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Morning Topic: Kucinich’s Impeachment Case Against Bush |
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When the House of Representatives voted to send Dennis Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush to the Judiciary Committee yesterday, it was understood that the vote in reality killed the bill. And it is understandable why the House will not actually take up the Articles no matter how legitimate the case against Bush may be. First, they do not want to distract from the presidential election and redefine the debate when it already favors the Democrats. Second, if successful, then Cheney is President. If you impeached both Bush and Cheney and made Pelosi President, then it would look like a powergrab by the Democrats. However, having the Judiciary Committee hold the hearings might at least document the criminality of the Bush Administration in a coherent manner. In that light, how legitimate are the actual charges in the 35 count, 58 page Articles that Kucinich had read twice on the House floor?
The first place to look is Kucinich’s Articles as introduced. They are an interesting read. After starting off with the short definition of each count, Kucinich goes into detail about each charge. There seem to be a few categories of counts in the Articles: Charges concerning misleading the public, Charges concerning the invasion and execution of the War in Iraq, Charges concerning detention and torture, Charges about rigging elections, and then general incompetence. In terms of meeting the “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” as set out in the Constitution, I doubt most of the counts could withstand that standard. But there are some that can:
Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy.Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment.Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.
Many of these counts, according to the Articles, are about Bush’s violation of the Constitutional demand in Article II Section 3 for the President “to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” In these Articles cited above, he seems to have the strongest case.
On the House floor Kucinich took over 4 hours to read his entire document, and then the Clerk read the whole thing again on the floor the following night. Kucinich does present some compelling arguments and evidence. Look at the details he discusses regarding Article XIX regarding extraordinary rendition:
The president has publicly admitted that since the 9-11 attacks in 2001, the US has been kidnapping and transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning) in its so-called “war” on terror—even people captured by US personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany, Macedonia and Italy—and ferrying them to places like Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and to prisons operated in Eastern European countries, African Countries and Middle Eastern countries where security forces are known to practice torture.
These people are captured and held indefinitely, without any charges being filed, and are held without being identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many are clearly innocent, and several cases, including one in Canada and one in Germany, have demonstrably been shown subsequently to have been in error, because of a similarity of names or because of misinformation provided to US authorities.
Such a policy is in clear violation of US and International Law, and has placed the United States in the position of a pariah state. The CIA has no law enforcement authority, and cannot legally arrest or detain anyone. The program of “extraordinary rendition” authorized by the president is the substantial equivalent of the policies of “disappearing” people, practices widely practiced and universally condemned in the military dictatorships of Latin America during the late 20th Century.
The administration has claimed that prior administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences in the US.
Kucinich has details such as this for each count.
So how strong is the case against Bush? Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman believes that if it is combined with the just released report by Senate Intelligence Committee that documents the misuse of intelligence before and after the start of the War, the case is strong enough for the Judiciary Committee to start the process.
Rep. Kucinich introduced the articles, the House has referred them to the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Report goes a long way toward furnishing the investigative work Congress needs to do in the course of impeachment, at least as regards the run-up to the war
Again, while I do not think actually going through the whole process right now would benefit the country for many reasons, I would make some popcorn, get a comfortable blanket and watch the hearings. At the very least it would continue to shine a light on the sinister behavior of the Bush Administration.
I don’t mean to be combative-but I find the entire tone of this post disrespectful. I don’t think that the Impeachment of our President should be treated as a saturday afternoon movie that promises to be entertaining. Perhaps that because President Bush has become something of a joke worldwide with his ever smooth speeches and consistent lack of any real concern about anything except for when he can get back to his golf game, we have forgotten how deadly serious the crimes that he has committed are. And I will just be plain here, were are talking about the loss of many human souls, which to me is not entertaining but so gravely serious that I can’t even joke about it.
We should be singing from the rooftops that finally someone in the Congress has the courage to do what is right and do what they have been elected to do-maintain truth, justice and protect the people. Yes, admittedly, there are quite a few charges being levied against the President, but how can we leave anything out? You say “In terms of meeting the “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” as set out in the Constitution, I doubt most of the counts could withstand that standard. But there are some that can:” But here is my question to you, when a peace officer is making an arrest do you think that he stops to consider whether or not a jury will convict before action, A crime committed is a crime committed, likewise does a paramedic question whether or not to use emergency medicine because there is a chance that the patient might die? The answer here is No, because we all must do our duty regardless of what we think the out come might be, and in this case all representatives should be voting for the start of impeachment hearings. Do keep in mind that when Nixon was impeached “They” also said then that there were not enough votes in the Senate and we know how that story ended.
I just feel like the independent media sources have a big responsibility in this situation as the mass media is completely stifling Congressman Kucinich’s brave act for this country. I would like to see more support because if nothing else we must tie Bush’s hands, the last thing we need is a war with Iran, I think this is hardly entertainment.
Thank you for your comments. I didn’t mean the popcorn reference to mean that this would simply be entertainment — rather that I would be willing to spend time watching and paying attention to the whole thing, and yes, be pleased that someone in Congress is finally at least doing a serious examination of the deeds of this Administration. While all of the charges in Kucinich’s charges are accurate, simply misleading people or being incompetent is not a crime, no matter how harmful. I wanted to focus on the charges that I think would pass muster as the real, true violations of the presidential Oath of Office — and there are enough there for the work to be done.
I’m with you, Anne While I think that Mr. Fried didn’t truly intend to make light of the subject, this is a matter that addresses not only past crimes, but the nature of the Presidency itself. It’s very serious. We shouldn’t be content with Judiciary Committee hearings. We should all contact our Congressional representatives and demand that that impeachment proceedings be initiated ASAP. That the Democratic members of the House and Senate should drag their feet on this, as a matter of political strategy is horrifying. What other crimes will they wink at, how many more misdeeds will be swept aside in the name of political convenience?
- Maggie
I beg to differ on one point. Ian said, “While all of the charges in Kucinich’s charges are accurate, simply misleading people or being incompetent is not a crime, no matter how harmful.”
You should read Vincent Bugliosi’s excellent book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”, and you’ll see that it is definitely, in fact, a crime to mislead the public in light of how much harm it has caused. However the proposal of impeachment goes, once he’s a private citizen again, the question of whether he should be tried in a court of law for the crime of murder should be examined, predicated on just such evidence of misleading the public and putting our soldiers under harm’s way, when in fact, there was no imminent danger of an attack by Iraq, as laid forth in the CIA briefing on the morning G.W. Bush told the American Public and Congress the exact opposite of that briefing. it was the first of a succession of falsehoods made in full light of the highest intelligence of the day, leading to this horrific war.
It is as much of a crime as was Charles Manson’s direction of his people to commit the murders of which he was tried and convicted, even though he was not present at the time and did not actually use a weapon personally, other than his persuasion to cause others to commit the act.
If my representatives in the House and Senate do not impeach and criminally prosecute the administration officials and CIA, military, other governmental personnel, military contractors and their employees and anyone else culpable for the war crimes, torture, and other domestic and international crimes committed during the catastrophic rule of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Inc., et al. they are, in my view, just as culpable for these same crimes by virtue of their failing and refusing to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and for failing to assume their constitutional duty to provide a check on the executive branch and hold it accountable.
The democrats won a majority in Congress with a clear mandate: Get us out of the illegal and immoral war in Iraq and prosecute those thugs in the executive branch for their crimes. Being that Pelosi continues to maintain that “impeachment is off the table” and that far too many dems continue to vote to fund the military ops in Iraq, it is clear that the democratic party has no intention whatsoever to fulfill the promises they made to get us out of Iraq and to hold the administration accountable.
In view of the above, it is clear to me that Congress is aiding and abetting the administration’s crimes due to their failure and refusal to hold the administration accountable.
Both the entire executive AND legislative branches of the federal government need to be impeached and prosecuted, in my view–except for Dennis Kucinich, of course!
Kucinich is simply the best.
George W. Bush%u2019s sentence-by-sentence speaking skills are deteriorating. Apparently, this may be due to a mental illness called %u201Cpresenile dementia.%u201D Bush may or may not be secretly still drinking heavily. Bush suffers from narcissism and megalomania. Moreover, Bush has been arrested three times. Bush was arrested for disorderly conduct. Bush was arrested for stealing. Bush was also arrested for a serious crime%u2014driving under the influence of alcohol. There are reasons to believe that Bush suffers from a learning disability. Bush%u2019s learning disability would explain a lot of things. All in all, Bush is a severely mentally ill individual. Bush is not fit to be the president of the United States.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA