citizens, only illegal aliens and foreign terrorists. Recent history of how terror legislation was used to target American citizens clearly indicates the legislation will be used domestically.
Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the bill also contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.
The wiretapping program violates the Fourth Amendment and FISA and will chill free speech. The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people of the United States to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and requires court approval except in an emergency. As a bipartisan group of legal experts—including Judge William Sessions, the former Director of the FBI under President Ronald Reagan—concluded after analyzing all the constitutional and statutory assertions of the administration: “the Justice Department’s defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance.”
Bush is also planning to abolish parts of the War Crimes Act of 1996 that makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. He is systematically re-writing laws that could make him accountable for previous crimes against humanity.
UNESCO and UN treaties
For reasons inexplicable to most sensible Americans, in September 2002, President George W. Bush told the United Nations that the U.S. will rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a wild-eyed bunch President Reagan abandoned in 1984, noting that it was utterly corrupt and the U.S. had no business being a member of such a group.
Destruction of the Dollar
Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no,".
Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies. Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.
New Freedom Initiative
Enforced and mandatory psychological testing and drugging is now a proposed federal law, to be done nationwide under Bush's 'New Freedom initiative'. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations
Real ID act
The Real ID Act essentially turns your driver's license into a national identification card. Or at least licenses issued by 2008 will be. That's when the program is to start.
Congressman Ron Paul: "Proponents of the REAL ID Act continue to make the preposterous claim that the bill does not establish a national ID card. This is dangerous and insulting nonsense."
The Senate has passed the Real ID bill, creating a backdoor national ID card. After weeks of activism directed towards them senators knew the full scale of this horror but voted for it 100-0 anyway.
Lies that led us to war
The Downing Street Memo and other documents prove that Bush knew there were no WMD before the invasion of Iraq. Bush's WMD statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."-- United Nations Address, September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."-- Radio Address, October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." -- Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."-- State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -- Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003
Buying fake news and engaging in domestic propaganda
In 2004, several news stations around the country broadcast a story on plans for a White House advertising campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. But the "journalist" who reported this story was not a journalist, and his report was actually produced by the Bush administration.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, ruled that this amounted to illegal "covert propaganda."
The GAO said the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws when it created fake news footage to support the administration's Medicare drug benefit bill.
Hurricane Katrina response
The event paved the way for the standard government response to a crisis - sabotage the rescue efforts, dominate and enslave the victims, then reap the windfall from the tragedy.
Katrina was a trial balloon for widespread gun confiscation under the pretext of a crisis. Every aspect of government involvement with the event unveils scandal, corruption, deceit and criminal negligence.
9/11
Bush personally backed the FBI off Bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush administration moved to block transparency of secret bank accounts, which in part facilitated the 9/11 terror attacks.
The demeanor of Bush on the day of 9/11, doe eyed, unsure, taking the decision to read an upside down book about a pet goat for half an hour after he’s told about the biggest attack on America since Pearl Harbor.
Impeachment and indictment is the only way to go to save America and democracy. Bush is a figurehead but we need to show the world that he and his handlers are not our leaders.
Email this page to a friend
Articles of ImpeachmentPrepared by Ramsey Clark, Former Attorney General of the Untied States
Articles of Impeachment Against George W. BushCenter for Constitutional Rights http://zzpat.bravehost.com/april_2006/articles_of_impeachment.html
Article I
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his powers by violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch, and failing to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by directing or authorizing the National Security Agency and various other agencies within the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance outside of the statues Congress has prescribed as the exclusive means for such surveillance, and to use such information for purposes unknown but unrelated to any lawful function of his office; he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of electronic surveillance from Congress, the press and the public. Wherefore, George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial and removal from office.
Article II
The Impeachment of George W. Bush, President of the United States, is warranted by his initiation and continuation of the Iraq war. The initiation and continuation of the war constitutes high crime and misdemeanor and is illegal as well. In undertaking that war, George W. Bush violated his oath of office and constitutional obligation that the laws be faithfully executed.
George W. Bush has subverted the Constitution, its guarantee of a republican form of government, and the constitutional separation of powers by undermining the rightful authority of Congress to declare war, oversee foreign affairs, and make appropriations. He did so by justifying the war with false and misleading statements and deceived the people of the United States as well as Congress. He denied the electorate the right to make an informed choice and thereby undermined democracy.
George W. Bush also committed fraud against the United States by lying to and intentionally misleading Congress about the reasons for the Iraq war.
George W. Bush acted contrary to his trust as president, and subverted the constitutional government to the prejudice of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article III
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional and international rights of citizens and non-citizens by arbitrarily detaining them indefinitely inside and outside the United States, without due process, without charges, and with limited – if any – access to counsel or courts.
George W. Bush has abused his power and failed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States by allowing his administration to condone torture, failing to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for torture, and officially refusing to accept the binding nature of a statuary ban on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
George W. Bush has offended our system of government by attempting to expand his power at the expense of the other two branches of government. Wherefore, George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article IV
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:
He has violated federal law by conducting surveillance of U.S.citizens on U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, as is required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was specifically enacted to check executive power.
He has engaged in mass detentions both in and outside the United States without permitting any judicial review of such detentions.
He has formally declared his intent to violate the laws enacted by Congress by appending a "signing statement" to legislation that asserts his right to carve out exceptions to legislation as he sees fit, thereby arrogating to himself legislative powers reserved solely to Congress.
In all this, George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Tally of Impeachment Charges
Page 1
Impeachment Charges against GW Bush
Tally from proposed Articles of Impeachment.
Action
Clarke
Tally
war without consent, no declaration, violated War Powers Act
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
false statement and propaganda about WMD
1
1
1
1
1
5
Lied about rationale for Iraq war
1
1
1
1
1
5
Bush lied about ties between Iraq al-Qaida
1
1
1
1
4
War actions that would knowingly kill of civilians
1
1
1
1
1
5
Iraq war violated UN, Nuremberg, treaties
1
1
1
3
Misleading public to create support for Iraq war
1
1
1
3
torturing prisoners of war against Geneva Convention
1
1
1
3
authorization of wiretapping without FISA approval
1
1
2
Lied about imminent threat to US from Iraq
1
1
2
Lied about purchase of Uranium from Niger
1
1
2
War that resulted in US and allied casualties
1
1
2
appointing political cronies to critical government positions
1
1
Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution
1
1
blocking legislative oversight of executive functions (energy meetings?)
1
1
bribing, intimidating, threatening other countries to support Iraq war
1
1
Cost hundreds of billions of $
1
1
violated equal protection clause, minority and poor soldiers in Iraq
1
1
hiding who was arrested, detained and imprisoned from Congressional inquiry
1
1
illegal seizure of assets of “terrorists”
1
1
impose police state and military dictatorship on US (Patriot Act?)
1
1
Misuse of CIA
1
1
Misuse of military
1
1
monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications
1
1
Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens
1
1
overriding INS jurisdiction to wrongfully hold detainees
1
1
proposing a new strategy involving first-use of nuclear weapons
1
1
racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying
1
1
retaliating against whistle-blowers such as Joseph Wilson
1
1
secret arrests of persons in US
1
1
Sought unlawful transfer of war-declaring power to President
1
1
strip US citizens of their constitutional and human rights “enemy combatants”
1
1
violent overthrow of sovereign states, kidnappings, murder and torture
1
1
Withdrawal from treaties, ABM, Treaty of Rome (Int Criminal Court)
1
1
Feldman Bonifaz
Boyle NLG Burk
postamble();
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY
by Eternal Hope
If we are to impeach, we must impeach both Bush and Cheney. It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office and pick someone just as radical as he is. It will also not do any good for us to impeach just Cheney and allow Bush to groom John "I'm not knowledgeable" McCain for the 2008 election. Therefore, we must simultaneously impeach both of them so that the 3rd person in succession, Nancy Pelosi, would become the next President of the United States.
What remains to be done is for us to work out articles of impeachment against the President. Others may surface after the Democrats begin their job of investigating and getting to the bottom of the matter. If the Bush administration obstructs or lies to the Congressional Committee chairs, those could in and of themselves be grounds for impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney.
In the meantime, here are the following 14 possible articles of impeachment against the President and Vice President.
Eternal Hope's diary
1. Leaking classified information by disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame to reporters.
The President and Vice President unlawfully leaked classified information, the identity of a Non-official Cover, Valerie (Wilson) Plame, to a person or persons not authorized to receive such information, namely, Robert Novak, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, and Matt Cooper, a reporter for Time Magazine.
Law violated:
National Security Act of 1947.
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
© Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual’s classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(d) A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment.
2. Lying to congress -- passing false information about Iraq's WMD capacities.
George Bush and Dick Cheney passed false information to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities, to wit, their possession of chemical weapons, biological weapons, and delivery systems. Furthermore, George Bush and Dick Cheney passed false information to Congress by falsely stating that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States and that military action was therefore necessary.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001.
Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
3. Extraordinary Renditions.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized the arrest and transporting of prisoners to secret jails in Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Eastern Europe for detention and torture without trial.
Law violated:
6th Amendment of the Constitution.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
4. Detentions without Trial.
George Bush and Dick Cheney detained thousands of people at Guantanamo Bay without the possibility of trial and without access to effective counsel.
Law violated:
6th Amendment (see above).
5. Torture.
George Bush and Dick Cheney either ordered or caused other foreign countries to perform torture on suspects illegally detained under sections 3 and 4 of these articles.
Law violated:
8th Amendment.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
6. Misappropriation of Funds.
George Bush and Dick Cheney diverted funds from Afghanistan to Iraq as documented in Bob Woodward's "Plan of attack" and failed to notify Congress of such appropriations.
Law violated:
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
The President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 at least 15 days in advance of each obligation of assistance under this section in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.
7. Bombing Iraq without Congressional Approval.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized over 21,000 bombing missions on Iraq without Congressional approval before passage of the Iraq War Resolution in October 11th, 2002.
Law violated:
Article I, US Constitution.
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
8. Conspiracy to pass false information.
George Bush and Dick Cheney conspired to pass false information about the nature of the intelligence on Iraq to the US Congress in conjunction with British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the purposes of triggering a war with Iraq as documented in the Downing Street Minutes.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001 (see above).
9. Lying about Niger connection.
George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to Congress at the State of the Union and elsewhere by falsely stating that Iraq had procured Uranium from Niger.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001 (see above).
10. Contempt of Congress.
George Bush and Dick Cheney showed a contempt of Congress by stating their intentions to violate laws passed by Congress or cause others to do so over 750 times.
11. Illegal wiretaps.
George Bush and Dick Cheney repeatedly bypassed the court system by ordering wiretaps without authorization from judges and without obtaining a warrant.
Law violated:
4th Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
12. Concealment of the existance or nature of Domestic Intelligence Programs.
George Bush and Dick Cheney concealed the nature and extent of the JPEN program, used for the purpose of domestic intelligence.
Law violated:
18 USC 1505
Whoever, with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, willfully withholds, misrepresents, removes from any place, conceals, covers up, destroys, mutilates, alters, or by other means falsifies any documentary material, answers to written interrogatories, or oral testimony, which is the subject of such demand; or attempts to do so or solicits another to do so; or
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.
13. Destruction of Evidence.
George Bush and Dick Cheney destroyed evidence in conjunction with Plamegate.
Law violated:
18 USC 1505 (see above).
14. The use of White Phosphorus in Iraq.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized the use of White Phosphorus in Iraq in November 2004 during the Fallujah offensive.
Law violated:
US Army Field Manual, Chapter 5, section 3.
(4) Burster Type White phosphorus (WP M110A2) rounds burn with intense heat and emit dense white smoke. They may be used as the initial rounds in the smokescreen to rapidly create smoke or against material targets, such as Class V sites or logistic sites. It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.
Do you support or oppose the simultaneous impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick Cheney for the offenses listed above?
Support
90%
11355 votes
Oppose
9%
1188 votes
12543 votes Vote Results
Do you support or oppose the simultaneous impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick Cheney for the offenses listed above?
Support
11355 votes - 90 %
Oppose
1188 votes - 9 %
Tags: judiciary committee, John Conyers, documentation, Impeachment, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Plamegate, White Phosphorus, chemical weapons, Iraq, Downing Street Memo, Tony Blair, Congress, Recommended, Constitution (all tags)
Article II
In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
Amendment XXV
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
AMENDMENTS DEFIED BY THE ADMINISTRATION:
Amendment I [Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition (1791)]
Amendment II [Right to Bear Arms (1791)]
Amendment III [Quartering of Troops (1791)]
Amendment IV [Search and Seizure (1791)]
Amendment V [Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process (1791)]
Amendment VI [Criminal Prosecutions - Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel (1791)]
Amendment VII [Common Law Suits - Jury Trial (1791)]
Amendment VIII [Excess Bail or Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment (1791)]
Amendment IX [Non-Enumerated Rights (1791)]
Amendment X [Rights Reserved to States (1791)]
Amendment XI [Suits Against a State (1795)]
Amendment XII [Election of President and Vice-President (1804)]
Amendment XIV [Privileges and Immunities, Due Process, Equal Protection, Apportionment of Representatives, Civil War Disqualification and Debt (1868)]
Amendment XV [Rights Not to Be Denied on Account of Race (1870)]
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
Grounds for Impeachment
There are many reasons for impeaching George Bush. The ones below are the most compelling and most easily prosecuted. (For a more complete list see "Bush should be impeached.")
Argulets and Talking Points
George Bush Should be Impeached
Bush has committed several acts which justify impeachment. Click on the link for more details.
Bush lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq.
Bush conducted illegal wiretaps of American citizens.
Bush violated International Law by invading a sovereign country for illegal purposes.
Bush violated the Geneva Convention by torturing prisoners of war.
Bush held prisoners without formal charges and without legal representation. [CNN]
Bush illegally used government funds for domestic political propaganda related to the administration's Medicare package, paying commentator Armstrong Williams, etc. [NYT, requires free registration] TruthOut: [1] [2] [3]
Bush used uniformed military personnel for Republican party political purposes. [TalkingPointsMemo] [Coloradoan]
Bush was negligent in his slow response to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bush shows contempt towards our Constitution and our democratic ideals.
Bush lied about the fish.
See also our page on "Grounds for Impeachment".
Resources
"Happy Impeachment Day! 10 Reasons to Impeach" - 7/19/06, Excellent summary of Bush crimes by the CCR. OpEdNews.com
Misleading us about the Threat from Iraq
Bush and his team deliberately misled Congress and the American public about the rationale for invading Iraq. Bush convinced a majority of Americans that Iraq was involved with Al-Qaeda and responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Yet the evidence shows that Iraq was not involved. Bush said in his State of the Union Address that "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to build nuclear weapons. But he had already been told by the CIA that the evidence was forged. Bush claimed to have hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But the UN investigators could not verify any of these claims and searches of Iraq revealed no such weapons. The real reason we invaded Iraq may have more to do with the fact that Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, and sits strategically in the center of the Middle East. Read More...
Argulets and Talking Points
See also this analysis of the conspiracy by retired federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.
Bush Misled America about the Threat from Iraq
If Saddam Hussein was an immediate and serious threat to America, as the White House claimed, then Bush might have been justified in invading Iraq. But it appears that Bush misled the public, the Congress and the UN by consistently overstating the threat from Iraq. By lying to Congress, Bush violated US Laws related to Fraud and False Statements, Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001 and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371.
Bush claims he was forced to to invade Iraq as a last resort. But Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the very beginning of his presidency. Many of his team came from the PNAC, a thinktank which urged the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and pointed out the need for a "new Pearl Harbor". “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Ron Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”
Bush wanted so much to convince people of the need to invade Iraq that the White House set up a secret team in the Pentagon to create evidence. The Office of Special Plans routinely rewrote the CIA's intelligence estimates on Iraq's weapons programs, removing caveats such as "likely," "probably" and "may" as a way of depicting the country as an imminent threat. They also used unreliable sources to create reports that ultimately proved to be false. [Mother Jones] [New Yorker] [Wikipedia]
Lie #1 - Uranium from Niger - Bush said "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." in his State of the Union Address.
Lie #2 - Iraq and 9/11 - Bush led people to believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11 by repeatedly linking them in his speeches. This was so effective that at one point 70% of Americans actually believed Saddam was behind 9/11. Bush has since admitted that this was not true.
Lie #3 - Congress Knew - Bush has stated that Congress had access to all the same information that the White House had. Thus he should not be blamed for making the mistake of going to war. But Bush was briefed many times about the falsehood of various stories and this information never reached Congress. [ZNet]
Lie #4 - Aluminum Tubes - Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell said that aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to buy were intended for use in a uranium centrifuge to create nuclear weapons. These were the only physical evidence he had against Iraq. But it turns out this evidence had been rejected by the Department of Energy and other intelligence agencies long before Bush used them in his speeches. [NYTimes] [MotherJones] [CNN]
Lie #5 - Iraq and Al Qaeda - Bush still insists that there was a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. But the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The nature of the relationship seems to be that Al Qaeda asked for help and Iraq refused. Al Qaeda was opposed to Saddam Hussein because Saddam led a secular government instead of an Islamic government. [ZNet] [CNN] On 9/8/06 a Senate panel reported there was no relationship. [ABC]
Lie #6 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Bush insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but his "evidence" consisted mostly of forged documents, plagiarized student papers, and vague satellite photos. The United Nations was on the ground in Iraq and could find nothing. After extensive searches Bush was finally forced to admit that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Lie #7 - Mobile Weapons Labs - Bush and his team repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs capable of producing anthrax. Colin Powell showed diagrams of them at his speech before the UN to justify invading Iraq. These claims originated from Curveball, a discredited Iraqi informer who fed Bush many of the stories related to WMD. On May 29, 2003, two small trailers matching the description were found in Iraq. A team of bio-weapons experts examined the trailers and concluded they were simply designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But, for over a year, Bush claimed these were part of Iraq's bio-weapons program. The expert's report was suppressed and only recently made public. [WashPost]
Resources
"Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war" by Colin Brown and Andy McSmith Independent UK 12/15/06 "
Senate Intelligence Committee Reports from September 8, 2006
"Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD and Links to Terrorism and How They COmpare to Prewar Assessments" (PDF 6.9 MB)
"The Use by the Intelligence COmmunity of Intelligence Provided by the Iraqi National Congress" (PDF 9.3 MB)
"Key Judgments" from Rockefeller website
CBS News Report
"IraqOnTheRecord" - database of 237 lies by administration officials about Iraq, compiled by Congressman Henry Waxman. http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord
'CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE UNITED STATES: Misrepresenting the Truth in Order to Sell a War is A “High Crime”' by Elizabeth de la Vega
"United States v. George W. Bush et al." by Elizabeth de la Vega. A grand jury hears the case for fraud.
"Ex-CIA official: Bush administration misused Iraq intelligence", statements by Paul R. Pillar, CNN, 2/10/06
"Bush and Iraq: Mass Media, Mass Ignorance" by Jeff Cohen
List of Lies and News Links from BuzzFlash
"Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel" 11/23/05, by Murray Waas
Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States - Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371
Fraud and False Statements - Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001
Disarm Saddam Hussein, the White House's own summary of lies about Iraq.
"U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers, 10/7/04
Illegal Wiretapping of American Citizens
George Bush authorized the NSA to conduct illegal wiretaps on American citizens. Bush claimed that these were justified on the basis of national security. But there is a legal mechanism for conducting emergency wiretaps followed by court approval within 72 hours. Bush ignored that mechanism and exceeded his executive authority. Bush claims he has authority to wiretap anyone he wishes but a federal judge ruled that his actions are unconstitutional. Read more...
Argulets and Talking Points
Bush Conducted Illegal Wiretaps of American Citizens
Bush has admitted to authorizing the NSA, a secretive spy agency, to conduct warrantless wire taps on American citizens. The spying even extends to postal mail. The NSA has also been collecting phone records in an attempt to build a database of every phone call that is made.
Latest News: 8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.
The Bush wiretaps violated US law because he was required to get approval from FISA. He can start a wiretap of a suspected terrorist at any time but must then seek approval to continue within 72 hours.
Attorney General Gonzales claims HJR114 gave Bush authority to conduct the wiretaps. But HJR114 only grants use of the "Armed Forces". HJR114 does not explicitly suspend the Constitution. Also HJR114 requires "The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3". Congress was not notified of these wiretaps. [HJR114]
Bush may have bypassed FISA because he wanted to listen to and analyze all international signals, not just those of suspected terrorists. He knew this was blatantly illegal so he hid it. Bush says "We use FISA still. But FISAs is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect." Then later "There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to note the distinction between the two." The distinction is that "detecting" requires listening to lots of calls with a computer to see if someone says certain keywords like "bomb" in Arabic, or maybe even "impeach Bush" in English. Monitoring is listening to a specific suspected terrorist. The problem with detection is that you have to listen to all calls, including yours and mine. [This NY Times article confirms this interpretation. Also CNN.]
More evidence that Bush wants to listen to all signals is in Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," on page 303. " Bush summarized his strategy: 'Listen to every phone call and close them down and protect the innocents.'" [WaPost]
Investigators may have found that Bush applied for an expansion of wiretap capability from FISA, was rejected, and then went ahead and did it anyway. [FindLaw] [FAS]
Bush claims going through FISA is too slow but legal emergency wiretaps helped capture terrorist Mosquera.
According to a report in USA Today, the NSA is collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders. The stated goal is to be able to identify who is involved in a network of terrorists. But this same technique can be used to determine who is involved in a network of political activists who might, for example, oppose the Bush administration. Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits. All of the major telecommunications companies cooperated with this program except for Qwest. Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, was troubled by the fact that there was no FISA approval and that the program was so pervasive.
8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.
Resources
Transcript of Bush at a Press Conference discussing the wiretaps, 12/19/05 [CNN]
"An Update on President Bush's NSA Program: The Historical Context, Specter's Recent Bill, and Feingold's Censure Motion", in FindLaw, 3/24/06, by JOHN W. DEAN
"Bipartisan call for wiretapping probe", 12/21/05 [CNN]
Oregan court case determines that reasons for FISA approved wiretaps can remain secret. 3/18/03 [CNN]
US Code Title 50, Chapter 36, Subchapter I, Sec 1805 defining the operation of the FISA Court.
'What are the "Inherent" Powers of the President? How the Bush Administration Has Mistaken Default Rules for Exclusive Right' By Michael C. Dorf, Feb. 13, 2006 - analyses legality of wiretaps.
"Judge Rules Against Wiretaps NSA Program Called Unconstitutional" by Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post Staff Writers, Friday, August 18, 2006
Notes
It is ironic that Bush prevented the FBI and other Investigators from investigating possible terrorist links by the Bin Laden family prior to 9/11.
Torture of Prisoners
Bush and his team have set up a system of prisons around the world where prisoners can be tortured. They have fought hard to build a legal case for torture but the fact remains that torture is highly illegal. It is also considered an ineffective means of getting reliable information from a prisoner. Bush is guilty of violating of the Federal Torture Act, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention. Read more...
Argulets and Talking Points
Bush Violated the Geneva Convention by Torturing Prisoners
On 6/22/04 Bush said "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Is that true?
The evidence below shows that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales are guilty of violating "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention by ordering and condoning the use of torture. Many prisoners have died as a result.
1/25/02 - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo advising the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute, for torturing prisoners. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality --declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions --which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales was later promoted to US Attorney General. [Nation]
2/7/02 - Bush took Gonzales' advice and signed an order declaring that members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not covered by the Geneva Convention. This gave the green light for torture and illegal detainment of prisoners.
Bush moves prisoners to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and holds them for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. This is ruled illegal by a Federal Judge on Jan 31, 2005.
Bush sets up secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries to escape US laws against torture. Rice claims European countries supported this plan. [WashingtonPost] [CNN] [FindLaw]
9/26/02 - Canadian Maher Arar was arrested at JFK airport and sent to secret prison in Syria for torture under "extraordinary rendition" program. He was released a year later without charges. He sued the US government but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge David Trager on 2/17/06 citing the need for secrecy. He wrote, "One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria." Thus the reason for the secrecy is not for national security but simply to avoid embarassing guilty parties in government. This sets a dangerous precedent that may allow Bush to kidnap and torture anyone he pleases. On 1/26/07 the Canadian government apologized and awarded Arar compensation. [Wikipedia]
Dec '02 - Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy, tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. His 2004 memo details his unsuccessful struggle with the White House to stop the torture. [NewYorker]
12/31/03 - German national Khaled al-Masri says he was abducted by the CIA arrested in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. He was then tortured for five months and released. CIA has admitted making a mistake in this case.
April 2004, photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison make headlines around the world. Low ranking soldiers are convicted of torture charges, falling on their swords for the White House. [Wikipedia] [NewYorker]
October 2005, Senator McCain adds an amendment to a defense bill that would outlaw torture by the United States. Bush and Cheney fight this tooth and nail to block this amendment but eventually give in after the McCain amendment is weakened by the Graham-Levin amendment. When Bush signs the bill he adds a signing statement that basically says he can ignore the prohibition against torture under his powers as "unitary executive" and "Commander in Chief ".
6/29/06 - Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
Resources
"Death by Torture" by Peter Phillips
ACLU report of deaths of detainees in Iraq due to torture. October 2005
Investigation of ex guard talking with buddies about Abu Ghraib, video, warning: violent language, not yet verified.
The "Federal Torture Act" - Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C
UN Torture Convention - "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" signed in 1988 and ratified by the US in 1994.
"The Road to Abu Ghraib" discusses all of the above in detail. June 2004. By Human Rights Watch
"Analysis of Memos related to torture" from lawofwar.org
"Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody" by Human Rights News has links to most relevant documents.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld - summary of court case rulling that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
Violation of International Law
According to our Constitution, International Treaties are part of the "supreme Law of the Land". They are not something that can be ignored when they are inconvenient. Bush's violations of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter are, therefore, impeachable offenses. Read more...
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
Impeachment for Violating International Law
George Bush has committed war crimes in violation of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter.
Synopsis: Bush attacked Iraq, against the decisions of the United Nations, and thus violated the UN Charter. Planning and committing a war of aggression is a violation of the Nuremberg Charter. According to the US Constitution these international treaties are part of the "supreme Law of the Land". Bush has violated the Nuremberg Charter and the UN Charter and is, therefore, subject to impeachment.
UN & Nuremberg Charters part of "the supreme Law of the Land"
Article VI of the US Constitution states that:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;"
Because Bush violated International Laws that we agreed to by treaty, then he is also violating the supreme Law of the Land which is an impeachable offense. Note that it says "or which shall be made" so treaties signed after the Constitution was adopted are still covered.
Violation of The United Nations Charter
Chapter 1, Article 2 of the UN Charter states:
3.All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. 4.All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Bush lied to the UN and to Congress about the seriousness of the threat from Iraq, and invaded Iraq in defiance of a vote from the UN Security Council. His actions inflamed the Arab world and set a dangerous precedent for any other country that wants to defy the UN and start their own war.
Violation of the Nuremberg Charter
Principle Vl of the Nuremberg Charter states:
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law: a. Crimes against peace: i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii .Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
Bush's invaded a sovereign country that had not threatened the United States and had no ability to do so. Bush had been making plans to invade Iraq even before 9/11.
Subject: RESOLUTION OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH Date: Spring 2002
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 217-333-7954(voice) 217-244-1478(fax) fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
Please review and tell me how we get a groundswell of people to begin demanding an Impeachment....we have so little time before the recess and before he begins dropping more bombs......!!!! Henry B Gonzalez, Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle wrote the articles of impeachment for Bush #41..... and it is believed that that is why he stopped at Basra and didn't take out Sadaam at that time....according to Bush's memoirs he was concerned about being impeached!?!
See Also:
The Rogue Elephant, The Bush Administration has become a `threat to the peace' within the meaning of UN Charter article 39, by Francis Boyle, July 2002
US War Crimes During the Gulf War, by Francis Boyle, 1992 (+ 2002)
Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation's Iraq Interest Network
Fellowship of Reconciliation's Peace Pledge: To Stop Spread of Anti-Terrorist War to Iraq
American Friends Service Committee:
Campaign of Conscience for the Iraqi People: A Moral Call to the American People
Join the Campaign
The Water Project -- Help build an entire water system for an Iraqi community.
Oppose covert and overt war against Iraq - Write to your senators
Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq & Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq
Help Make A Difference
Sanctions and War on Iraq: In 300 words
"In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
- Albert Camus, from The Little Book of Peace
It Can’t Happen Here? It Has Happened Here
by Michael Nolanby Michael Nolan
DIGG THIS
Our fellow citizens have been led hoodwinked from their principles by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Today’s citizens, lately aware of the crimes of those who rule them from the White House, have removed the band (the blindfold) from their eyes. The huge majority of average Americans are dead set against "the surge" in Iraq, seeing it for what it is: the senseless slaughter of American sons and daughters on a mission which has nothing to do with US security.
The question is, what are the people going to do about it?
It should be noted that the US Congress, charged by the US Constitution with deciding when and if the nation goes to war, has been neutered. In the alternate universe of the Republican noise machine, anyone standing in the way of the mindless dispatch of US troops to the slaughterhouse doesn’t – somehow – "support the troops," and no media-obsessed congressman wants to get hung with that accusation. Given a choice between securing their own careers or truly serving God and country (to put it in Red State terms), today’s US lawmakers overwhelmingly choose the former. To be sure, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appeared on Meet the Press a few weeks ago to celebrate a neocon alchemy by which justifications for war funding can be conjured up forever whence none exists: "I think once they get in harm's way, congress's tradition is to support those troops," Mr. Hadley said with fatherly pride, fitting at the birth of the Perpetual War Machine.
The next country in the neocon gunsights is, of course, Iran. That Iran is somehow a nuclear threat to the American people surpasses in bunk and risibility the whopper that Saddam Hussein Hussein had something to do with bringing down the Twin Towers. The latter lie (with others) was good enough to start the war in Iraq and it’s a virtual certainty that the former lie will serve to start the war in Iran despite the fact that experts, including those at our own CIA, put Iran several years away from the development of a nuclear weapon. And, as former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski reminded Congress recently, "[t]o argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy." That America needs to attack Iran is a conceit seen sensible by few – save neocons, the White House and opportunists like former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh has predicted that retaliatory Iranian disruptions to the oil flow in the Middle East could push prices up over one a hundred dollars a barrel. It’s well known, and well predicted, that in the event of an American attack, Shiite Iran will send its 650,000 strong army into Iraq to wreak vengeance on US troops. With a pre-emptive attack, America will be begging Iran or Iranian sympathizers to launch a terrorist attack on US soil. And, as Pentagon Papers author Daniel Ellsberg pointed out recently, "[i]f there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their…sympathizers, critics of the President’s policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has dictated to those voters who put her in power that impeachment is "off the table." Three days after the November elections, John Conyers, the new House Judiciary Chairman and, until then, hero of the pro-impeachment movement, betrayed (as did Pelosi) his constituents and the spirit of the Constitution when he said, "I am in total agreement with her [Pelosi] on this issue: Impeachment is off the table."
Pelosi is given to sweeping, dismissive statements, judged by a speech she made at the 2005 AIPAC convention in Washington, DC. "[T]he history of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist." A congressional leader who says with a straight face that Israel is wholly without blame for the bloodshed in Palestine (and the resultant anti-American bias in the Middle East) is a sure bet to ignore the sage counsel of the Baker-Hamilton Report, which prescribes, as an imperative for Mideast peace, adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which mandates a return of Palestinian land held illegally by Israel since 1967.
Expect nothing from the United States Congress to make the Bush Administration even mildly uncomfortable in its role as knee-jerk defender, enabler and funder of all things Likud, despite the threat that such support carries for US prestige, sovereignty and security.
Congress could defund the Iraq war but as Senator Russell Feingold points out, it "doesn’t have the will." It could, for that matter, threaten, in the clearest of terms, impeachment, removal from office and – if it comes to it – war crimes trials for those who would lead us into a war in Iran (with consequent conflagration through the whole Middle East), that could bring down the US economy and the US Constitution and lead to violent civil disorder and repression at home. But, unruffled, US Congressional Quislings seem willing to let the whole thing go with a couple of non-binding resolutions.
Rather than listen to Congress, the Administration prefers the bellicose, anti-American counsel of neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute (where, Bush avers, he gets his "finest minds"). In 2005, I wrote a LewRockwell.com piece, "Martial Law," expanding on General Tommy Franks’ worry that, in the event of a terrorist attack on our shores democracy might well not survive. In that piece I wrote:
Michael Ledeen, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and close and trusted White House adviser, has this to say on p. 173 of his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago: "Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator – willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ."
Don’t wonder if "it" (a fascist takeover of the United States government) can happen here. It has happened here. This administration can wage war when, where and how it pleases, for as long as it pleases, for whatever reason it wants and – undercurrent conditions – there is nobody in America, within or without the government, who can stop it. The US Government is effectively a dictatorship in all matters of war and peace.
If, at any point, this dictatorship felt itself in real, impending danger from Congress or the people, it might react like a wounded animal. What if, despite the best efforts of the Republican and Democratic establishment, talk of a real impeachment movement (even a credible whisper thereof) were heard in the halls of congress? Considering the character of those in the White House, and their history of desperate and murderous political solutions (the "surge" comes to mind), the notion that the US Government could attack its own citizens in a false-flag terrorist operation (to force lockstep, "wartime" obedience) is no longer a fringe conspiracy theory.
If waves of Americans eventually show up on the streets in sustained, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer demonstrations, so forceful as to cause civil disruptions and an actual threat to the existence of the Administration, it will draw government troops, whether those troops be police, National Guard, the US Army (posse comitatus be damned) or contractors like those from Blackwater Security, dispatched fresh from their war crimes against the people of Iraq to deal as they see fit with the people of the United States.
There’s an iconic photo from the 1960’s: at an antiwar protest outside the Pentagon, a flower child places her eponymous flower into the barrel of the bayoneted rifle of one of the soldiers lined up to contain the demonstration. Sixties protests had an element of theater to them and the flower child knew that the bayonets were for show. Americans were aware, in those days, of their right to free speech and peaceable assembly and, despite the aberration at Kent State, those who massed together to forcefully and effectively demand an end to the war, were secure in doing so. But if bayonets are drawn this time around, resultant photos will likely lack that whimsical sixties theatricality, and American parents will shudder to think of a daughter standing up to troops acting under the orders of a weakened, wounded Dick Cheney
Cheney personifies the Dictatorship, morally, legally – hell, even physiognomically. His favorability ratings are disastrously low, but it’s unlikely to bother him. Cheney is a coward and a dictator, with no regard for human life, American or foreign foreign. A dictator lives to inspire fear and obeisance and if he thrills with the stranglehold he exerts on the (currently) impotent eighty percent or so of Americans who hate his guts, think how much bigger the thrill might be at ninety or ninety-five percent. Dick Cheney said our troops would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. Well, it turns out they weren’t and to that vast majority of citizens who recognize the war in Iraq (and the next one in Iran) for the constitutional, military and national security disaster that it is, Mr. Cheney might likely ask, "what are you going to do about it?"
Interesting question.
February 8, 2007
Michael Nolan [send him mail] is a freelance writer. His work has appeared in LewRockwell.com, Common Dreams.org, OpEdNews.com and the Vermont Guardian.
Copyright © 2007 Michael Nolan
Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page
Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents - John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"
Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."
Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism's "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.
As Lewis noted in his novel, "the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."
Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book "It Can't Happen Here." And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote:
" Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases."
Fascists have an agenda that is primarily economic. As the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is "an attempt to create a 'modern' version of feudalism by merging the 'corporate' interests with those of the state."
Feudalism, of course, is one of the most stable of the three historic tyrannies (kingdoms, theocracies, feudalism) that ruled nations prior to the rise of American republican democracy, and can be roughly defined as "rule by the rich."
Thus, the neo-feudal/fascistic rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, an irony not lost on author Thomas Frank, who notes in his new book "What's The Matter With Kansas" that, "You can see the paradox first-hand on nearly any Main Street in middle America - 'going out of business' signs side by side with placards supporting George W. Bush."
The businesses "going out of business" are, in fascist administrations, usually those of locally owned small and medium-sized companies. As Wallace wrote, some in big business "are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage." He added, "Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."
But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don't generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a "them" to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.
In a comment prescient of George W. Bush's recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays, Wallace continued:
" The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination..."
But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation's largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.
"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote. "Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."
In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
Finally, Wallace said, "The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. ... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels."
This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of "Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).
As Wallace's President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party's renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia, "...out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man...."
Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core: "These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power."
But, he thundered in that speech, "Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!"
In 2004, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself "compassionate conservatism." The RNC's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."
It's particularly ironic that the CEOs and lobbyists who run the Republican National Committee would have chosen to put Hitler's fascist face into one of their campaign commercials, just before they launched a national campaign against gays and while they continue to arrest people who wear anti-Bush T-shirts in public places.
President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. Which is why it's so critical that this November we join together at the ballot box to stop this most recent incarnation of feudal fascism from seizing complete control of our nation.
In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
But First A Bit Of Perspective: “A crowded elevator smells different to a short person than it does to all the tall people crowding him. Right now this short person feels like he’s in a politically crowded elevator…and it smells really bad!”
PICTURE THIS: A folksy, self-consciously plainspoken Southern politician rises to power during a period of profound unrest in America. The nation is facing one of the half-dozen or so of its worst existential crises to date, and the people, once sunny, confident, and striving, are now scared, angry, and disillusioned.
This politician, a ''Professional Common Man,'' executes his rise by relentlessly attacking the liberal media, fancy-talking intellectuals, shiftless progressives, pinkos, promiscuity, and welfare hangers-on, all the while clamoring for a return to traditional values, to love of country, to the pie-scented days of old when things made sense and Americans were indisputably American. He speaks almost entirely in ''noble but slippery abstractions''-Liberty, Freedom, Equality-and people love him, even if they can't fully articulate why without resorting to abstractions themselves.
Through a combination of factors-his easy bearing chief among them (along with massive cash donations from Big Business; disorganization in the liberal opposition; a stuffy, aloof opponent; and support from religious fanatics who feel they've been unfairly marginalized)-he wins the presidential election.
Once in, he appoints his friends and political advisers to high-level positions, stocks the Supreme Court with ''surprisingly unknown lawyers who called [him] by his first name,'' declaws Congress, allows Big Business to dictate policy, consolidates the media, and fills newspapers with ''syndicated gossip from Hollywood.'' Carping newspapermen worry that America is moving backward to a time when anti-German politicians renamed sauerkraut ''Liberty Cabbage'' and ''hick legislators...set up shop as scientific experts and made the world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution,'' but newspaper readers, wary of excessive negativity, pay no mind.
Given the nature of ''powerful and secret enemies'' of America-who are ''planning their last charge'' to take away our freedom-an indefinite state of crisis is declared, and that freedom is stowed away for safekeeping. When the threat passes, we can have it back, but in the meantime, citizens are asked to ''bear with'' the president.
Sure, some say these methods are extreme, but the plain folks are tired of wishy-washy leaders, and feel the president's decisiveness is its own excuse. Besides, as one man says, a fascist dictatorship ''couldn't happen here in America...we're a country of freemen!''
While more paranoid readers might be tempted to draw parallels between this scenario and sundry predicaments we may or may not be in right now, the story line is actually that of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel ''It Can't Happen Here,'' a hastily written cautionary note about America's potential descent into fascism, recently reissued by New American Library in a handsome trade edition with a blood-spattered cover design.
At its center, ''It Can't Happen Here'' is no different from these prior efforts. It's just carried out on a bigger, more hyperbolic scale: Lewis takes that Babbitt mentality-the entrenched incuriosity, the smug certitude, the conformity, the complacency-and combines it with the growing desperation of the times to envision an end of America as we know it.
It's an unsettling read, especially in a day and age where wags and politicos on both sides compulsively accuse one another of plotting to destroy America. Other such books, most recently Philip Roth's ''The Plot Against America,'' ask whether a fascist dictatorship can happen here. But whereas Roth manipulates history in order to show what could have happened, imagining an America so blinded by celebrity adulation that it elects an isolationist, anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh president, Lewis suggests that it already has happened, in little pockets all over America: in bridge club meetings, Rotary luncheons. No invading army will be needed to turn America fascist. Instead, the catalyst will come from within, and when it does it will speak colloquial American, and it will come waving the Stars and Stripes.
However broad its themes, ''It Can't Happen Here'' echoes its time, sometimes literally. The Depression was dragging on, the New Deal was on the rocks, FDR was vulnerable, and the GOP had foundered. People were desperate for strong leadership, and as a result there was a real threat coming from numerous quasi-populist movements led by fire-breathing demagogues promising deliverance.
Among these groups was the Share Our Wealth movement, spearheaded by Senator Huey Long, a former Louisiana governor best known as the inspiration for Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's ''All the King's Men.''
Long sought to radically redistribute the nation's wealth and impose an income gap, which, while socialist on its face, was more a cynical ploy for votes than a fast-held ideology. Equally prominent was sulfurous radio personality Father Charles Coughlin's Union of Social Justice, a nativist movement that proposed abolishing the Federal Reserve to reverse the Depression. Both groups were as corrupt as they were illogical, and FDR feared they would combine, unseat him, and replace American democracy with a strain of Hitlerism suited to America's unique temperament.
Driven by his support of Roosevelt and informed by the insights of his second wife, Dorothy Thompson, a pioneering journalist who more than anyone helped bring home the full horrors of Hitler's rise, Lewis cranked out the book in two months in 1935, in the hope that it would help avert what he felt was a looming catastrophe. In order to do so effectively, though, he would have to mine the collective prejudices and disenchantments inherent in the American character.
Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recent president might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is.
To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy. Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became one of America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware of the domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he and Thompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fate for the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer, Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as "it."
If "it" denotes the police state American-style as imagined and satirized by Lewis, complete with concentration camps, martial law, and mass executions of strikers and other dissidents, then "it" hasn't happened here and isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
For contemporary Americans, however, "it" could signify our own more gradual and insidious turn toward authoritarian rule. That is why Lewis's darkly funny but grim fable of an authoritarian coup achieved through a democratic election still resonates today -- along with all the eerie parallels between what he imagined then and what we live with now.
For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tension between the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protections afforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbing realization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated at any moment.
Such foreboding, which would have been dismissed as paranoia not so long ago, has been intensified by the unfolding crisis of political legitimacy in the capital. George W. Bush has repeatedly asserted and exercised authority that he does not possess under the Constitution he swore to uphold. He has announced that he intends to continue exercising power according to his claim of a mandate that erases the separation and balancing of power among the branches of government, frees him from any real obligation to obey laws passed by Congress, and permits him to ignore any provisions of the Bill of Rights that may prove inconvenient.
Whether his fellow Americans understand exactly what Bush is doing or not, his six years in office have created intense public anxiety. Much of that anxiety can be attributed to fear of terrorism, which Bush has exacerbated to suit his own purposes -- as well as to increasing concern that the world is threatened by global warming, pandemic diseases, economic insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and other perils with which this presidency cannot begin to cope.
As the midterm election showed, more and more Americans realize that something has gone far wrong at the highest levels of government and politics -- that Washington's one-party regime had created a daily spectacle of stunning incompetence and dishonesty. Pollsters have found large majorities of voters worrying that the country is on the wrong track. At this writing, two of every three voters give that answer, and they are not just anxious but furious. Almost half are willing to endorse the censure of the president.
Suspicion and alienation extend beyond the usual disgruntled Democrats to independents and even a significant minority of Republicans. A surprisingly large segment of the electorate is willing to contemplate the possibility of impeaching the president, unappetizing though that prospect should be to anyone who can recall the destructive impeachment of Bush's predecessor.
The reasons for popular disenchantment with the Republican regime are well known -- from the misbegotten, horrifically mismanaged war in Iraq to the heartless mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In both instances, growing anger over the damage done to the national interest and the loss of life and treasure has been exacerbated by evidence of bad faith -- by lies, cronyism, and corruption.
Everyone knows -- although not everyone necessarily wishes to acknowledge -- that the Bush administration misled the American people about the true purposes and likely costs of invading Iraq. It invented a mortal threat to the nation in order to justify illegal aggression. It has repeatedly sought, from the beginning, to exploit the state of war for partisan advantage and presidential image management. It has wasted billions of dollars, and probably tens of billions, on Pentagon contractors with patronage connections to the Republican Party.
Everyone knows, too, that the administration dissembled about the events leading up to the destruction of New Orleans. Its negligence and obliviousness in the wake of the storm were shocking, as was its attempt to conceal its errors. It has yet to explain why a person with few discernible qualifications, other than his status as a crony and business associate of his predecessor, was directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. By elevating ethically dubious, inexperienced, and ineffectual management the administration compromised a critical agency that had functioned brilliantly during the Clinton administration.
To date, however, we do not know the full dimensions of the scandals behind Iraq and Katrina, because the Republican leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives abdicated the traditional congressional duties of oversight and investigation. It is due to their dereliction that neither the president nor any of his associates have seemed even mildly chastened in the wake of catastrophe. With a single party monopolizing power yet evading responsibility, there was nobody with the constitutional power to hold the White House accountable.
Bolstered by political impunity, especially in a time of war, perhaps any group of politicians would be tempted to abuse power. But this party and these politicians, unchecked by normal democratic constraints, proved to be particularly dangerous. The name for what is wrong with them -- the threat embedded within the Bush administration, the Republican congressional leadership, and the current leaders of the Republican Party -- is authoritarianism.
The most obvious symptoms can be observed in the regime's style, which features an almost casual contempt for democratic and lawful norms; an expanding appetite for executive control at the expense of constitutional balances; a reckless impulse to corrupt national institutions with partisan ideology; and an ugly tendency to smear dissent as disloyalty. The most troubling effects are matters of substance, including the suspension of traditional legal rights for certain citizens; the imposition of secrecy and the inhibition of the free flow of information; the extension of domestic spying without legal sanction or warrant; the promotion of torture and other barbaric practices, in defiance of American and international law; and the collusion of government and party with corporate interests and religious fundamentalists.
What worries many Americans even more is that the authoritarians can excuse their excesses as the necessary response to an enemy that every American knows to be real. For the past five years, the Republican leadership has argued that the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- and the continuing threat from jihadist groups such as al Qaeda -- demand permanent changes in American government, society, and foreign policy. Are those changes essential to preserve our survival -- or merely useful for unscrupulous politicians who still hope to achieve permanent domination by their own narrowly ideological party? Not only liberals and leftists, but centrists, libertarians, and conservatives, of every party and no party, have come to distrust the answers given by those in power.
The most salient dissent to be heard in recent years, and especially since Bush's reelection in 2004, has been voiced not by the liberals and moderates who never trusted the Republican leadership, but by conservatives who once did.
Former Republican congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, who served as one of the managers of the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the House of Representatives, has joined the American Civil Liberties Union he once detested. In the measures taken by the Bush administration and approved by his former colleagues, Barr sees the potential for "a totalitarian type regime."
Paul Craig Roberts, a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and a former Treasury official under Reagan, perceives the "main components of a police state" in the Bush administration's declaration of plenary powers to deny fundamental rights to suspected terrorists. Bruce Fein, who served as associate attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, believes that the Bush White House is "a clear and present danger to the rule of law," and that the president "cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses." Syndicated columnist George Will accuses the administration of pursuing a "monarchical doctrine" in its assertion of extraordinary war powers.
In the 2006 midterm election, disenchanted conservatives joined with liberals and centrists to deliver a stinging rebuke to the regime by overturning Republican domination in both houses of Congress. For the first time since 1994, Democrats control the Senate and the House of Representatives. But the Democratic majority in the upper chamber is as narrow as possible, depending on the whims of Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a Republican-leaning Democrat elected on an independent ballot line, who has supported the White House on the occupation of Iraq, abuse of prisoners of war, domestic spying, the suspension of habeas corpus, military tribunals, far-right judicial nominations, and other critical constitutional issues. Nor is Lieberman alone among the Senate Democrats in his supine acquiescence to the abuses of the White House.
Even if the Democrats had won a stronger majority in the Senate, it would be naive to expect that a single election victory could mend the damage inflicted on America's constitutional fabric during the past six years. While the Bush administration has enjoyed an extraordinary immunity from Congressional oversight until now, the deepest implication of its actions and statements, as explored in the pages that follow, is that neither legislators nor courts can thwart the will of the unitary executive. When Congress challenges that presidential claim, as inevitably it will, then what seems almost certain to follow is not "bipartisanship" but confrontation. The election of 2006 was not an end but another beginning.
The question that we face in the era of terror alerts, religious fundamentalism, and endless warfare is whether we are still the brave nation preserved and rebuilt by the generation of Sinclair Lewis -- or whether our courage, and our luck, have finally run out. America is not yet on the verge of fascism, but democracy is again in danger. The striking resemblance between Buzz Windrip [the demagogic villain of Lewis's novel] and George W. Bush and the similarity of the political forces behind them is more than a literary curiosity. It is a warning on yellowed pages from those to whom we owe everything.
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
(A PROPOSAL. THE REAL ARTICLES WILLBE WRITTEN BY THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE.)
Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheneyfor high crimes and misdemeanors.
http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/articles.html
Resolved, that President George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush and his team for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article I
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has conspired to exceed his constitutional authority to wage war, in that:
On March 19, 2003, George W. Bush invaded the sovereign country of Iraq in direct defiance of the United Nations Security Council. This constitutes a violation of Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter and a violation of Principal VI of the Nuremberg Charter. According to Article VI of the United States Constitution "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;". George W. Bush has thus acted in violation of the supreme Law of the Land by the following acts:
Invading Iraq with United States military forces.
Sacrificing the lives of thousands of American troops.
Killing tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and conscripts.
Rejecting possibilities for peaceful resolution of the conflict by rejecting acts of compliance by Saddam Hussein with the United Nations Resolutions, and ignoring the findings by Hans Blix that inspections were working to disarm Iraq.
Violating the Geneva Convention by abducting and transporting human beings to prisons in foreign countries where they can be tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment.
Article II
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has subverted the principles of democracy, by the following acts:
Providing misinformation to the United Nations Security Council, Congress, and the American people overstating the offensive capabilities of Iraq, including weapons of mass destruction, as justification for military action against Iraq.
Repeatedly manipulating the sentiments of the American people by erroneously linking Iraq with the terrorist attacks of September 11th by Al-Qaeda.
Repeatedly claiming that satellite photos of sites in Iraq depicted factories for weapons of mass destruction in contradiction with the results of ground inspections by United Nations teams.
Stating that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" in his State of the Union Address after being told by the CIA that this was untrue and that the supporting documents were forged.
Influencing, manipulating and distorting intelligence related to Iraq with the intention of using that intelligence to support his goal of invading Iraq.
Repeatedly ordering the NSA to place illegal wiretaps on American citizens without a court order from FISA.
Retaliating against whistle-blowers who try to point out errors in statements made by President Bush.
Directing millions of dollars in government funds to companies associated with White House officials in no-bid contracts that pose serious conflicts of interest. One example is Halliburton, of which Richard Cheney was once CEO.
Article III
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has threatened the security of the American people, by the following acts:
Diverting military resources from pursuing known terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden who have repeatedly attacked the United States of America.
Generating ill will among the peoples of the world with an offensive and aggressive foreign policy.
Weakening the effects of International Law by defying the United Nations thus encouraging other nations to violate International law by example.
Diverting the National Guard to foreign wars where they are unavailable to serve the needs of American citizens at home who, for example, are suffering from Hurricane Katrina.
Appointing unqualified personnel to critical government positions as political favors where their incompetence places American citizens at risk. An example being the appointment of Mike Brown as head of FEMA.
Proposing military strategies involving the first use of tactical or low yield nuclear weapons in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, which is an inherently destabilizing strategy that encourages participants in a conflict to strike before the other side can do so.
Wherefore, George Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.
DRAFT IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION AGAINST PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
By FRANCIS A. BOYLEPROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SCHOOL OF LAW
108nd Congress H.Res.XX
1st Session
Impeaching George Walker Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors.
_______________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January __, 2003
Mr./Ms. Y submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
_______________________________________________
A RESOLUTION
Impeaching George Walker Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of all of the people of the United States of America, against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
ARTICLE I
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has attempted to impose a police state and a military dictatorship upon the people and Republic of the United States of America by means of "a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations" against the Constitution since September 11, 2001.
This subversive conduct includes but is not limited to trying to suspend the constitutional Writ of Habeas Corpus; ramming the totalitarian U.S.A. Patriot Act through Congress; the mass-round-up and incarceration of foreigners; kangaroo courts; depriving at least two United States citizens of their constitutional rights by means of military incarceration; interference with the constitutional right of defendants in criminal cases to lawyers; violating and subverting the Posse Comitatus Act; unlawful and unreasonable searches and seizures; violating the First Amendments rights of the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government for redress of grievances; packing the federal judiciary with hand-picked judges belonging to the totalitarian Federalist Society and undermining the judicial independence of the Constitution's Article III federal court system; violating the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and the U.S. War Crimes Act; violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; reinstitution of the infamous "Cointelpro" Program; violating the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Convention against Torture, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; instituting the totalitarian Total Information Awareness Program; and establishing a totalitarian Northern Military Command for the United States of America itself. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE II
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. U.S. soldiers in the Middle East are overwhelmingly poor White, Black, and Latino and their military service is based on the coercion of a system that has denied viable economic opportunities to these classes of citizens. Under the Constitution, all classes of citizens are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, and calling on the poor and minorities to fight a war for oil to preserve the lifestyles of the wealthy power elite of this country is a denial of the rights of these soldiers. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE III
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has violated the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and the United Nations Charter by bribing, intimidating and threatening others, including the members of the United Nations Security Council, to support belligerent acts against Iraq. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE IV
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prepared, planned, and conspired to engage in a massive war and catastrophic aggression against Iraq by employing methods of mass destruction that will result in the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom will be children. This planning includes the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and the use of such indiscriminate weapons and massive killings by aerial bombardment, or otherwise, of civilians, violates the Hague Regulations on land warfare, the rules of customary international law set forth in the Hague Rules of Air Warfare, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I thereto, the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles, the Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956). In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE V
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the United States to acts of war without congressional consent and contrary to the United Nations Charter and international law.
From September, 2001 through January, 2003, the President embarked on a course of action that systematically eliminated every option for peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis. Once the President approached Congress for consent to war, tens of thousands of American soldiers' lives were in jeopardy - rendering any substantive debate by Congress meaningless. The President has not received a Declaration of War by Congress, and in contravention of the written word, the spirit, and the intent of the U.S. Constitution has declared that he will go to war regardless of the views of the American people. In failing to seek and obtain a Declaration of War, George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE VI
In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has planned, prepared, and conspired to commit crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive war against Iraq in violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles, the Kellogg-Brand Pact, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), numerous other international treaties and agreements, and the Constitution of the United States. In all of this George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
(In memory of Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez - R.I.P. - and H. Res. 86, 102nd Cong., 1st Sess., Jan. 16, 1991.)
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, and Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, by Clarity Press. He can be reached at: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU
IS THERE REALLY A LEGAL CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH?
http://mhpbooks.com/aoi.html
Saying aloud what’s being said behind the scenes in the corridors of power . . .
FEBRUARY 21, 2006 – In these highly-charged political times, it is the word that dare not speak its name: impeachment. Democrats and other opponents of the President, as well as people in the media, are afraid to raise the topic for fear of being called too partisan or extreme.
But the startling revelation of the President’s warrantless wiretapping campaign may be the straw that broke the camel's back: In the halls of Congress and on the front pages of a growing number of mainstream periodicals, impeachment is being discussed more and more openly. And many leading constitutional scholars agree: there has never been so strong a case for impeachment since Richard Nixon.
In ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH, Michael Ratner, Bill Goodman and other experts at one of our nation's leading institutions of constitutional scholarship, the Center for Constitutional Rights, set out the legal arguments for impeachment in a clear, concise, and objective discussion. In four separate articles of impeachment detailing four separate charges –warrantless surveillance, misleading Congress on the reasons for the Iraq war, violating laws against torture, and subverting the Constitution’s separation of powers – it is, say the CCR attorneys, a case of black letter law, with abundant evidence.
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH details that evidence, the relevant laws and the legal precedents. It also explains what the Constitution says about impeachment – an informative discussion further illuminated by supplemental material that includes a history of impeachment, explanation of its procedures, and the previous articles of impeachment brought against Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
With leading Republicans calling for investigations of the domestic spying campaign, a special prosecutor investigating the suppression of evidence used to launch the Iraq war, and hearings on innumerable instances of torture, ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH may be more timely than any of us would like to admit.
Published on Friday, May 7, 2004 by Roll Call (Washington, DC)
Rangel Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Rumsfeld
by Ethan Wallison
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), a lead critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld amid Congressional outrage over the Pentagon's handling of charges of prison abuse by U.S. soldiers.
"I think that this rises to the point that it's a high crime and misdemeanor if he disappointed the president, kept information from the Congress and kept this information from the American people," Rangel said on the House floor.
Among the prospective charges against Rumsfeld included in the Rangel's impeachment measure are that the Defense chief "contributed to an atmosphere of lawlessness" that permitted the abuses to take place, and "abdicated his role" in allowing such a breakdown in discipline.
The articles also charge that Rumsfeld "urged and oversaw" the removal of Saddam Hussein under a "false premise" - namely, that the United States was under threat of "imminent" attack from weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq's dictator was in league with al Qaeda in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The latter allegations have been a matter of semantic argument for more than a year between Democrats and the GOP, which has contended that neither Rumsfeld nor the Bush administration had used either premise in their arguments for Hussein's ouster.
Republicans were quick to dismiss suggestions that Rumsfeld's impeachment was warranted - or had the slightest chance of success.
"I think to bring up impeachment under these circumstances is ludicrous and absurd," Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday.
Chabot, echoing remarks that have resounded among GOP lawmakers, praised Rumsfeld for his overall handling of the Iraq war. "I think he's done an exemplary job."
Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), a military reservist and a key player in defense matters, described calls for impeachment as a "reach" and an "overreaction," noting that Congress was still awaiting the results of investigations into the prison abuse.
Buyer also cited the dismissal of several key members in the military chain of command as evidence that the military is working through the problems Rangel cited. Among those dismissed was the brigade commander responsible for Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, where many of the abuses are alleged to have taken place.
"That's no small matter," Buyer said, noting that the commander was a one-star general.
Rangel's remarks came on a day of wrenching floor debate over how the House would respond to the mushrooming abuse scandal.
Republicans and Democrats fought over the wording of a resolution condemning the actions of soldiers implicated in the scandal thus far, with Democrats calling for a full Congressional investigation.
Some Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), demanded Rumsfeld's resignation.
Much of the opprobrium surrounding the Defense secretary resulted from a disclosure, earlier, that the Pentagon withheld information from the White House and Congress about ongoing and months-long investigations into abuse of detainees in Iraq.
© 2004 Roll Call Inc
H. Res. 1106
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush,
President of the United States of America, and other
officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPESENTATIVES DECEMBER 8, 2006
Ms. McKINNEY introduced the following Resolution:
RESOLUTION
Resolved, that George Walker Bush, President of the United States,
is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that
the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the
United States Senate:
Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the
name of itself and of all the people of the United States of
America, against George Walker Bush, President of the
United States of America, and other officials, in
maintenance and support of its impeachment against him
for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that:
ARTICLE I. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has demonstrated a
pattern of abuse of office and of executive privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself.
This conduct includes the following: Manipulating Intelligence and Lying to Justify War. In violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of America, in preparing the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full intelligence picture that he was being given, by
redacting information by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, and actively manipulating the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs by pressuring the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide intelligence such that “the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy” as revealed in the “Downing Street Memo.”
To this end, President George Walker Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States of America.
By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false and misleading statements linking Iraq tothe attacks of September 11, 2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions being either false, or based on “fixed” intelligence, with the intent to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of
America.
ARTICLE II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.
In violation of his oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office.
This conduct includes the following:
Failure to Uphold Accountability.
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of office to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take responsibility for, investigate or
discipline those responsible for an ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has failed to hold to account include but are not limited to the following top-level officials in his administration:
(a) Richard Cheney. In violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency to “fix” their intelligence estimates of the danger posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) Condoleezza Rice, In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq’s alleged
weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought
help in developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby Conoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for their negligence or violations of law, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
Wherefore, by their aforementioned conduct, George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney and Condoleezza Rice warrant impeachment, trial and removal from office.
ARTICLE III. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS
ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law.
This conduct includes the following:
Illegal Domestic Spying.
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 USC Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic
surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive
power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a
few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on 20 April, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: “any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way.
When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so,” whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding Founders.
Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat of arbitrary government, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
THE WORDS OF BARBARA JORDAN REMAIN TRUE TO THIS DAY!
delivered 25 July 1974, House Judiciary Committee
This text will be replaced by the flash music player.
var so = new SWFObject("playerSingle.swf", "mymovie", "192", "67", "7", "#FFFFFF");
so.addVariable("autoPlay", "no");
so.addVariable("soundPath", "http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/barbarajordannixonimpeachment34444444444.mp3");
so.write("flashPlayer");
click for pdf click for flash
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague Mr. Rangel in thanking you for giving the junior members of this committee the glorious opportunity of sharing the pain of this inquiry. Mr. Chairman, you are a strong man, and it has not been easy but we have tried as best we can to give you as much assistance as possible.
Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people."
Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.
"Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?" "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men."¹ And that's what we're talking about. In other words, [the jurisdiction comes] from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers -- and the judges the same person.
We know the nature of impeachment. We've been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the executive if he engages in excesses. "It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."² The framers confided in the Congress the power if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive.
The nature of impeachment: a narrowly channeled exception to the separation-of-powers maxim. The Federal Convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term "maladministration." "It is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention: "We do not trust our liberty to a particular branch. We need one branch to check the other."
"No one need be afraid" -- the North Carolina ratification convention -- "No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity." "Prosecutions of impeachments will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community," said Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, number 65. "We divide into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused."³ I do not mean political parties in that sense.
The drawing of political lines goes to the motivation behind impeachment; but impeachment must proceed within the confines of the constitutional term "high crime[s] and misdemeanors." Of the impeachment process, it was Woodrow Wilson who said that "Nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction; but nothing else can."
Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: Appropriations, Tax Reform, Health Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, Housing, Environmental Protection, Energy Sufficiency, Mass Transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.
This morning, in a discussion of the evidence, we were told that the evidence which purports to support the allegations of misuse of the CIA by the President is thin. We're told that that evidence is insufficient. What that recital of the evidence this morning did not include is what the President did know on June the 23rd, 1972.
The President did know that it was Republican money, that it was money from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, which was found in the possession of one of the burglars arrested on June the 17th. What the President did know on the 23rd of June was the prior activities of E. Howard Hunt, which included his participation in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, which included Howard Hunt's participation in the Dita Beard ITT affair, which included Howard Hunt's fabrication of cables designed to discredit the Kennedy Administration.
We were further cautioned today that perhaps these proceedings ought to be delayed because certainly there would be new evidence forthcoming from the President of the United States. There has not even been an obfuscated indication that this committee would receive any additional materials from the President. The committee subpoena is outstanding, and if the President wants to supply that material, the committee sits here. The fact is that on yesterday, the American people waited with great anxiety for eight hours, not knowing whether their President would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States.
At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the actions the President has engaged in. Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention. "If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached."
We have heard time and time again that the evidence reflects the payment to defendants money. The President had knowledge that these funds were being paid and these were funds collected for the 1972 presidential campaign. We know that the President met with Mr. Henry Petersen 27 times to discuss matters related to Watergate, and immediately thereafter met with the very persons who were implicated in the information Mr. Petersen was receiving. The words are: "If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached."
Justice Story: "Impeachment" is attended -- "is intended for occasional and extraordinary cases where a superior power acting for the whole people is put into operation to protect their rights and rescue their liberties from violations." We know about the Huston plan. We know about the break-in of the psychiatrist's office. We know that there was absolute complete direction on September 3rd when the President indicated that a surreptitious entry had been made in Dr. Fielding's office, after having met with Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Young. "Protect their rights." "Rescue their liberties from violation."
The Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable "who behave amiss or betray their public trust."4 Beginning shortly after the Watergate break-in and continuing to the present time, the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to thwart the lawful investigation by government prosecutors. Moreover, the President has made public announcements and assertions bearing on the Watergate case, which the evidence will show he knew to be false. These assertions, false assertions, impeachable, those who misbehave. Those who "behave amiss or betray the public trust."
James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregard the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, conceal surreptitious entry, attempt to compromise a federal judge, while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice. "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."
If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.
Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That's the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
*I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.*
¹ Federalist, No. 65
² Federalist, No. 65
³ Federalist, No. 65
4 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States
* = text within asterisks absent from this audio
Also in this database: Barbara Jordan: 1976 DNC Keynote Address
rticles of Impeachment
Submitted by bob fertik on Sat, 2005-11-05 14:32. About ImpeachPAC
Articles Drafted by the Center for Constitutional Rights
Uranium Articles of Impeachment
Blog Entries on "Articles of Impeachment".
John Bonifaz: The President's Impeachable Offenses
Phil Burk: Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Jason Feldman: Articles of Impeachment Of George W. Bush, President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States and Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense of the United States.
National Lawyers Guild (with Memorandum of Law)
John Russell: The Case for Impeachment
PatriotDaily.com: Bush's Impeachment As Serial Law Violator
Comparison of suggested Articles by Phil Burk
Nixon's Articles of Impeachment.
Submit your own.
Historical Precedents
Rep. Henry Gonzalez: Articles of Impeachment against Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Bonifaz: The President's Impeachable Offenses
Articles of ImpeachmentofPresident George W. BushandVice President Richard B. Cheney,Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, andAttorney General Alberto Gonzales
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:
1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.
2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.
4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.
5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.
6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.
18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.
20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature.
BACKGROUND NOTES
FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF
THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD B. CHENEY, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD H. RUMSFELD, AND ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN DAVID ASHCROFT
Provisions on Impeachment in the U.S. Constitution
British Experience With Imperial Power and Abuse
The Intention of the Founders to Grant the Power of Impeachment
Impeachment of U.S. Presidents
President George W. Bush and Other Named Officials Have Committed Impeachable Offenses of Unprecedented Danger to the Constitution and People of the United States
We Must Act Now to Prevent Catastrophe and Ensure Accountability
[To see the current Articles of Impeachment, click here]
PROVISIONS ON IMPEACHMENT IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who have acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal.
The power of impeachment is a vital part of the Constitution. It was among the proposals first presented to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Its terms were debated repeatedly and remained prominently in the text from the first drafts of the Constitution to the final document. Impeachment is more fully and carefully detailed in substance and procedure than any other power delegated to the Congress by the Constitution. Provisions relating to impeachment appear six times in text of the Constitution and once in an Amendment. They are:
1. Article I, which creates the legislative branch of government, in Section 2, para. 4 provides:that the House of Representatives... "shall have the sole power of impeachment."
2. Article I, Section 3, para. 6 provides: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present."
3. Article I, Section 3, paragraph 7 provides:Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
4. Article II, which creates the Executive branch, in Section 2 provides the President:...shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
5. Article II, Section 4 provides:The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of , Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
BRITISH EXPERIENCE WITH POWER AND ABUSE
Impeachment was incorporated into the Constitution directly from the British practice and experience to a unique degree. Federalist No. 65, written by Alexander Hamilton cited Great Britain as "the model from which [impeachment] has been borrowed."
Impeachment in Britain had been a key weapon in the long struggle of the Parliament against the tyranny of the King. Because the Parliament and the Courts lacked power to remove, or limit the King, impeachment was used against officers of the King who carried out his tyrannical orders. Between 1620 and 1640 during the reigns of James I and Charles I the House of Commons voted more than 100 impeachments against officers of the Crown.
The impeachment of the Earl of Strafford in 1642 charging "he hath traitorously subverted the Fundamental Laws...to introduce Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government Against Law..." arose from the conflict between Charles I who asserted "the will of the Prince was the source of law" and parliamentarians who believed with Sir Edward Coke that law had "independent existence of its own, set above the King as well as above his subjects". Strafford's impeachment began early in the struggle of the Long Parliament to "prevent the English monarchy from hardening into an absolution of the type then becoming general in Europe". His impeachment is understood today to be "a great watershed in English Constitutional history of which the Founders were aware." 1
After the execution of Charles I in 1648, during the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, there were no impeachments. With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 a stronger Parliament asserted greater power to control arbitrary acts of the King by impeachments for lesser offenses of "negligent discharge of duties" and "improprieties in office."
Just weeks before the Constitutional Convention in 1787 the first efforts to impeach Warren Hastings, Governor General of India began. The articles of impeachment charged Hastings with mal-administration, corruption in office and cruelty toward the Indian people. These articles are reminiscent of the charges against King George III in the American Declaration of Independence eleven years earlier. Indeed the Declaration of Independence could be thought of as a declaration of grounds for removal of the King and his distant government, or a declaration of independence in the absence of the power of impeachment. The Hastings impeachment was of great interest in the Convention, cited prominently by George Mason in the debates and well known by the delegates.
By 1787, the British Parliament had used the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" as a standard for impeachment for more than 400 years.
In Britain, impeachment had been called "...the most powerful weapon in the political armory, short of civil war." It was referred to as "the chief institution for the preservation of the government" in the House of Commons in 1677 and served to curtail the concentration of absolute power in the King and establish constitutional government and supremacy of law as fundamental principle. Impeachment played an historic and heroic role in England's long and bloody struggle to free itself from the despotism of Monarchs.
1 - See Raoul Berger, Impeachment, The Constitutional Problems, Harvard University Press, 1973 at p. 30-40.
6. Article III which creates the Judicial branch of government, in Section 2, paragraph 3 provides:The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.
7. Amendment XXV to the Constitution ratified on February 10. 1967 provides in Section 1:In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
The power of impeachment was placed in the Constitution to protect the Constitution and the people from a despotic, or lawless President.
THE INTENTION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION IN PLACING THE POWER OF IMPEACHMENT IN THE CONGRESS
In answer to the colonial experience with absolutist monarchy, the Articles of Confederation created a purely legislative form of government in which there was no King, or Chief Executive. Ministers answered directly to Congress. Removal of government officials was at the will of the Congress. Impeachment was not needed. The legislative form of government created by the Articles of Confederation did not work. It proved ineffective in accomplishing the purposes of government and diffused responsibility and accountability for acts of government, making reform difficult.
Delegates at the Constitutional Convention quickly decided that a strong executive was essential to effective government. They created the office of the President and vested "The executive Power" in it. The direct means provided in the Constitution for preventing and correcting abuse of executive power was impeachment. The debates on impeachment focused "...principally on its applicability to the President."2
Seeking to create a strong, but responsible executive, delegates at the Convention intended, in the words of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, that "the maxim would never be adopted here that the Chief Magistrate could do no wrong." 3
George Mason, defending provisions for the impeachment of the President in the Constitutional Convention, asked "Shall any man be above justice? Above all Shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?" 4
Benjamin Franklin favored Congressional power to impeach and remove the President to prevent tyranny and recourse to assassination.Edmund Randolph, who would become the first Attorney General under the Constitution and later be forced to resign from the Washington Cabinet on accusation of "Treason", argued for the impeachment power, observing "The Executive will have great opportunity of abusing his power; particularly in time of war when the military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands." Without the power to impeach he saw the remedy in "tumults and insurrections." 5
James Wilson, a major participant in the Constitutional Convention, speaking in the Pennsylvania ratification convention argued that for all the power vested in the President, "not a single privilege is annexed to his character, far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment." 6
The great concern of the Constitution was that there never be an imperial presidency disregarding law and usurping powers of the government and the people. This is further revealed by two provisions in Article II of the Constitution. The final clause of Article II, Section 3, which follows the recitation of Presidential powers and duties set forth in Sections 2 and 3, provides "he shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed..." The last paragraph of Article II, section 1 prescribes the Oath or Affirmation to be taken "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office" ... "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
By the impeachment power, the authors of the Constitution intended to prevent the emergence of a tyrant, or despot in the form of a President who could destroy "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
2 - High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Selected Materials on Impeachment. Constitutional Grounds for Impeachment by the Impeachment Inquiry Staff of the House Judiciary Committee, Funk and Wagnells, 1974 at p 5.
3 - The Records of the Federal Convention 66 (M. Farrand ed. 1911).
4 - 2 Farrand 65.
5 - 2 Farrand 65.
6 - J. Elliot, The Debates In The Several State Conventions On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution, 29 Ed. p. 74.
IMPEACHMENT HISTORY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
A casual reading of the history of impeachment by the Congress might lead one to believe its use, contrary to its clear purpose, "had sunk in this country to the ouster of dreary little judges for squalid misconduct." 7 It has been our good fortune not to have been confronted with the tyrannies of our own Kings and their attendants and forced to struggle for freedom from their despotism. Still the existence of the impeachment power in the Constitution has been present and raised publicly, often prominently, during the administration of every American president.
In 1974, to aid the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary in its consideration of possible grounds for the impeachment of President Nixon, C. Vann Woodward, distinguished professor of history at Yale University, serving as Editor and Director, with the assistance of fourteen prominent historians, compiled a 398 page "Authoritative History of Accusations of High Crimes and Misdemeanors from George Washington to Lyndon Johnson." 8
Charges of misconduct and threats of impeachment against the President, or his civil officers are found in every Presidential administration. Most often the charges have involved corruption which was present in many and prominent in the administrations of Presidents Tyler, Buchanan, Grant and Harding. Sometimes they have involved personal misconduct. Some charges reflect "politics as usual" and are an abuse of the impeachment power itself seeking political advantage. But on many occasions the charges have claimed usurpation of power not delegated to the President, abuse of delegated Presidential power and serious criminal conduct destructive of constitutional government and the rule of law.
While the Constitutional definition of conduct that is impeachable, read with the gloss of history, seems clear, the range of definitions adopted by members of the Congress have stretched from serious felony crimes alone to whatever the Congress says it is. The most extreme definition of impeachable conduct ever proposed in Congress is found in the words of Gerald R. Ford spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1970 when he introduced the notorious articles of impeachment against Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court of the United States:
"What then is an impeachable offense? The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history..." 9
See, generally, Irving Brant, Impeachment, Trials and Errors, Knopf, 1972.
If Ford gave the "only honest answer" to his own question, then the words of the Constitution mean nothing. The Congress could remove the President for any act, or failure to act, it might choose. It was Ford who later, as President pardoned Richard Nixon, immediately after Nixon's resignation as President. Ford himself had been appointed Vice President by President Nixon after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew.
If the impeachment power is limited to serious felony crimes only, it may fail to protect against usurpations and abuses of power that threaten constitutional government, but are not crimes.
A brief comment on impeachable misconduct raised in public debate during the first Presidential administration will indicate the magnitude and frequency of impeachment as a national concern. 10 The administration of President Washington is generally considered to be among the least political and most honorable of all.
Among the most serious accusations were those against Alexander Hamilton of "nothing less than conspiracy to subvert the liberty of his country" by changing the form of the government prescribed in the Constitution from a federal to a national state copying the British financial system in order "to return to the rule of aristocrats and kings."
Hamilton was charged with corruption in selecting William Duer as his Under Secretary of the Treasury. Duer, a notorious speculator, soon resigned owing the government $200,000. His later speculation lead to the first financial panic of the new nation in 1792. Hamilton was subject to lengthy intensive investigation by the House of Representatives for this and other conduct.
Jefferson, among other acts, was charged with using government funds to finance Philip Freneau when Freneau started the National Gazette, a pro Jefferson newspaper.
Both Jefferson and Hamilton were accused of accepting bribes from foreign governments.
Edmund Randolph who served Washington as both Attorney General and Secretary of State was accused of treason and accepting bribes from the French government and corruption for agreeing to foment civil strife in the Whisky Rebellion in 1794 on the basis of French documents captured by the British and irregularties in State Department financial accounts. Confronted with evidence that he accepted bribes from France by President Washington and his War and Treasury Secretaries, Randolph endeavored to explain, apparently failed and then resigned. He was never prosecuted, but his public career ended.
President Washington was personally accused after signing the Jay Treaty with England of participation in a British- Federalist conspiracy to destroy republican government in the U.S. He refused to deliver papers relating to the negotiation of the Treaty to the House of Representatives which was investigating conduct which led to the Treaty.
The Constitutional impeachment power of the Congress has been a conscious presence in the conduct of the Presidency. It has surfaced frequently in public statements and accusations addressing controversial acts of the President and his principal civil officers. It has acted as a powerful deterrent to usurpation and abuse of power by the President. While impeachment has resulted in a completed trial in the Senate in only one case involving the President, it has affected Presidential conduct constantly and led to resignations of many officials and one President.
President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Lincoln, as the nation entered the difficult post Civil War period of reconstruction was accused of the many crimes, even conspiring in the assassination of Lincoln. He was most aggressively charged with frustrating the implementation and execution of Congressional acts and effectively nullifying some laws dealing with reconstruction. The charge for which he was finally impeached and tried in the Senate was violation of the Tenure of Office Act by removal of Secretary of War Stanton whose role in enforcing reconstruction legislation in the former Confederacy was critical. The House vote for Impeachment was 126 to 47. The Senate failed by a single vote to meet the 2/3's requirement set in the Constitution to convict.
Historians still debate whether President Johnson was the victim of radical Republican political anger, or had seriously acted to frustrate the enforcement of reconstruction laws and to "take care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in a matter of great consequence to the nation.
Two of the last seven Presidents have faced impeachment crises. President Nixon was forced to resign in the face of the threat of impeachment. Had there been no impeachment power in the Congress, he surely would not have resigned. Part of President Nixon's problem was the credibility his acts gave to charges that his was an imperial Presidency. When Nixon designed uniforms for White House Guards that looked more appropriate for Buckingham Palace than the White House he was forced by ridicule to change back to customary uniforms.
C. Van Woodward, in his Introduction, The Conscience of the White House says of the charges against President Nixon, "Heretofore, no president has been accused of extensively subverting and secretly using established government agencies to defame or discredit political opponents and critics, to obstruct justice, to conceal misconduct and protect criminals, or to deprive citizens of their rights and liberties." 11
Maybe Woodward is right, but his report is replete with similar and worse allegations in circumstances far more dangerous to the United States. It is, however, clear that such offenses are subject to impeachment.
President Bill Clinton was impeached in December 1998 on three Articles of Impeachment by votes ranging from 229-205 to 221-212. The votes were highly partisan with only five Democrats voting for impeachment. The charges were for perjury, false and misleading testimony and obstruction of justice, all committed in legal proceedings involving allegations of extra-marital sexual conduct. The charges were less serious to Constitutional government than allegations against most previous Presidents. Representative Bob Livingston, Republican and speaker elect of the House of Representatives, resigned from Congress in January 1999 after the disclosure of his extra marital affairs hoping to set an example for President Clinton. The example was not followed and the matter ended without a trial in the Senate.
Allegations of impeachable offenses have been made in the administration of every President.
7 - Berger, op cit, at p. 3, citing Joseph Borkin, The Corrupt Judge (New York, 1962).
8 - Published as Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct, Delacorte Press, 1974.
9 - 116 Cong.Rec.H. 3113-3114 (daily edition April 15, 1970).
10 - See Responses of the Presidents To Charges of Misconduct, op. Cit George Washington, 1789-1797, at pp. 1-21.
11 - Responses Of The Presidents To Charges Of Misconduct, Op. Cit. at p. xxvi.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AND OTHER NAMED OFFICIALS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE COMMITTED IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES OF UNPRECEDENTED DANGER TO THE CONSTITUTION AND PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
Draft Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and other named officials of the United States charge the most serious crimes known to law and history. Nothing in the experience of the impeachment power under the Constitution compares. The conduct charged threatens the Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law and the lives of unknown thousands, or millions of people by their act and example.
The alleged impeachable acts of President George W. Bush include:
1. Ordering and directing "first strike" war of aggression against Afghanistan causing thousands of deaths;
2. Removing the government of Afghanistan by force and installing a government of his choice;
3. Authorizing daily intrusions into Iraqi airspace and aerial attacks including attacks on alleged defense installations in Iraq which have killed hundreds of people in time of peace;
4. Authorizing, ordering and condoning attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties are unavoidable;
5. Threatening the use of nuclear weapons and ordering preparation for their use;
6. Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming his personal intention to change its government by force;
7. Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, murder, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners;
8. Authorizing, ordering and condoning violations of rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eight Amendments to the Constitution and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international protections of human rights;
9. Authorizing, directing and condoning bribery and coercion of individuals and governments to obtain his war ends;
10. Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda and concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment to create a climate of fear and hatred and destroy opposition to his war goals.
President Bush is accused of Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. No crimes are greater threats to the Constitution of the United States, the United Nation Charter, the rule of law or the future of humanity.
MAXIMUM EFFORT TO SECURE FULL CONSIDERATION OF IMPEACHMENT IS THE DUTY OF EVERYONE.
Impeachment is the means by which We The People of the United States and our elected representatives in Congress can prevent further crimes by the President and the human catastrophe they threaten and force accountability for crimes committed.
Congressional proceedings for impeachment can bring about open, fearless consideration of the most dangerous acts and threats ever committed by an American President. If courageously pursued, they can save our Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law, the lives of countless people and leave open the possibility of peace on earth. Each of us must take a stand on impeachment now, or bear the burden of having failed to speak in this hour of maximum peril.
- - Ramsey ClarkJanuary 15, 2003
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.RES.1106
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the... (Introduced in House)
HRES 1106 IH
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1106
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 8, 2006
Ms. MCKINNEY submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
RESOLUTION
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of all the people of the United States of America, against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that:
ARTICLE I. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: `I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States', George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has demonstrated a pattern of abuse of office and of executive privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself. This conduct includes the following:
Manipulating Intelligence and Lying To Justify War
In violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of America, in preparing the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full intelligence picture that he was being given, by redacting information by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief, and actively manipulating the intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs by pressuring the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide intelligence such that `the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' as revealed in the `Downing Street Memo'. To this end, President George Walker Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States of America. By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false and misleading statements linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions being either false, or based on `fixed' intelligence, with the intent to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
ARTICLE II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
In violation of his oath to `faithfully execute the office of President of the United States', George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office.
This conduct includes the following:
Failure To Uphold Accountability
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of office to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take responsibility for, investigate or discipline those responsible for an ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has failed to hold to account include but are not limited to the following top-level officials in his administration:
(a) RICHARD CHENEY- In violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency to `fix' their intelligence estimates of the danger posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) CONDOLEEZZA RICE- In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought help in developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for their negligence or violations of law, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
Wherefore, by their aforementioned conduct, George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice warrant impeachment, trial, and removal from office.
ARTICLE III. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to `take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed', George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law.
This conduct includes the following:
Illegal Domestic Spying
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 U.S.C. Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on April 20, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: `any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so', whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding Fathers. Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat of arbitrary government, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
IMPEACHMENT RESOURCES
ABA CNN NY Times PBS NewsHour Washington Post
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article02/18.html
Main Index > Cases and Codes > U.S. Constitution > Article II
previous Annotations p. 18
Section 4. Impeachment
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
IMPEACHMENT 747
Few provisions of the Constitution were adopted from English practice to the degree the section on impeachment was. In Eng land, impeachment was a device to remove from office one who abused his office or misbehaved but who was protected by the Crown. 748 It was a device that figured in the plans proposed to the Convention from the first, and the arguments went to such questions as what body was to try impeachments and what grounds were to be stated as warranting impeachment. 749 The attention of the Framers was for the most part fixed on the President and his removal, and the results of this narrow frame of reference are reflected in the questions unresolved by the language of the Constitution.
Persons Subject to Impeachment
During the debate in the First Congress on the ''removal'' controversy, it was contended by some members that impeachment was the exclusive way to remove any officer of the Government from his post, 750 but Madison and others contended that this position was destructive of sound governmental practice, 751 and the view did not prevail. Impeachment, said Madison, was to be used to reach a bad officer sheltered by the President and to remove him ''even against the will of the President; so that the declaration in the Constitution was intended as a supplementary security for the good behavior of the public officers.'' 752 The language of Sec. 4 does not leave any doubt that any officer in the executive branch is subject to the power; it does not appear that military officers are subject to it 753 nor that members of Congress can be impeached. 754
Judges .--Article III, Sec. 1, specifically provides judges with ''good behavior'' tenure, but the Constitution nowhere expressly vests the power to remove upon bad behavior; it has been assumed that judges are made subject to the impeachment power through being labeled ''civil officers.'' 755 The records in the Convention make this a plausible though not necessary interpretation. 756 And, in fact, twelve of the fifteen impeachments reaching trial in the Senate have been directed at federal judges. 757 So settled apparently is the interpretation that the major arguments, scholarly and political, have concerned the question whether judges, as well as others, are subject to impeachment for conduct which does not constitute an indictable offense and the question whether impeachment is the exclusive removal device with regard to judges. 758
Impeachable Offenses
The Convention came to its choice of words describing the grounds for impeachment after much deliberation, but the phrasing derived directly from the English practice. The framers early adopted, on June 2, a provision that the Executive should be removable by impeachment and conviction ''of mal-practice or neglect of duty.'' 759 The Committee of Detail reported as grounds ''Treason (or) Bribery or Corruption.'' 760 And the Committee of Eleven reduced the phrase to ''Treason, or bribery.'' 761 On September 8, Mason objected to this limitation, observing that the term did not encompass all the conduct which should be grounds for removal; he therefore proposed to add ''or maladministration'' following ''bribery.'' Upon Madison's objection that ''[s]o vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate,'' Mason suggested ''other high crimes and misdemeanors,'' which was adopted without further recorded debate. 762 The phrase in the context of impeachments has an ancient English history, first turning up in the impeachment of the Earl of Suffolk in 1388. 763
Treason is defined in the Constitution; 764 bribery is not, but it had a clear common-law meaning and is now well covered by statute. 765 High crimes and misdemeanors, however, is an undefined and indefinite phrase, which, in England, had comprehended conduct not constituting indictable offenses. 766 In an unrelated action, the Convention had seemed to understand the term ''high misdemeanor'' to be quite limited in meaning, 767 but debate prior to adoption of the phrase 768 and comments thereafter in the ratifying conventions 769 were to the effect that the President at least, and all the debate was in terms of the President, should be removable by impeachment for commissions or omissions in office which were not criminally cognizable. And in the First Congress' ''removal'' debate, Madison maintained that the wanton removal from office of meritorious officers would be an act of maladministration which would render the President subject to impeachment. 770 Other comments, especially in the ratifying conventions, tend toward a limitation of the term to criminal, perhaps gross criminal, behavior. 771 While conclusions may be drawn from the conflicting statement, it must always be recognized that a respectable case may be made for either view.
Practice over the years, however, insofar as the Senate deems itself bound by the actions of previous Senates, would appear to limit the grounds of conviction to indictable criminal offenses for all officers, with the possible exception of judges.
The Chase Impeachment .--The issue was early joined as a consequence of the Jefferson Administration's efforts to rid itself of some of the Federalist judges who were propagandizing the country through grand jury charges and other means. The theory of extreme latitude was enunciated by Senator Giles of Virginia during the impeachment trial of Justice Chase. ''The power of impeachment was given without limitation to the House of Representatives; and the power of trying impeachments was given equally without limitation to the Senate. . . . A trial and removal of a judge upon impeachment need not imply any criminality or corruption in him . . . [but] nothing more than a declaration of Congress to this effect: You hold dangerous opinions, and if you are suffered to carry them into effect you will work the destruction of the nation. We want your offices, for the purpose of giving them to men who will fill them better.'' 772 Chase's counsel responded that to be impeachable, conduct must constitute an indictable offense. 773 Though Chase's acquittal owed more to the political divisions in the Senate than to the merits of the arguments, it did go far to affix the latter reading to the phrase ''high Crimes and Misdemeanors'' until the turbulent period following the Civil War. 774
The Johnson Impeachment .--President Johnson was impeached by the House on the ground that he had violated the ''Tenure of Office'' Act 775 by dismissing a Cabinet chief. The theory of the proponents of impeachment was succinctly put by Representative Butler, one of the managers of the impeachment in the Senate trial. ''An impeachable high crime or misdemeanor is one in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest, and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted, or, without violating a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper motives or for an improper purpose.'' 776 Former Justice Benjamin Curtis controverted this argument, saying: ''My first position is, that when the Constitution speaks of 'treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors,' it refers to, and includes only, high criminal offences against the United States, made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done, and I say that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every provision of the Constitution on the subject of impeachment.'' 777 The President's acquittal by a single vote was no doubt not the result of a choice between the two theories, but the result may be said to have placed a gloss on the impeachment language approximating the theory of the defense.
Later Judicial Impeachments .--With regard to federal judges, however, several successful impeachments in this Century appear to establish that the constitutional requirement of ''good behavior'' and ''high crimes and misdemeanors'' may conjoin to allow the removal of judges who have engaged in seriously questionable conduct, although no specific criminal statute may have been violated. Thus, both Judge Archbald and Judge Ritter were convicted on articles of impeachment that charged questionable conduct probably not amounting to indictable offenses. 778 It is possible that Members of Congress may employ different standards with regard to judges who have life tenure than they do with regard to other officers of the Government who either serve for a term of years or who serve at the pleasure of others who serve for a term of years, but such a differentiation places a substantial burden upon the language of the Constitution.
With regard to the three most recent judicial impeachments, Judges Claiborne and Nixon had previously been convicted of criminal offenses, while Judge Hastings had been acquitted of criminal charges after trial. The impeachment articles charged both the conduct for which he had been indicted and trial conduct. Clearly, he was charged and convicted with criminal offenses, it being a separate question what effect the court acquittal should have. 779
The Nixon Impeachment .--For the first time in over a hundred years and for only the second time in the Nation's history, Congress moved to impeach the President of the United States, a move forestalled only by the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974. In the course of the proceedings, there recurred strenuous argument with regard to the nature of an impeachable offense, whether only criminally- indictable actions qualify for that status or whether the definition is broader, and, of course, no resolution was reached. 780
A second issue arose that apparently had not been considered before: whether persons subject to impeachment could be indicted and tried prior to impeachment and conviction or whether indictment could only follow the removal from office. In fact, the argument was really directed only to the status of the President, inasmuch as it was argued that he embodied the Executive Branch itself, while lesser executive officials and judges were not of that calibre. 781 That issue similarly remained unsettled, the Supreme Court declining to provide some guidance in the course of deciding a case on executive privilege. 782
Judicial Review of Impeachments .--It was long assumed that no judicial review of the impeachment process was possible, that impeachment presents a true ''political question'' case. That assumption was not contested until very recently, when Judges Nixon and Hastings challenged their Senate convictions. 783 But federal courts, setting the stage for Supreme Court consideration, held the challenges to be nonjusticiable, that the Constitution's conferral on the Senate of the ''sole'' power to try impeachments demonstrated a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of trial procedures to the Senate to decide without court review. 784
Upon at last reaching the question, the Court has held that a claim to judicial review of an issue arising in an impeachment trial in the Senate presents a nonjusticiable question, a ''political question.'' Supp.6 Specifically, the Court held that a claim that the Senate had not followed the proper meaning of the word ''try'' in the impeachment clause, a special committee being appointed to take testimony and to make a report to the full Senate, complete with a full transcript, on which the Senate acted, could not be reviewed. But the analysis of the Court applies to all impeachment clause questions, thus seemingly putting offlimits to judicial review the whole process.
Footnotes
[Footnote 747] Impeachment is the subject of several other provisions of the Constitution. Article I, Sec. 2, cl. 5, gives to the House of Representatives ''the sole power of impeachment.'' Article I, Sec. 3, cl. 6, gives to the Senate ''the sole power to try all impeachments,'' requires that Senators be under oath or affirmation when sitting for that purpose, stipulates that the Chief Justice of the United States is to preside when the President of the United States is tried, and provides for conviction on the vote of two-thirds of the members present. Article I, Sec. 3, cl. 7, limits the judgment after impeachment to removal from office and disqualification from future federal office holding, but it allows criminal trial and conviction following impeachment. Article II, Sec. 2, cl. 1, deprives the President of the power to grant pardons or reprieves in cases of impeachment. Article III, Sec. 2, cl. 3, excepts impeachment cases from the jury trial requirement.
[Footnote 748] 1 W. Holdsworth, History of English Law (London: 7th ed. 1956), 379-385; Clarke, The Origin of Impeachment, in Oxford Essays in Medieval History, Presented to Herbert Salter (Oxford: 1934), 164.
[Footnote 749] Simpson, Federal Impeachments, 64 U. Pa. L. Rev. 651, 653-667 (1916).
[Footnote 750] 1 Annals of Cong. 457, 473, 536 (1789).
[Footnote 751] Id., 375, 480, 496-497, 562.
[Footnote 752] Id., 372.
[Footnote 753] 3 W. Willoughby, op. cit., n.294, 1448.
[Footnote 754] This point was established by a vote of the Senate holding a plea to this effect good in the impeachment trial of Senator William Blount in 1797. 3 A. Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington: 1907), 2294-2318; F. Wharton, State Trials of the United States During the Administrations of Washington and Adams (Philadelphia: 1849), 200-321.
[Footnote 755] See National Comm. on Judicial Discipline & Removal, Report of the National Comm. on Judicial Discipline & Removal (1993), 9-11. The Commission was charged by Congress, P. L. 101-650, 104 Stat. 5124, with investigating and studying problems and issues relating to discipline and removal of federal judges, to evaluate the advisability of developing alternatives to impeachment, and to report to the three Government Branches. The report and the research papers produced for it contains a wealth of information on the subject.
[Footnote 756] For practically the entire Convention, the plans presented and adopted provided that the Supreme Court was to try impeachments. 1 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 22, 244, 223-224, 231; 2 id., 186. On August 27, it was successfully moved that the provision in the draft of the Committee on Detail giving the Supreme Court jurisdictions of trials of impeachment be postponed, id., 430, 431, which was one of the issues committed to the Committee of Eleven. Id., 481. That Committee reported the provision giving the Senate power to try all impeachments, id., 497, which the Convention thereafter approved. Id., 551. It may be assumed that so long as trial was in the Supreme Court, the Framers did not intend that the Justices, at least, were to be subject to the process.
[Footnote 759] 1 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 88, 90, 230.
[Footnote 760] 2 id., 172, 186.
[Footnote 761] Id., 499.
[Footnote 762] Id., 550.
[Footnote 763] 1 T. Howell, State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Present Times (London: 1809), 90, 91; A. Simpson, Treatise on Federal Impeachments (Philadelphia: 1916), 86.
[Footnote 764] Article III, 3.
[Footnote 765] The use of a technical term known in the common law would require resort to the common law for its meaning, United States v. Palmer, 16 U.S. (3 Wheat.) 610, 630 (1818) (per Chief Justice Marshall); United States v. Jones, 26 Fed. Cas. 653, 655 (No. 15,494) (C.C.Pa. 1813) (per Justice Washington), leaving aside the issue of the cognizability of common law crimes in federal courts. See Act of April 30, 1790, Sec. 21, 1 Stat. 117.
[Footnote 766] Berger, Impeachment for ''High Crimes and Misdemeanors,'' 44 S. Calif. L. Rev. 395, 400-415 (1971).
[Footnote 767] The extradition provision reported by the Committee on Detail had provided for the delivering up of persons charged with ''Treason, Felony or high Misdemeanors.'' 2 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.4, 174. But the phrase ''high Misdemeanors'' was replaced with ''other crimes,'' ''in order to comprehend all proper cases: it being doubtful whether 'high misdemeanor' had not a technical meaning too limited.'' Id., 443.
[Footnote 768] See id., 64-69, 550-551.
[Footnote 769] E.g., 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Constitution (Philadelphia: 1836), 341, 498, 500, 528 (Madison); 4 id., 276, 281 (C. C. Pinckney: Rutledge): 3 id., 516 (Corbin): 4 id., 263 (Pendleton). Cf. The Federalist, No. 65 (J. Cooke ed., 1961), 439-445 (Hamilton).
[Footnote 770] 1 Annals of Cong. 372-373 (1789).
[Footnote 771] 4 J. Elliot, op. cit., n.769, 126 (Iredell); 2 id., 478 (Wilson).
[Footnote 772] 1 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs (Philadelphia: 1874), 322. See also 3 A. Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington: 1907), 739, 753.
[Footnote 773] Id., 762.
[Footnote 774] The full record is S. Smith & T. Lloyd (eds.), Trial of Samuel Chase, An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . . . (Washington: 1805). On the political background and the meaning of the trial and acquittal, see Lillich, The Chase Impeachment, 4 Amer. J. Legal Hist. 49 (1960).
[Footnote 775] Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 430.
[Footnote 776] 1 Trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States on Impeachment (Washington: 1868), 88, 147.
[Footnote 777] Id., 409.
[Footnote 778] ten Broek, Partisan Politics and Federal Judgeship Impeachments Since 1903, 23 Minn. L. Rev. 185 (1939).
[Footnote 779] Grimes, Hundred-Ton-Gun Control: Preserving Impeachment as the Exclusive Removal Mechanism for Federal Judges, 38 UCLA L. Rev. 1209, 1229-1233 (1991).
[Footnote 780] Analyses of the issue from different points of view are contained in Impeachment Inquiry Staff, House Judiciary Committee, Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachments, 93d Congress, 2d sess. (1974) (Comm. Print); J. St. Clair, et al., Legal Staff of the President, Analysis of the Constitutional Standard for Presidential Impeachment (Washington: 1974); Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, Legal Aspects of Impeachment: An Overview, and Appendix I (Washington: 1974). And see R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems (Cambridge: 1973), which preceded the instant controversy. The House Judiciary Committee recommended three articles of impeachment, for conduct at least one of which, refusal to honor the Committee's subpoenas, was not an indictable offense, and a second that mixed indictable and nonindictable offenses. Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, H. Rept. No. 93-1305, 93d Cong., 2d sess. (1974). Mr. Nixon's resignation of course precluded further action on the issue, although the articles were submitted to and ''accepted'' by the House of Representatives. 120 Cong. Rec. 29219-29362 (1974).
[Footnote 781] The question first arose during the grand jury investigation of former Vice President Agnew, during which the United States, through the Solicitor General, argued that the Vice President and all civil officers were not immune from the judicial process and that removal need not precede indictment, but as to the President it was argued that for a number of constitutional and practical reasons the President was not subject to the ordinary criminal process. Memorandum for the United States, Application of Spiro T. Agnew, Civil No. 73-965 (D.Md., filed October 5, 1973). Courts have specifically held that a federal judge is indictable and may be convicted prior to removal from office. United States v. Claiborne, 727 F.2d 842, 847-848 (9th Cir.), cert. den., 469 U.S. 829 (1984); United States v. Hastings, 681 F.2d 706, 710-711 (11th Cir.), cert. den., 459 U.S. 1203 (1983); United States, v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124, 1142 (7th Cir.), cert. den. sub nom., Kerner v. United States, 417 U.S. 976 (1974).
[Footnote 782] The grand jury had named the President as an unindicted coconspirator in the case of United States v. Mitchell, et al., No. 74- 110 (D.D.C.), apparently in the belief that he was not actually indictable while in office. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the President's claim that the grand jury acted outside its authority, but finding that resolution of the issue was unnecessary to decision of the executive privilege claim it dismissed the petition for certiorari of the President as improvidently granted. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 687 n. 2 (1974).
[Footnote 783] Both sought to challenge the use under Rule XI of a trial committee to hear the evidence and report to the full Senate, which would then carry out the trial. The rule was adopted in the aftermath of an embarrassingly sparse attendance at the trial of Judge Louderback in 1935. National Comm. Report, op. cit., n.755, 50-53, 54-57; Grimes, op. cit., n.779, 1233-1237.
[Footnote 784] Nixon v. United States, 744 F.Supp. 9 (D.D.C. 1990), affd. 938 F.2d 239 (D.C.Cir. 1991), cert. granted, 112 S.Ct. 1158 (1992). However, in Hastings v. United States, 802 F.Supp. 490 (D.D.C. 1992), the court did reach the merits and held that at least in the instance of Judge Hastings, who had been acquitted in court of the criminal charges for the conduct relied on by the Senate, he was entitled to a trial before the full Senate without the interposition of the trial committee.
[Footnote 6 (1996 Supplement)] Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993). Nixon at the time of his conviction and removal from office was a federal district judge in Mississippi.
http://judiciary.house.gov
Rep. John Conyers
Bio
08.04.2006
The Constitution in Crisis
Final "Constitution in Crisis" ReportSix Years of Unchecked Abuses -- Had Enough?
Cross Posted at Daily Kos
Today, I am releasing the final version of my report, the "Constitution in Crisis." The report, which is some 350 pages in length and is supported by more than 1,400 footnotes, compiles the accumulated evidence that the Bush Administration has thumbed its nose at our nation's laws, and the Constitution itself.
Approximately 26 laws and regulations may have been violated by this Administration's misconduct.
Our Constitution established a tri-partite system of government, with the notion that each branch of government would act as a check on the other two. Unfortunately, for the last six years, the Republicans in Congress have largely viewed themselves as defenders of the Bush Administration, instead of a vital check on overreaching by the Executive Branch. By doing so, I believe they have acted to the detriment of our Constitutional form of government.
We have seen so many transgressions by this Administration that it is easy to forget last week's scandal amid this week's new outrage. I am hopeful that compiling all of these events of the last few years will help wake all of us up to the gravity of these matters and the cumulative damage to our country.
We have a mountain of reports that strongly indicate that this Administration was well aware that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they told the Congress and the American people the opposite in order to satisfy a predetermination to go to war. The "smoking gun" of these reports is the Downing Street Memoranda, contemporaneous reports from the highest reaches of the British government recounting meetings with their American counterparts, meetings where the facts were being fixed around the policy of going to war.
We have a mountain of statements from Administration officials making claims designed to conflate Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda, and corresponding mountains of reports that credible intelligence officials in our government disputed such claims. We also have evidence showing that government officials instituted policies which endorsed the use of torture in violation of U.S. law and international treaties.
We have scores of sources indicating the Administration engaged in a concerted effort to discredit and defame anyone who came forward to expose these outrages, and have largely done so without consequence. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson dared to question whether Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, Administration officials retaliated against him by outing his wife as an undercover C.I.A. operative. When General Eric Shinseki and others in the military dared to dispute the Administration's wildly optimistic assessments of what was needed to pursue the Iraq conflict, he was summarily replaced. The pattern repeats itself with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Economic Adviser Larry Lindsey. And Cindy Sheehan. And the list goes on and on.
The American people have paid the price for this strategy of deception followed by, in the words of one anonymous Republican official, "slime and defend." We have paid with the lives of more than 2,500 of our sons and daughters in uniform and in hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxes.
The Administration also appears to have used the war on terror as an excuse to eviscerate the basic protections afforded to us in the Constitution. There have been warrantless wiretaps of law-abiding Americans, in clear contravention of federal law, not to mention the creation of a huge unchecked database of the phone records of innocent Americans.
All the while, the Republican Congress sits idly by. Rather than performing its constitutional duty as a co-equal branch, it has chosen to stymie any and all efforts at oversight. After six long years of deceptions, attacks and yes, outright lies, I am convinced the American people have had enough.
Joseph A. Palermo
Bio
12.14.2006
Articles of Impeachment Against President George W. Bush
READ MORE: George W. Bush, United States, Iraq, William (Prince)2, New Jersey, Hoboken, National Security Agency
Here are four Articles of Impeachment as put forth by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Each of the four have substantial supporting documentation, which includes the Congressional Record, private correspondence from government officials, public statements by President Bush and other Administration officials, press accounts, and court documents. I have written below verbatim the Articles of Impeachment from a book by William Goodman, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, entitled: Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, (Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House Publishing, 2006).
Article I
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch, and failing to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by directing or authorizing the National Security Agency and various other agencies within the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance outside of the statutes Congress has prescribed as the exclusive means for such surveillance, and to use such information for purposes unknown but unrelated to any lawful program of electronic surveillance from Congress, the press, and the public. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article II
The impeachment of George W. Bush, President of the United States, is warranted by his initiation and continuation of the Iraq war. The initiation and continuation of the war constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor and is illegal as well. In undertaking that war, George W. Bush violated his oath of office and constitutional obligation that the laws be faithfully executed.
George W. Bush has subverted the Constitution, its guarantee of a republican form of government, and the constitutional separation of powers by undermining the rightful authority of Congress to declare war, oversee foreign affairs, and make appropriations. He did so by justifying the war with false and misleading statements and deceived the people of the United States as well as Congress. He denied the electorate the right to make an informed choice and thereby undermined democracy.
George W. Bush also committed fraud against the United States by lying to and intentionally misleading Congress about the reasons for the Iraq war.
George W. Bush acted contrary to his trust as president, and subverted the constitutional government to the prejudice of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal of office.
Article III
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional and international rights of citizens and non-citizens by arbitrarily detaining them indefinitely inside and outside of the United States, without due process, without charges, and with limited -- if any -- access to counsel or courts.
George W. Bush has abused his power and failed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States by allowing his administration to condone torture, failing to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for torture, and officially refusing to accept the binding nature of a statutory ban on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
George W. Bush has offended our system of government by attempting to expand his power at the expense of the other two branches of government. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article IV
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws by faithfully executed, has arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:He has violated federal law by conducting surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, as is required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was specifically enacted to check executive power.
He has engaged in mass detentions both in and outside of the United States without permitting any judicial review of such detentions.He has formally declared his intent to violate the laws enacted by Congress by appending a "signing statement" to legislation that asserts his right to carve out exceptions to legislation as he sees fit, thereby arrogating to himself legislative powers reserved solely to Congress.
In all of this, George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
For many leading Democrats who will be taking charge of the 110th Congress in January the idea of taking steps to impeach George W. Bush is "off the table." I understand their hesitancy to invoke such a drastic remedy that our nation's founders so thoughtfully included in our Constitution for addressing unlawful actions by a President. But I agree with Henry Hyde, James Sensebrenner, Lyndsey Graham, Trent Lott, and other wise leaders that the rule of law is so important to our society and to our form of republican government that we must check the powers of the Chief Executive when there is evidence of a failure on the part of the President to uphold his oath of office. Our democracy depends on it.
Excerpt: Articles of Impeachment
Center for Constitutional Rights. Posted March 6, 2006.
A new book lays out four clear legal arguments that point to impeachment of President Bush as a necessary remedy for the violation of our Constitution.
It Can Happen HereJoe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books
Editor's Note: this is an excerpt from the Center for Constitutional Right's new book, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush," reprinted with permission from Melville House, 2006.)
INTRODUCTION
How can it be that we are yet again debating another presidential impeachment? Still weary from the Clinton impeachment battles and now completely exhausted from the momentous changes brought about by both 9/11 and this president -- changes that include the Iraq war, indefinite detentions around the world, torture, domestic wiretapping, and more -- we have all we can do to understand and perhaps resist some or all of these measures on an ad hoc basis. While any of the individual acts and policies outlined in the following articles would constitute an impeachable offense, taken as a whole, as a pattern and practice, they constitute something far more sinister, a plan to significantly weaken, if not destroy, our democracy.
As a consequence this nation is confronted with a grave constitutional crisis. We have a president staunchly committed to acquiring unprecedented amounts of power and using it in ways that conflict with the Constitution of the United States, international law, and the common understanding of morality. In short, although the president has sworn to uphold the Constitution, he is doing just the opposite. He is dismantling the Constitution of the United States. Primarily, his apparent purpose is to gather even more power -- power unchecked by judicial or congressional scrutiny -- to a presidency already bloated with power.
Simultaneously, summary arrests, in the United States and around the world, torture, indefinite detention, illegal surveillance, and suppression of free speech and protest have become commonplace. Yet worse, as all of this has happened the government has sought to eliminate any judicial oversight of its activities by weakening the judicial system in innumerable ways. The president has also disregarded Congress and thereby attempted to weaken its role. The consequence has been that the fundamental building block of American democracy, our system of separation of powers, has come under lethal attack.
How did it come about that we are in the constitutional crisis in which we find ourselves today? Before we discuss the reasons for this, or even the historical context, it seems useful to introduce some of the terminology and details that surround impeachment, the Constitution's nuclear option.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that the president may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." This was the mechanism that the framers of the Constitution provided Congress to protect itself from executive overreaching. Clearly the framers drafted this provision in the context of what they viewed as the history of their time, i.e., the conflict between the actions of the English king and the ideals of the English law. Thus, for the framers, impeachment was a key element of American democracy in that it provided an ultimate means to curtail abuses of, or unconstitutional expansion of, executive powers.
While bribery and treason were technically defined crimes that would inevitably subvert the Constitution, the more general and less defined concept of high crimes and misdemeanors was intended to identify that activity whereby the executive overstepped the bounds of public office or failed to faithfully execute the laws. Hamilton viewed it as an abuse or violation of the public trust. Thereby the framers provided a much more general category whereby the Constitution would also surely be subverted.
To place the present moment into the context of history, in 1868 President Andrew Johnson was acquitted by only one vote of the accusation of denying Congress its power. It was claimed that the president, unmindful of the oath that obliged him to faithfully execute the laws, denied that the legislation passed by Congress was either valid, or that he was required to comply.
President Clinton was impeached in 1999 for perjury and obstruction of justice. The circumstances of this impeachment, involving as they did, a personal affair, were unusual and are not applicable to the current situation. More pertinent, however, is the threatened impeachment and, ultimately, the resignation of Richard Nixon.
In 1974 President Nixon resigned before the House Judiciary Committee could vote on articles of impeachment. Those articles accused him of violating his constitutional oath 1) to faithfully execute the office of the president; 2) to protect and defend the Constitution; and 3) to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He did this by means of false and misleading statements, withholding information from Congress, condoning false statements, misuse of the CIA, and deceiving the people of the United States, as well, with false or misleading statements.
These are both the formal criteria and the precedents against which, when presented with the evidence, the reader may make a decision as to whether there is a valid basis for the impeachment of the current president.
Nine months after George W. Bush was sworn in as president, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and murdered thousands. An active negligence of constitutional duties and boundaries commenced.
"You are either with us or you are with the terrorists," proclaimed the president. His attorney general, John Ashcroft, similarly declared:
"[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."
The message was clear: Opposition and dissent were treason and concern for constitutional rights was a technicality, a phantom that played into the hands of terrorism. Out of this antagonism to the Constitution that had long predated the attacks of 9/11 (as will be detailed) grew the full-blown attack on the system of checks and balances and the Bill of Rights that the following articles detail.
While these charges delineate a history for which one person, even the president of the United States, cannot be fully responsible and probably not even fully aware, this president was more than a willing accomplice to the severe damage to which our Constitution has been subjected. He has been an enthusiastic perpetrator of that damage. More importantly, when he swore to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution, he should not have been merely mouthing words or repeating slogans. It is the thesis of this book that this promise must forever be embedded in the protoplasm of the man or woman who takes the oath. If it is not, we will all pay the price. If it is not, and if this oath is violated, the only just remedy is impeachment.
WILLIAM GOODMANLegal DirectorCenter for Constitutional Rights
TEN REASONS TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT
Steve WatsonInfowars.netTuesday, December 5, 2006
"THE ACT OF WRITING UP ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT IS NOT DIFFICULT. YOU JUST WRITE THEM ON A PIECE OF PAPER,"
-US Rep. McKinney (D-GA)-
Remember what Bill Clinton was impeached for when reading the following ten reasons why George W Bush should be impeached:
North American Union, Amnesty program, Killing sovereignty
The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally been reported on by mainstream news outlets.
The framework on which the American Union is being pegged is the NAFTA Super Highway, a four football-fields-wide leviathan that stretches from southern Mexico through the US up to Montreal Canada .Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the Pan American Union is the final jigsaw piece for the total dismantling of America as we know it.
Illegal legislation / Re-writing law: Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, Wiretapping
The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens. Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.
Neo-Con government mouthpieces and others are claiming that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which heralded the official end of the "great experiment" of the American democratic republic, does not affect U.S. citizens, only illegal aliens and foreign terrorists. Recent history of how terror legislation was used to target American citizens clearly indicates the legislation will be used domestically.
Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the bill also contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.
The wiretapping program violates the Fourth Amendment and FISA and will chill free speech. The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people of the United States to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and requires court approval except in an emergency. As a bipartisan group of legal experts—including Judge William Sessions, the former Director of the FBI under President Ronald Reagan—concluded after analyzing all the constitutional and statutory assertions of the administration: “the Justice Department’s defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance.”
Bush is also planning to abolish parts of the War Crimes Act of 1996 that makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. He is systematically re-writing laws that could make him accountable for previous crimes against humanity.
UNESCO and UN treaties
For reasons inexplicable to most sensible Americans, in September 2002, President George W. Bush told the United Nations that the U.S. will rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a wild-eyed bunch President Reagan abandoned in 1984, noting that it was utterly corrupt and the U.S. had no business being a member of such a group.
Destruction of the Dollar
Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no,".
Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies. Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.
New Freedom Initiative
Enforced and mandatory psychological testing and drugging is now a proposed federal law, to be done nationwide under Bush's 'New Freedom initiative'. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations
Real ID act
The Real ID Act essentially turns your driver's license into a national identification card. Or at least licenses issued by 2008 will be. That's when the program is to start.
Congressman Ron Paul: "Proponents of the REAL ID Act continue to make the preposterous claim that the bill does not establish a national ID card. This is dangerous and insulting nonsense."
The Senate has passed the Real ID bill, creating a backdoor national ID card. After weeks of activism directed towards them senators knew the full scale of this horror but voted for it 100-0 anyway.
Lies that led us to war
The Downing Street Memo and other documents prove that Bush knew there were no WMD before the invasion of Iraq. Bush's WMD statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."-- United Nations Address, September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."-- Radio Address, October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." -- Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."-- State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -- Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003
Buying fake news and engaging in domestic propaganda
In 2004, several news stations around the country broadcast a story on plans for a White House advertising campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. But the "journalist" who reported this story was not a journalist, and his report was actually produced by the Bush administration.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, ruled that this amounted to illegal "covert propaganda."
The GAO said the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws when it created fake news footage to support the administration's Medicare drug benefit bill.
Hurricane Katrina response
The event paved the way for the standard government response to a crisis - sabotage the rescue efforts, dominate and enslave the victims, then reap the windfall from the tragedy.
Katrina was a trial balloon for widespread gun confiscation under the pretext of a crisis. Every aspect of government involvement with the event unveils scandal, corruption, deceit and criminal negligence.
9/11
Bush personally backed the FBI off Bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush administration moved to block transparency of secret bank accounts, which in part facilitated the 9/11 terror attacks.
The demeanor of Bush on the day of 9/11, doe eyed, unsure, taking the decision to read an upside down book about a pet goat for half an hour after he’s told about the biggest attack on America since Pearl Harbor.
Impeachment and indictment is the only way to go to save America and democracy. Bush is a figurehead but we need to show the world that he and his handlers are not our leaders.
Email this page to a friend
Articles of ImpeachmentPrepared by Ramsey Clark, Former Attorney General of the Untied States
Articles of Impeachment Against George W. BushCenter for Constitutional Rights http://zzpat.bravehost.com/april_2006/articles_of_impeachment.html
Article I
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his powers by violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch, and failing to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by directing or authorizing the National Security Agency and various other agencies within the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance outside of the statues Congress has prescribed as the exclusive means for such surveillance, and to use such information for purposes unknown but unrelated to any lawful function of his office; he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of electronic surveillance from Congress, the press and the public. Wherefore, George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial and removal from office.
Article II
The Impeachment of George W. Bush, President of the United States, is warranted by his initiation and continuation of the Iraq war. The initiation and continuation of the war constitutes high crime and misdemeanor and is illegal as well. In undertaking that war, George W. Bush violated his oath of office and constitutional obligation that the laws be faithfully executed.
George W. Bush has subverted the Constitution, its guarantee of a republican form of government, and the constitutional separation of powers by undermining the rightful authority of Congress to declare war, oversee foreign affairs, and make appropriations. He did so by justifying the war with false and misleading statements and deceived the people of the United States as well as Congress. He denied the electorate the right to make an informed choice and thereby undermined democracy.
George W. Bush also committed fraud against the United States by lying to and intentionally misleading Congress about the reasons for the Iraq war.
George W. Bush acted contrary to his trust as president, and subverted the constitutional government to the prejudice of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article III
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, has abused his power by violating the constitutional and international rights of citizens and non-citizens by arbitrarily detaining them indefinitely inside and outside the United States, without due process, without charges, and with limited – if any – access to counsel or courts.
George W. Bush has abused his power and failed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States by allowing his administration to condone torture, failing to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for torture, and officially refusing to accept the binding nature of a statuary ban on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
George W. Bush has offended our system of government by attempting to expand his power at the expense of the other two branches of government. Wherefore, George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Article IV
George W. Bush, in his conduct of the Office of the President of the United States, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:
He has violated federal law by conducting surveillance of U.S.citizens on U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, as is required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was specifically enacted to check executive power.
He has engaged in mass detentions both in and outside the United States without permitting any judicial review of such detentions.
He has formally declared his intent to violate the laws enacted by Congress by appending a "signing statement" to legislation that asserts his right to carve out exceptions to legislation as he sees fit, thereby arrogating to himself legislative powers reserved solely to Congress.
In all this, George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore George W. Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Tally of Impeachment Charges
Page 1
Impeachment Charges against GW Bush
Tally from proposed Articles of Impeachment.
Action
Clarke
Tally
war without consent, no declaration, violated War Powers Act
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
false statement and propaganda about WMD
1
1
1
1
1
5
Lied about rationale for Iraq war
1
1
1
1
1
5
Bush lied about ties between Iraq al-Qaida
1
1
1
1
4
War actions that would knowingly kill of civilians
1
1
1
1
1
5
Iraq war violated UN, Nuremberg, treaties
1
1
1
3
Misleading public to create support for Iraq war
1
1
1
3
torturing prisoners of war against Geneva Convention
1
1
1
3
authorization of wiretapping without FISA approval
1
1
2
Lied about imminent threat to US from Iraq
1
1
2
Lied about purchase of Uranium from Niger
1
1
2
War that resulted in US and allied casualties
1
1
2
appointing political cronies to critical government positions
1
1
Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution
1
1
blocking legislative oversight of executive functions (energy meetings?)
1
1
bribing, intimidating, threatening other countries to support Iraq war
1
1
Cost hundreds of billions of $
1
1
violated equal protection clause, minority and poor soldiers in Iraq
1
1
hiding who was arrested, detained and imprisoned from Congressional inquiry
1
1
illegal seizure of assets of “terrorists”
1
1
impose police state and military dictatorship on US (Patriot Act?)
1
1
Misuse of CIA
1
1
Misuse of military
1
1
monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications
1
1
Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens
1
1
overriding INS jurisdiction to wrongfully hold detainees
1
1
proposing a new strategy involving first-use of nuclear weapons
1
1
racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying
1
1
retaliating against whistle-blowers such as Joseph Wilson
1
1
secret arrests of persons in US
1
1
Sought unlawful transfer of war-declaring power to President
1
1
strip US citizens of their constitutional and human rights “enemy combatants”
1
1
violent overthrow of sovereign states, kidnappings, murder and torture
1
1
Withdrawal from treaties, ABM, Treaty of Rome (Int Criminal Court)
1
1
Feldman Bonifaz
Boyle NLG Burk
postamble();
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY
by Eternal Hope
If we are to impeach, we must impeach both Bush and Cheney. It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office and pick someone just as radical as he is. It will also not do any good for us to impeach just Cheney and allow Bush to groom John "I'm not knowledgeable" McCain for the 2008 election. Therefore, we must simultaneously impeach both of them so that the 3rd person in succession, Nancy Pelosi, would become the next President of the United States.
What remains to be done is for us to work out articles of impeachment against the President. Others may surface after the Democrats begin their job of investigating and getting to the bottom of the matter. If the Bush administration obstructs or lies to the Congressional Committee chairs, those could in and of themselves be grounds for impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney.
In the meantime, here are the following 14 possible articles of impeachment against the President and Vice President.
Eternal Hope's diary
1. Leaking classified information by disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame to reporters.
The President and Vice President unlawfully leaked classified information, the identity of a Non-official Cover, Valerie (Wilson) Plame, to a person or persons not authorized to receive such information, namely, Robert Novak, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, and Matt Cooper, a reporter for Time Magazine.
Law violated:
National Security Act of 1947.
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
© Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual’s classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(d) A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment.
2. Lying to congress -- passing false information about Iraq's WMD capacities.
George Bush and Dick Cheney passed false information to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities, to wit, their possession of chemical weapons, biological weapons, and delivery systems. Furthermore, George Bush and Dick Cheney passed false information to Congress by falsely stating that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States and that military action was therefore necessary.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001.
Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
3. Extraordinary Renditions.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized the arrest and transporting of prisoners to secret jails in Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Eastern Europe for detention and torture without trial.
Law violated:
6th Amendment of the Constitution.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
4. Detentions without Trial.
George Bush and Dick Cheney detained thousands of people at Guantanamo Bay without the possibility of trial and without access to effective counsel.
Law violated:
6th Amendment (see above).
5. Torture.
George Bush and Dick Cheney either ordered or caused other foreign countries to perform torture on suspects illegally detained under sections 3 and 4 of these articles.
Law violated:
8th Amendment.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
6. Misappropriation of Funds.
George Bush and Dick Cheney diverted funds from Afghanistan to Iraq as documented in Bob Woodward's "Plan of attack" and failed to notify Congress of such appropriations.
Law violated:
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
The President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 at least 15 days in advance of each obligation of assistance under this section in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.
7. Bombing Iraq without Congressional Approval.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized over 21,000 bombing missions on Iraq without Congressional approval before passage of the Iraq War Resolution in October 11th, 2002.
Law violated:
Article I, US Constitution.
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
8. Conspiracy to pass false information.
George Bush and Dick Cheney conspired to pass false information about the nature of the intelligence on Iraq to the US Congress in conjunction with British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the purposes of triggering a war with Iraq as documented in the Downing Street Minutes.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001 (see above).
9. Lying about Niger connection.
George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to Congress at the State of the Union and elsewhere by falsely stating that Iraq had procured Uranium from Niger.
Law violated:
18 USC 1001 (see above).
10. Contempt of Congress.
George Bush and Dick Cheney showed a contempt of Congress by stating their intentions to violate laws passed by Congress or cause others to do so over 750 times.
11. Illegal wiretaps.
George Bush and Dick Cheney repeatedly bypassed the court system by ordering wiretaps without authorization from judges and without obtaining a warrant.
Law violated:
4th Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
12. Concealment of the existance or nature of Domestic Intelligence Programs.
George Bush and Dick Cheney concealed the nature and extent of the JPEN program, used for the purpose of domestic intelligence.
Law violated:
18 USC 1505
Whoever, with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, willfully withholds, misrepresents, removes from any place, conceals, covers up, destroys, mutilates, alters, or by other means falsifies any documentary material, answers to written interrogatories, or oral testimony, which is the subject of such demand; or attempts to do so or solicits another to do so; or
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.
13. Destruction of Evidence.
George Bush and Dick Cheney destroyed evidence in conjunction with Plamegate.
Law violated:
18 USC 1505 (see above).
14. The use of White Phosphorus in Iraq.
George Bush and Dick Cheney authorized the use of White Phosphorus in Iraq in November 2004 during the Fallujah offensive.
Law violated:
US Army Field Manual, Chapter 5, section 3.
(4) Burster Type White phosphorus (WP M110A2) rounds burn with intense heat and emit dense white smoke. They may be used as the initial rounds in the smokescreen to rapidly create smoke or against material targets, such as Class V sites or logistic sites. It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.
Do you support or oppose the simultaneous impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick Cheney for the offenses listed above?
Support
90%
11355 votes
Oppose
9%
1188 votes
12543 votes Vote Results
Do you support or oppose the simultaneous impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick Cheney for the offenses listed above?
Support
11355 votes - 90 %
Oppose
1188 votes - 9 %
Tags: judiciary committee, John Conyers, documentation, Impeachment, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Plamegate, White Phosphorus, chemical weapons, Iraq, Downing Street Memo, Tony Blair, Congress, Recommended, Constitution (all tags)
Article II
In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
Amendment XXV
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
AMENDMENTS DEFIED BY THE ADMINISTRATION:
Amendment I [Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition (1791)]
Amendment II [Right to Bear Arms (1791)]
Amendment III [Quartering of Troops (1791)]
Amendment IV [Search and Seizure (1791)]
Amendment V [Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process (1791)]
Amendment VI [Criminal Prosecutions - Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel (1791)]
Amendment VII [Common Law Suits - Jury Trial (1791)]
Amendment VIII [Excess Bail or Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment (1791)]
Amendment IX [Non-Enumerated Rights (1791)]
Amendment X [Rights Reserved to States (1791)]
Amendment XI [Suits Against a State (1795)]
Amendment XII [Election of President and Vice-President (1804)]
Amendment XIV [Privileges and Immunities, Due Process, Equal Protection, Apportionment of Representatives, Civil War Disqualification and Debt (1868)]
Amendment XV [Rights Not to Be Denied on Account of Race (1870)]
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
Grounds for Impeachment
There are many reasons for impeaching George Bush. The ones below are the most compelling and most easily prosecuted. (For a more complete list see "Bush should be impeached.")
Argulets and Talking Points
George Bush Should be Impeached
Bush has committed several acts which justify impeachment. Click on the link for more details.
Bush lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq.
Bush conducted illegal wiretaps of American citizens.
Bush violated International Law by invading a sovereign country for illegal purposes.
Bush violated the Geneva Convention by torturing prisoners of war.
Bush held prisoners without formal charges and without legal representation. [CNN]
Bush illegally used government funds for domestic political propaganda related to the administration's Medicare package, paying commentator Armstrong Williams, etc. [NYT, requires free registration] TruthOut: [1] [2] [3]
Bush used uniformed military personnel for Republican party political purposes. [TalkingPointsMemo] [Coloradoan]
Bush was negligent in his slow response to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bush shows contempt towards our Constitution and our democratic ideals.
Bush lied about the fish.
See also our page on "Grounds for Impeachment".
Resources
"Happy Impeachment Day! 10 Reasons to Impeach" - 7/19/06, Excellent summary of Bush crimes by the CCR. OpEdNews.com
Misleading us about the Threat from Iraq
Bush and his team deliberately misled Congress and the American public about the rationale for invading Iraq. Bush convinced a majority of Americans that Iraq was involved with Al-Qaeda and responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Yet the evidence shows that Iraq was not involved. Bush said in his State of the Union Address that "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to build nuclear weapons. But he had already been told by the CIA that the evidence was forged. Bush claimed to have hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But the UN investigators could not verify any of these claims and searches of Iraq revealed no such weapons. The real reason we invaded Iraq may have more to do with the fact that Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, and sits strategically in the center of the Middle East. Read More...
Argulets and Talking Points
See also this analysis of the conspiracy by retired federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.
Bush Misled America about the Threat from Iraq
If Saddam Hussein was an immediate and serious threat to America, as the White House claimed, then Bush might have been justified in invading Iraq. But it appears that Bush misled the public, the Congress and the UN by consistently overstating the threat from Iraq. By lying to Congress, Bush violated US Laws related to Fraud and False Statements, Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001 and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371.
Bush claims he was forced to to invade Iraq as a last resort. But Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the very beginning of his presidency. Many of his team came from the PNAC, a thinktank which urged the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and pointed out the need for a "new Pearl Harbor". “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Ron Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”
Bush wanted so much to convince people of the need to invade Iraq that the White House set up a secret team in the Pentagon to create evidence. The Office of Special Plans routinely rewrote the CIA's intelligence estimates on Iraq's weapons programs, removing caveats such as "likely," "probably" and "may" as a way of depicting the country as an imminent threat. They also used unreliable sources to create reports that ultimately proved to be false. [Mother Jones] [New Yorker] [Wikipedia]
Lie #1 - Uranium from Niger - Bush said "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." in his State of the Union Address.
Lie #2 - Iraq and 9/11 - Bush led people to believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11 by repeatedly linking them in his speeches. This was so effective that at one point 70% of Americans actually believed Saddam was behind 9/11. Bush has since admitted that this was not true.
Lie #3 - Congress Knew - Bush has stated that Congress had access to all the same information that the White House had. Thus he should not be blamed for making the mistake of going to war. But Bush was briefed many times about the falsehood of various stories and this information never reached Congress. [ZNet]
Lie #4 - Aluminum Tubes - Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell said that aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to buy were intended for use in a uranium centrifuge to create nuclear weapons. These were the only physical evidence he had against Iraq. But it turns out this evidence had been rejected by the Department of Energy and other intelligence agencies long before Bush used them in his speeches. [NYTimes] [MotherJones] [CNN]
Lie #5 - Iraq and Al Qaeda - Bush still insists that there was a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. But the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The nature of the relationship seems to be that Al Qaeda asked for help and Iraq refused. Al Qaeda was opposed to Saddam Hussein because Saddam led a secular government instead of an Islamic government. [ZNet] [CNN] On 9/8/06 a Senate panel reported there was no relationship. [ABC]
Lie #6 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Bush insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but his "evidence" consisted mostly of forged documents, plagiarized student papers, and vague satellite photos. The United Nations was on the ground in Iraq and could find nothing. After extensive searches Bush was finally forced to admit that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Lie #7 - Mobile Weapons Labs - Bush and his team repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs capable of producing anthrax. Colin Powell showed diagrams of them at his speech before the UN to justify invading Iraq. These claims originated from Curveball, a discredited Iraqi informer who fed Bush many of the stories related to WMD. On May 29, 2003, two small trailers matching the description were found in Iraq. A team of bio-weapons experts examined the trailers and concluded they were simply designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But, for over a year, Bush claimed these were part of Iraq's bio-weapons program. The expert's report was suppressed and only recently made public. [WashPost]
Resources
"Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war" by Colin Brown and Andy McSmith Independent UK 12/15/06 "
Senate Intelligence Committee Reports from September 8, 2006
"Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD and Links to Terrorism and How They COmpare to Prewar Assessments" (PDF 6.9 MB)
"The Use by the Intelligence COmmunity of Intelligence Provided by the Iraqi National Congress" (PDF 9.3 MB)
"Key Judgments" from Rockefeller website
CBS News Report
"IraqOnTheRecord" - database of 237 lies by administration officials about Iraq, compiled by Congressman Henry Waxman. http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord
'CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE UNITED STATES: Misrepresenting the Truth in Order to Sell a War is A “High Crime”' by Elizabeth de la Vega
"United States v. George W. Bush et al." by Elizabeth de la Vega. A grand jury hears the case for fraud.
"Ex-CIA official: Bush administration misused Iraq intelligence", statements by Paul R. Pillar, CNN, 2/10/06
"Bush and Iraq: Mass Media, Mass Ignorance" by Jeff Cohen
List of Lies and News Links from BuzzFlash
"Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel" 11/23/05, by Murray Waas
Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States - Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371
Fraud and False Statements - Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001
Disarm Saddam Hussein, the White House's own summary of lies about Iraq.
"U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers, 10/7/04
Illegal Wiretapping of American Citizens
George Bush authorized the NSA to conduct illegal wiretaps on American citizens. Bush claimed that these were justified on the basis of national security. But there is a legal mechanism for conducting emergency wiretaps followed by court approval within 72 hours. Bush ignored that mechanism and exceeded his executive authority. Bush claims he has authority to wiretap anyone he wishes but a federal judge ruled that his actions are unconstitutional. Read more...
Argulets and Talking Points
Bush Conducted Illegal Wiretaps of American Citizens
Bush has admitted to authorizing the NSA, a secretive spy agency, to conduct warrantless wire taps on American citizens. The spying even extends to postal mail. The NSA has also been collecting phone records in an attempt to build a database of every phone call that is made.
Latest News: 8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.
The Bush wiretaps violated US law because he was required to get approval from FISA. He can start a wiretap of a suspected terrorist at any time but must then seek approval to continue within 72 hours.
Attorney General Gonzales claims HJR114 gave Bush authority to conduct the wiretaps. But HJR114 only grants use of the "Armed Forces". HJR114 does not explicitly suspend the Constitution. Also HJR114 requires "The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3". Congress was not notified of these wiretaps. [HJR114]
Bush may have bypassed FISA because he wanted to listen to and analyze all international signals, not just those of suspected terrorists. He knew this was blatantly illegal so he hid it. Bush says "We use FISA still. But FISAs is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect." Then later "There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to note the distinction between the two." The distinction is that "detecting" requires listening to lots of calls with a computer to see if someone says certain keywords like "bomb" in Arabic, or maybe even "impeach Bush" in English. Monitoring is listening to a specific suspected terrorist. The problem with detection is that you have to listen to all calls, including yours and mine. [This NY Times article confirms this interpretation. Also CNN.]
More evidence that Bush wants to listen to all signals is in Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," on page 303. " Bush summarized his strategy: 'Listen to every phone call and close them down and protect the innocents.'" [WaPost]
Investigators may have found that Bush applied for an expansion of wiretap capability from FISA, was rejected, and then went ahead and did it anyway. [FindLaw] [FAS]
Bush claims going through FISA is too slow but legal emergency wiretaps helped capture terrorist Mosquera.
According to a report in USA Today, the NSA is collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders. The stated goal is to be able to identify who is involved in a network of terrorists. But this same technique can be used to determine who is involved in a network of political activists who might, for example, oppose the Bush administration. Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits. All of the major telecommunications companies cooperated with this program except for Qwest. Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, was troubled by the fact that there was no FISA approval and that the program was so pervasive.
8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.
Resources
Transcript of Bush at a Press Conference discussing the wiretaps, 12/19/05 [CNN]
"An Update on President Bush's NSA Program: The Historical Context, Specter's Recent Bill, and Feingold's Censure Motion", in FindLaw, 3/24/06, by JOHN W. DEAN
"Bipartisan call for wiretapping probe", 12/21/05 [CNN]
Oregan court case determines that reasons for FISA approved wiretaps can remain secret. 3/18/03 [CNN]
US Code Title 50, Chapter 36, Subchapter I, Sec 1805 defining the operation of the FISA Court.
'What are the "Inherent" Powers of the President? How the Bush Administration Has Mistaken Default Rules for Exclusive Right' By Michael C. Dorf, Feb. 13, 2006 - analyses legality of wiretaps.
"Judge Rules Against Wiretaps NSA Program Called Unconstitutional" by Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post Staff Writers, Friday, August 18, 2006
Notes
It is ironic that Bush prevented the FBI and other Investigators from investigating possible terrorist links by the Bin Laden family prior to 9/11.
Torture of Prisoners
Bush and his team have set up a system of prisons around the world where prisoners can be tortured. They have fought hard to build a legal case for torture but the fact remains that torture is highly illegal. It is also considered an ineffective means of getting reliable information from a prisoner. Bush is guilty of violating of the Federal Torture Act, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention. Read more...
Argulets and Talking Points
Bush Violated the Geneva Convention by Torturing Prisoners
On 6/22/04 Bush said "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Is that true?
The evidence below shows that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales are guilty of violating "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention by ordering and condoning the use of torture. Many prisoners have died as a result.
1/25/02 - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo advising the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute, for torturing prisoners. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality --declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions --which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales was later promoted to US Attorney General. [Nation]
2/7/02 - Bush took Gonzales' advice and signed an order declaring that members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not covered by the Geneva Convention. This gave the green light for torture and illegal detainment of prisoners.
Bush moves prisoners to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and holds them for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. This is ruled illegal by a Federal Judge on Jan 31, 2005.
Bush sets up secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries to escape US laws against torture. Rice claims European countries supported this plan. [WashingtonPost] [CNN] [FindLaw]
9/26/02 - Canadian Maher Arar was arrested at JFK airport and sent to secret prison in Syria for torture under "extraordinary rendition" program. He was released a year later without charges. He sued the US government but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge David Trager on 2/17/06 citing the need for secrecy. He wrote, "One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria." Thus the reason for the secrecy is not for national security but simply to avoid embarassing guilty parties in government. This sets a dangerous precedent that may allow Bush to kidnap and torture anyone he pleases. On 1/26/07 the Canadian government apologized and awarded Arar compensation. [Wikipedia]
Dec '02 - Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy, tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. His 2004 memo details his unsuccessful struggle with the White House to stop the torture. [NewYorker]
12/31/03 - German national Khaled al-Masri says he was abducted by the CIA arrested in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. He was then tortured for five months and released. CIA has admitted making a mistake in this case.
April 2004, photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison make headlines around the world. Low ranking soldiers are convicted of torture charges, falling on their swords for the White House. [Wikipedia] [NewYorker]
October 2005, Senator McCain adds an amendment to a defense bill that would outlaw torture by the United States. Bush and Cheney fight this tooth and nail to block this amendment but eventually give in after the McCain amendment is weakened by the Graham-Levin amendment. When Bush signs the bill he adds a signing statement that basically says he can ignore the prohibition against torture under his powers as "unitary executive" and "Commander in Chief ".
6/29/06 - Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
Resources
"Death by Torture" by Peter Phillips
ACLU report of deaths of detainees in Iraq due to torture. October 2005
Investigation of ex guard talking with buddies about Abu Ghraib, video, warning: violent language, not yet verified.
The "Federal Torture Act" - Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C
UN Torture Convention - "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" signed in 1988 and ratified by the US in 1994.
"The Road to Abu Ghraib" discusses all of the above in detail. June 2004. By Human Rights Watch
"Analysis of Memos related to torture" from lawofwar.org
"Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody" by Human Rights News has links to most relevant documents.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld - summary of court case rulling that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
Violation of International Law
According to our Constitution, International Treaties are part of the "supreme Law of the Land". They are not something that can be ignored when they are inconvenient. Bush's violations of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter are, therefore, impeachable offenses. Read more...
Impeachment Grounds Treaties Constitution High Crimes Articles of Impeachment How To Past Rules States Cities
Impeachment for Violating International Law
George Bush has committed war crimes in violation of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter.
Synopsis: Bush attacked Iraq, against the decisions of the United Nations, and thus violated the UN Charter. Planning and committing a war of aggression is a violation of the Nuremberg Charter. According to the US Constitution these international treaties are part of the "supreme Law of the Land". Bush has violated the Nuremberg Charter and the UN Charter and is, therefore, subject to impeachment.
UN & Nuremberg Charters part of "the supreme Law of the Land"
Article VI of the US Constitution states that:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;"
Because Bush violated International Laws that we agreed to by treaty, then he is also violating the supreme Law of the Land which is an impeachable offense. Note that it says "or which shall be made" so treaties signed after the Constitution was adopted are still covered.
Violation of The United Nations Charter
Chapter 1, Article 2 of the UN Charter states:
3.All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. 4.All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Bush lied to the UN and to Congress about the seriousness of the threat from Iraq, and invaded Iraq in defiance of a vote from the UN Security Council. His actions inflamed the Arab world and set a dangerous precedent for any other country that wants to defy the UN and start their own war.
Violation of the Nuremberg Charter
Principle Vl of the Nuremberg Charter states:
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law: a. Crimes against peace: i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii .Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
Bush's invaded a sovereign country that had not threatened the United States and had no ability to do so. Bush had been making plans to invade Iraq even before 9/11.
Subject: RESOLUTION OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH Date: Spring 2002
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 217-333-7954(voice) 217-244-1478(fax) fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
Please review and tell me how we get a groundswell of people to begin demanding an Impeachment....we have so little time before the recess and before he begins dropping more bombs......!!!! Henry B Gonzalez, Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle wrote the articles of impeachment for Bush #41..... and it is believed that that is why he stopped at Basra and didn't take out Sadaam at that time....according to Bush's memoirs he was concerned about being impeached!?!
See Also:
The Rogue Elephant, The Bush Administration has become a `threat to the peace' within the meaning of UN Charter article 39, by Francis Boyle, July 2002
US War Crimes During the Gulf War, by Francis Boyle, 1992 (+ 2002)
Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation's Iraq Interest Network
Fellowship of Reconciliation's Peace Pledge: To Stop Spread of Anti-Terrorist War to Iraq
American Friends Service Committee:
Campaign of Conscience for the Iraqi People: A Moral Call to the American People
Join the Campaign
The Water Project -- Help build an entire water system for an Iraqi community.
Oppose covert and overt war against Iraq - Write to your senators
Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq & Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq
Help Make A Difference
Sanctions and War on Iraq: In 300 words
"In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
- Albert Camus, from The Little Book of Peace
It Can’t Happen Here? It Has Happened Here
by Michael Nolanby Michael Nolan
DIGG THIS
Our fellow citizens have been led hoodwinked from their principles by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Today’s citizens, lately aware of the crimes of those who rule them from the White House, have removed the band (the blindfold) from their eyes. The huge majority of average Americans are dead set against "the surge" in Iraq, seeing it for what it is: the senseless slaughter of American sons and daughters on a mission which has nothing to do with US security.
The question is, what are the people going to do about it?
It should be noted that the US Congress, charged by the US Constitution with deciding when and if the nation goes to war, has been neutered. In the alternate universe of the Republican noise machine, anyone standing in the way of the mindless dispatch of US troops to the slaughterhouse doesn’t – somehow – "support the troops," and no media-obsessed congressman wants to get hung with that accusation. Given a choice between securing their own careers or truly serving God and country (to put it in Red State terms), today’s US lawmakers overwhelmingly choose the former. To be sure, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appeared on Meet the Press a few weeks ago to celebrate a neocon alchemy by which justifications for war funding can be conjured up forever whence none exists: "I think once they get in harm's way, congress's tradition is to support those troops," Mr. Hadley said with fatherly pride, fitting at the birth of the Perpetual War Machine.
The next country in the neocon gunsights is, of course, Iran. That Iran is somehow a nuclear threat to the American people surpasses in bunk and risibility the whopper that Saddam Hussein Hussein had something to do with bringing down the Twin Towers. The latter lie (with others) was good enough to start the war in Iraq and it’s a virtual certainty that the former lie will serve to start the war in Iran despite the fact that experts, including those at our own CIA, put Iran several years away from the development of a nuclear weapon. And, as former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski reminded Congress recently, "[t]o argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy." That America needs to attack Iran is a conceit seen sensible by few – save neocons, the White House and opportunists like former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh has predicted that retaliatory Iranian disruptions to the oil flow in the Middle East could push prices up over one a hundred dollars a barrel. It’s well known, and well predicted, that in the event of an American attack, Shiite Iran will send its 650,000 strong army into Iraq to wreak vengeance on US troops. With a pre-emptive attack, America will be begging Iran or Iranian sympathizers to launch a terrorist attack on US soil. And, as Pentagon Papers author Daniel Ellsberg pointed out recently, "[i]f there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their…sympathizers, critics of the President’s policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has dictated to those voters who put her in power that impeachment is "off the table." Three days after the November elections, John Conyers, the new House Judiciary Chairman and, until then, hero of the pro-impeachment movement, betrayed (as did Pelosi) his constituents and the spirit of the Constitution when he said, "I am in total agreement with her [Pelosi] on this issue: Impeachment is off the table."
Pelosi is given to sweeping, dismissive statements, judged by a speech she made at the 2005 AIPAC convention in Washington, DC. "[T]he history of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist." A congressional leader who says with a straight face that Israel is wholly without blame for the bloodshed in Palestine (and the resultant anti-American bias in the Middle East) is a sure bet to ignore the sage counsel of the Baker-Hamilton Report, which prescribes, as an imperative for Mideast peace, adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which mandates a return of Palestinian land held illegally by Israel since 1967.
Expect nothing from the United States Congress to make the Bush Administration even mildly uncomfortable in its role as knee-jerk defender, enabler and funder of all things Likud, despite the threat that such support carries for US prestige, sovereignty and security.
Congress could defund the Iraq war but as Senator Russell Feingold points out, it "doesn’t have the will." It could, for that matter, threaten, in the clearest of terms, impeachment, removal from office and – if it comes to it – war crimes trials for those who would lead us into a war in Iran (with consequent conflagration through the whole Middle East), that could bring down the US economy and the US Constitution and lead to violent civil disorder and repression at home. But, unruffled, US Congressional Quislings seem willing to let the whole thing go with a couple of non-binding resolutions.
Rather than listen to Congress, the Administration prefers the bellicose, anti-American counsel of neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute (where, Bush avers, he gets his "finest minds"). In 2005, I wrote a LewRockwell.com piece, "Martial Law," expanding on General Tommy Franks’ worry that, in the event of a terrorist attack on our shores democracy might well not survive. In that piece I wrote:
Michael Ledeen, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and close and trusted White House adviser, has this to say on p. 173 of his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago: "Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator – willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ."
Don’t wonder if "it" (a fascist takeover of the United States government) can happen here. It has happened here. This administration can wage war when, where and how it pleases, for as long as it pleases, for whatever reason it wants and – undercurrent conditions – there is nobody in America, within or without the government, who can stop it. The US Government is effectively a dictatorship in all matters of war and peace.
If, at any point, this dictatorship felt itself in real, impending danger from Congress or the people, it might react like a wounded animal. What if, despite the best efforts of the Republican and Democratic establishment, talk of a real impeachment movement (even a credible whisper thereof) were heard in the halls of congress? Considering the character of those in the White House, and their history of desperate and murderous political solutions (the "surge" comes to mind), the notion that the US Government could attack its own citizens in a false-flag terrorist operation (to force lockstep, "wartime" obedience) is no longer a fringe conspiracy theory.
If waves of Americans eventually show up on the streets in sustained, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer demonstrations, so forceful as to cause civil disruptions and an actual threat to the existence of the Administration, it will draw government troops, whether those troops be police, National Guard, the US Army (posse comitatus be damned) or contractors like those from Blackwater Security, dispatched fresh from their war crimes against the people of Iraq to deal as they see fit with the people of the United States.
There’s an iconic photo from the 1960’s: at an antiwar protest outside the Pentagon, a flower child places her eponymous flower into the barrel of the bayoneted rifle of one of the soldiers lined up to contain the demonstration. Sixties protests had an element of theater to them and the flower child knew that the bayonets were for show. Americans were aware, in those days, of their right to free speech and peaceable assembly and, despite the aberration at Kent State, those who massed together to forcefully and effectively demand an end to the war, were secure in doing so. But if bayonets are drawn this time around, resultant photos will likely lack that whimsical sixties theatricality, and American parents will shudder to think of a daughter standing up to troops acting under the orders of a weakened, wounded Dick Cheney
Cheney personifies the Dictatorship, morally, legally – hell, even physiognomically. His favorability ratings are disastrously low, but it’s unlikely to bother him. Cheney is a coward and a dictator, with no regard for human life, American or foreign foreign. A dictator lives to inspire fear and obeisance and if he thrills with the stranglehold he exerts on the (currently) impotent eighty percent or so of Americans who hate his guts, think how much bigger the thrill might be at ninety or ninety-five percent. Dick Cheney said our troops would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. Well, it turns out they weren’t and to that vast majority of citizens who recognize the war in Iraq (and the next one in Iran) for the constitutional, military and national security disaster that it is, Mr. Cheney might likely ask, "what are you going to do about it?"
Interesting question.
February 8, 2007
Michael Nolan [send him mail] is a freelance writer. His work has appeared in LewRockwell.com, Common Dreams.org, OpEdNews.com and the Vermont Guardian.
Copyright © 2007 Michael Nolan
Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page
Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents - John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"
Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."
Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism's "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.
As Lewis noted in his novel, "the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."
Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book "It Can't Happen Here." And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote:
" Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases."
Fascists have an agenda that is primarily economic. As the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is "an attempt to create a 'modern' version of feudalism by merging the 'corporate' interests with those of the state."
Feudalism, of course, is one of the most stable of the three historic tyrannies (kingdoms, theocracies, feudalism) that ruled nations prior to the rise of American republican democracy, and can be roughly defined as "rule by the rich."
Thus, the neo-feudal/fascistic rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, an irony not lost on author Thomas Frank, who notes in his new book "What's The Matter With Kansas" that, "You can see the paradox first-hand on nearly any Main Street in middle America - 'going out of business' signs side by side with placards supporting George W. Bush."
The businesses "going out of business" are, in fascist administrations, usually those of locally owned small and medium-sized companies. As Wallace wrote, some in big business "are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage." He added, "Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."
But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don't generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a "them" to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.
In a comment prescient of George W. Bush's recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays, Wallace continued:
" The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination..."
But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation's largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.
"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote. "Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."
In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
Finally, Wallace said, "The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. ... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels."
This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of "Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).
As Wallace's President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party's renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia, "...out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man...."
Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core: "These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power."
But, he thundered in that speech, "Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!"
In 2004, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself "compassionate conservatism." The RNC's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."
It's particularly ironic that the CEOs and lobbyists who run the Republican National Committee would have chosen to put Hitler's fascist face into one of their campaign commercials, just before they launched a national campaign against gays and while they continue to arrest people who wear anti-Bush T-shirts in public places.
President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. Which is why it's so critical that this November we join together at the ballot box to stop this most recent incarnation of feudal fascism from seizing complete control of our nation.
In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
![[PDA - Progressive Democrats of America - Stand Up. Take Action. Vote.]](http://pdamerica.org/images/ads/pdalink-150x200.gif)
No comments:
Post a Comment