This is the article that actually made me re-consider the prospect on impeachment, especially with its eyntymology of “High crimes and misdemeanors,” for the “strict constructionists.”
*ZNet | U.S.*
*Impeachment Anyone?*
*by David Swanson; TomDispatch ; October
06, 2006*
[/This piece is based on seven new books on impeachment, all
briefly discussed in a final note./]
Never before has the system of government established by the
U.S. Constitution been as seriously threatened; never before has
the built-in remedy for the sort of threat we face been as badly
needed; never before have we had as good an opportunity to use
that remedy exactly as it was intended.
Congress has never impeached a President and removed him from
office. Once, with Richard M. Nixon, impeachment proceedings
forced a resignation. Twice, with Andrew Johnson and Bill
Clinton, impeachment proceedings led to acquittals. On a few
other occasions, Congressional efforts to advance articles of
impeachment have had legal and political results. These have
always benefited the political party that advanced impeachment.
This was even true in the case of the Republicans' unpopular
impeachment of Clinton, during which the Republicans lost far
fewer seats than the norm for a majority party at that point in
its tenure. Two years later, they lost seats in the Senate,
which had acquitted, but maintained their strength in the House,
with representatives who had led the impeachment charge winning
big. (This point -- little noted but important indeed -- was
made to me recently by John Nichols, author of the forthcoming
book, The Genius of Impeachment
.)
In every past case, impeachment efforts were driven by members
of Congress or other Washington political players, sometimes
with support from the media. The public got behind Nixon's
impeachment, but only after the proceedings had revealed massive
presidential crimes. The public never got behind Clinton's
impeachment, despite saturation news coverage and widespread
support among political power players. In the case of George W.
Bush's impeachment, with the media and both parties in Congress
opposed to it, public support is just about all there is -- so far.
In past cases, impeachment has either focused on trivial
offenses or on crimes that were serious but not tied to the
administration's major foreign policy decisions or to policies
in which Congress was complicit. Clinton was impeached for lying
under oath about his sex life -- clearly a crime but not
bribery, treason, or a "high crime or misdemeanor" (an old
British phrase meaning an abuse of the political system by a
high office holder), and so not actually an impeachable offense.
Nixon was nearly impeached
for obstruction of justice, warrantless spying, refusing to
produce information subpoenaed by Congress, lying to the public,
and other abuses of power, but not for his secret and illegal
bombing of Cambodia.
For all the reasons Nixon was nearly impeached, George W. Bush
could be impeached too. He has openly engaged in illegal,
unconstitutional, warrantless spying, and -- while Congress has
not yet used subpoenas -- Bush has obstructed its
investigations, refused to comply with Freedom of Information
Act requests, and broken a variety of laws in the course of
exacting retribution against whistleblowers, producing false
reports, and establishing a regime of secrecy of a sort that
Nixon could only dream about.
Bush has lied to the public about the warrantless spying program
at the National Security Agency (NSA), the war in Iraq, the
kinds of warnings he was given before hurricane Katrina arrived,
and numerous other issues. While Nixon made secret audio tapes
in the White House which, when discovered, doubled as evidence,
this time there is video -- of Bush being warned prior to
Katrina /and/ claiming he was not warned, of Bush assuring us he
was not engaged in warrantless spying /and/ brazenly asserting
that he will continue to spy without warrants, of Bush warning
us about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as well as Saddam's
supposed ties to the 9/11 attacks /and/ of Bush claiming he did
no such thing, of Bush claiming the U.S. does not condone
torture /and/ of the torture victims.
Bush's administration has even bribed journalists and
manufactured phony news stories at home as well as in Iraq in
order to deceive the public. Congressman John Conyers has
introduced bills to censure both the President and Vice
President Cheney for their refusal to turn over information,
while Senator Russ Feingold has introduced a bill to censure
Bush for his illegal spying programs.
But charging Bush with such Nixonian offenses would only scrape
the surface of the criminal record that is motivating the
popular movement for impeachment -- and impeachment was always
meant to be a popular movement. The drafters of the Constitution
placed impeachment in the hands of the House of Representatives
because they considered that body -- with its members facing
reelection every two years -- closest to the people.
In theory, a democratic system with impeachment at its heart
creates an obvious conflict in the wake of any (honest and
credible) presidential election. How could the people's
representatives impeach, and ask the Senate to consider removing
from office, a president whom the people have just elected? In
practice at present, quite a different conflict takes center
stage: How can a Congress complicit in many of this President's
criminal acts be asked to impeach him? Perhaps by focusing on
crimes Congress was not complicit in, by allowing Congressional
representatives to plead ignorance or remorse, and by electing
new representatives better tuned to the present will of the people.
And how do we get the media to cover investigations of crimes
the media too have been complicit in? Same answer (minus, of
course, the elections).
Let's begin by considering the case for impeaching and removing
from office George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Quite a few
organizations and individuals have, in fact, already drafted
articles of impeachment. Though no two lists
are the same, there is a great
deal of overlap. There are some crimes that appear on almost
every list and that seem to be driving the public demand for
accountability. Many of the best lists are in recently published
and forthcoming books. (See note at end of article.)
*Impeachment for What?*
Every list of impeachable offenses includes tangential
references to other impeachable offenses. The list seems
inexhaustible, but here's a quick run-down of the main possible
charges:
The illegal war in Iraq is at or near the top of everyone's
list. Sometimes, the emphasis is on the illegality
of an aggressive war;
sometimes, on the fraud
used to sell the
war to Congress and the public; sometimes, on the absence
of a proper Congressional declaration of war.
Lying to Congress is a felony. Lying to the public is an
impeachable offense -- and one brought against Nixon. Initiating
an aggressive war is the highest crime under treaties that are
part of international and U.S. law. Launching a war without
proper Congressional approval is a violation of the War Powers
Act of 1973. Misusing government funds to launch a war is a
separate crime, committed by Bush when he ordered troops moved
to Iraq and began bombing raids prior to Congress's dubious
authorization to use force.
On some lists are the various war crimes that have accompanied
the war, including the targeting of civilians, journalists,
hospitals, and ambulances, the use of antipersonnel weapons in
densely settled urban areas, and the use of illegal weapons,
including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new version
of napalm used in Mark 77 firebombs.
High on most lists are also unlawful detentions and torture. The
arbitrary detention of Americans, of legal residents, and of
non-Americans without due process, without charge, and without
access to counsel is illegal under U.S. and international law,
and unconstitutional as well. In case anyone doubted this fact,
the Supreme Court recently ruled on it. The highest body in our
judicial branch of government has essentially declared Bush a
criminal, and yet Congress recently acted, through the Military
Commissions Act of 2006, to provide the President with
retroactive immunity for some of his acts in these areas.
Bush has authorized the torture of thousands of captives,
resulting in some cases in death, and sought to evade
responsibility by redefining acts commonly considered torture
out of the category of torture. He has agreed to let suspects be
kidnapped off the streets of cities in other countries, allowed
prisoners to be hidden from the International Committee of the
Red Cross, shipped people under U.S. control to third nations or
a network of secret U.S. prisons to be tortured. The
Constitution, international treaties that are part of U.S. law,
and other U.S. laws ban torture. When, in the McCain Amendment
to a Department of Defense bill last January, Congress
redundantly re-banned torture, the President signed the bill but
added a signing statement
explaining that he would not obey it.
On every impeachment list as well is the illegal National
Security Agency spying to which Bush has publicly (and proudly)
confessed, and which a federal court
has ruled criminal. Yet, to this day, it goes on unchecked. Bush
lied to the public and Congress about his illegal spying
programs for years. Congress has passed bills cutting off
funding for the programs, but Bush countermanded these with
signing statements.
The spying, done without recourse to the secret FISA court set
up in 1978 for exactly this purpose, is also in blatant
violation of the FISA Act of 1978, of the Fourth Amendment, and
-- according to Congressman John Conyers' report, /George W.
Bush versus the U.S. Constitution/ -- of the Stored
Communications Act of 1986 and the Communications Act of 1934.
Congressman Conyers also cites Bush for violating the National
Security Act and for failing to keep all members of the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees "fully and currently
informed" of intelligence activities, such as the warrantless
surveillance programs.
On nearly every list of impeachable offenses is the President's
failure to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Over a
period of years, the administration undermined the city's
protection. In the days prior to the storm's arrival, Bush was
warned about just what might happen. Yet prior to the storm --
and for days after it hit -- he did nothing; the unqualified
cronies he had put in charge of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency did nothing; and the National Guard members from
Louisiana, Mississippi and other states of the southeast whom he
had dispatched to Iraq could not be called upon to help.
Thousands of Americans died preventable deaths and a city was
ruined, not so much by a storm as by the non-response to it.
Even now, people who lost their homes in the Katrina debacle are
being told there are no funds available to help them.
The Constitution requires that the President "take care that the
laws be faithfully executed." Former Congresswoman and Judiciary
Committee Member Elizabeth Holtzman in her new book, /The
Impeachment of George W. Bush/, argues that Bush's neglect of
New Orleans (and other presidential duties) violated this
responsibility and so constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.
Holtzman puts into this category as well the administration's
failure to provide U.S. troops in Iraq with proper body armor,
and the failure of the President and his top officials to plan
for the occupation of Iraq.
In their book, /The Case for Impeachment/, Dave Lindorff and
Barbara Olshansky make a similar argument about Bush's failure
to attempt to prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001 and his
obstruction of investigations into those crimes (as do Dennis
Loo and Peter Phillips in their book /Impeach the President/).
The same two books, along with the Bush Crimes Commission in its
"verdict," also suggest that, by denying the existence of,
enacting policies that increase, and failing to work to decrease
global warming, Bush has committed perhaps the most serious
offense possible -- in the words of Loo and Phillips, "placing
oil-industry profits over the long-term survival of the human
race and the viability of the planet."
The Bush Crimes Commission finds the President's imposition of
abstinence-only policies on countries being ravaged by AIDS to
be a serious crime against humanity. Loo and Phillips charge
Bush with "violating the constitutional principle of separation
of church and state through the interlinking of theocratic
ideologies in the decision-making process of the U.S. government."
Three of the recent books on impeachment include as an
impeachable offense Bush's use of signing statements to announce
his refusal to obey hundreds of laws
passed by Congress. The American Bar Association has found the
practice unconstitutional. It is, in fact, an open threat to the
rule of law.
An official censure by Congress would do nothing to compel the
President to obey laws he chooses not to obey. Impeachment would
do nothing. Only impeachment followed by removal from office
will cure this cancer on the American political system. The
current situation is exactly what the authors of the
Constitution had in mind when they made impeachment and removal
from office the means of protection against tyranny.
Holtzman includes in her roster of impeachable offenses the
selective and misleading leaking of classified information,
especially on supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (which
Bush himself was directly involved in) to advance a dishonest
case for war. Lindorff and Olshansky also include the leaking of
CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
Conyers cites violations of the following related laws: 1)
Federal requirements concerning the leaking and misuse of
intelligence, including failing to enforce an executive order
that requires the disciplining of those who leak classified
information, whether intentionally or not; 2) Federal laws
forbidding retaliation against whistle-blowers of various sorts,
an example being the demotion of Bunnatine Greenhouse
, the chief
contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, who exposed
secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a
subsidiary of Halliburton; 3) Federal regulations and ethical
requirements governing conflicts of interest, including the
briefing of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on an FBI
investigation of possible misconduct by Karl Rove, even though
Mr. Rove had previously received nearly $750,000 in fees for
political work on Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns.
Loo and Phillips -- rightly I think -- bring up a number of
offenses not found on most lists, including:
· "Usurping the American people's right to know the
truth about governmental actions through the systematic use of
propaganda and disinformation";
· "Overthrowing Haiti's democratically elected
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and installing a highly
repressive regime" in his place;
· Hiding government decisions from public and
congressional view "by a willful subversion of the Freedom of
Information Act."
I would add one item not yet found on anybody's list: the
passage by Congress of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that
retroactively and unconstitutionally legalizes various Bush
administration acts involving torture and illegal detention, and
the passage of other bills doing the same on a number of the
crimes listed above. Impeachment is not a criminal process.
Legalizing impeachable offenses does not make them less
impeachable. But proposing and lobbying to legalize illegal
impeachable offenses are themselves additional impeachable
offenses.
*What Would It Take for Impeachment to Happen?*
Believe it or not, the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney is perfectly possible, although a number of factors will
have to come together for it to happen. The public will is
already there, and this is quite remarkable given the lack of
action in Congress or mention in the mainstream media. The
polling that has
been done on impeachment is dramatic. The Washington Post
finds that a third of the country wants Bush not just impeached
but also removed from office. Zogby finds
that, by a margin of 53%
to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush /if he
lied about the war in Iraq/. When Americans were asked
, "What 2 or 3
specific changes would have to take place in order to improve
your trust in government today?" the winner by far was
"personnel changes/impeachment proceedings." When Pennsylvanians
were asked
whether they would be likely to vote for a congressional
candidate who "supports having impeachment proceedings against
President Bush," 84.9% of Democrats said yes, while 7.0% said
no. Among Independents, 49.3% said yes, while 40.6% said no.
The Republican National Committee got spooked this past summer
and felt obliged to announce that impeachment would be good for
Republicans in the coming elections. This claim is made without
a shred of evidence, either in history or in present polling.
Nothing excites non-Republicans today like impeachment, and
"Vote for us or we'll go to jail" is a lousy slogan. The
Democratic base is aching for Democrats in Congress to get some
spine and stand up to the criminals who are throwing away one of
the most brilliant creations of the eighteenth century: our
Constitution. Instead, Leader Nancy Pelosi has ordered Democrats
in Congress to stay away from impeachment -- though she did say
that they would hold hearings and see where they went... if the
Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives.
To voters who are paying attention, the "let's hold
investigations and see where they go" approach looks
disingenuous, given how many impeachable offenses are already
public knowledge. I've heard reports from dozens of
Congressional representatives, in both parties, who refused to
sign onto Conyers' bill for an investigation, and not once has
anyone argued that there is too little evidence. The argument
always focuses on the "extreme" nature of impeachment or the
political agenda behind impeachment. As a result, the Democrats
are, for the most part, steering clear even of talk of future
investigations.
Quietly, however, Democrats do acknowledge that impeachment is
coming. Following the triumphal 1972 election of Richard Nixon,
had you raised the topic of impeachment, Democrats in Washington
would have dismissed it as impossible. Today, on the other hand,
they dismiss it as unacceptable -- at least pre-election. When
former director of the NSA, Lt. Gen. William Odom, suggested
impeaching Bush
last week at a forum on Iraq organized by progressive Democratic
Congress members, the ensuing silence and shuffling in seats
suggested a strong desire by our representatives to dive under
the table. They resisted that urge and changed the subject. They
did not, however, argue against impeachment.
A lot of activists imagine that there is a conflict between
working on impeachment and working on the upcoming elections.
They fail to see raising impeachment as one way to win those
elections. I would argue that holding a large rally for
impeachment, as we did in Charlotte, North Carolina last
Saturday, does more to help defeat Republicans than does funding
the campaigns of any number of milquetoast Democrats who will
use the money to run uninspiring ads that excite nobody. If
Democrats could stop worrying for a minute about energizing the
Republican base and converting Republicans, they might be able
to look at the potential impeachment has to excite and turn out
their own base. This is an off-year election. It will be won by
turnout -- and by fighting suppression, fraud, and theft. To the
extent that the elections are about something as significant as
impeachment, candidates and citizens will be more likely to
fight for stolen votes.
If the Democratic incumbents all stood for impeachment now, the
Democrats would win a majority in a landslide. In fact, they
might even persuade the necessary fifteen Republicans to join
them and impeach Bush and Cheney pre-election. Rep. Ron Paul has
spoken up for impeachment. Only fourteen more are needed, and
there is no law that says Republicans can't put their country
ahead of George W. Bush. That fact will become increasingly
important if the Democrats do not win a majority or do not fight
when their elections are stolen. For now, impeachment advocates
find themselves in the situation of trying to push the Democrats
to talk about impeachment for their own good.
After the election, come what may, citizen activists will find
themselves with time on their hands for at least a few months
until the next election cycle begins. During this window,
leading into the next Congress, the American public will either
force impeachment on Washington or allow the slide toward
fascism to continue. This moment in our history presents an
opportunity for the first time for a popular presidential
impeachment, an impeachment imposed on the government by the
people.
Impeachment and removal, followed later by indictment and
conviction, will be a long struggle. (It will, sadly, slow
Congress down for a while in its work of destroying the world.)
But it is needed to restore the U.S. Constitution as well as
international law, and to establish a standard of accountability
for the launching of aggressive wars. So, while the process may
need to begin with crimes that Congress has been less complicit
in, such as the use of signing statements, it must end with the
offenses our world cannot well survive if they are repeated.
The first subpoena sent to the White House will be refused, of
course, and the conflict will develop from that point. Democrats
and any Republicans of conscience should be prepared for that
and have a plan that will see us through to George Bush's
removal from office for the highest of high crimes and
misdemeanors.
*******
*Note on Bush and Books: The New Impeachment Literature*
/The fact that a sizeable collection of books exists on the
subject of impeaching George W. Bush is a phenomenon worthy of
comment in itself. Some of the offenses committed by Bush and
Cheney have been reported first -- and sometimes only -- in
books as was the case with James Risen's State of War: The
Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration and
Philippe Sands' Lawless World: America and the Making and
Breaking of Global Rules. The books that follow, all exploring
where U.S. citizens must take that evidence, constitute a field
of reporting that has yet to make an appearance in a major
American newspaper or on a major American television network.
Books (and the internet) are now the first draft of history as
well as the last, since the other news media have abandoned the
field. Yet the analysis in these books is not only largely in
agreement but readily comprehensible by anyone with an
elementary school education, no less a reporter, and there is no
reason to imagine that the views expressed could not be
effectively expressed on television or in a newspaper. /
/If you know nothing about the impeachment movement, pick up at
least one of the following. They tend to be brief, easy to read,
and enormously important:/
· The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide
for Concerned Citizens
,
by Elizabeth Holtzman, former Congresswoman and member of the
Nixon impeachment panel, and Cynthia L. Cooper (Nation Books,
268 pages, $14.95), an excellent and readable book, lays out
five major grounds for the President's impeachment, and offers a
bonus section on Dick Cheney.
· Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and
Cheney
,
edited by Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips, with an introduction by
Howard Zinn (Seven Stories Press, 208 pages, $17.95), is a
wonderfully well written collection of essays organized around a
list of 12 grounds for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.
· The Case for Impeachment, the Legal Argument for
Removing President George W. Bush from Office
by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky (Thomas Dunne Books, 275
pages, $23.95), an amazingly popular and extremely readable
book, explains the context for impeachment proceedings, while
also setting forth six articles of impeachment against Bush,
plus an extra section on Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
Rice, and Alberto Gonzales.
· Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush
by the Center for Constitutional Rights (Melville House, 144
pages, $9.95) is a short book that simply lists and explains
four (multi-part) articles of impeachment
· /George W. Bush versus the U.S. Constitution: The
Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture,
Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic
Spying/ by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff
(Academy Chicago Publishers, 260 pages, $16.95) not only
collects the evidence but also tells us what Congressman John
Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, is
thinking. The full text, minus a new introduction by Joseph
Wilson, is available here
and the
book can be purchased here
.
· /Verdict and Findings of Fact/ by the International
Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by
the Bush Administration of the United States ($10), a report
that looks at five major international crimes and overlaps
significantly with most lists of impeachable offenses. The full
text is available by clicking here
.
· /Impeach Bush: A Funny Li'l Graphical Novel About the
Worstest Pres'dent in the History of Forevar/ (Blatant Comics,
$12.95) is a comic-book account of Bush's impeachable offenses
-- the crimes really are self-evident, but pictures don't hurt.
It can be purchased by clicking here
.
/David Swanson, co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org
coalition, works for ImpeachPAC.org ,
which is funding pro-impeachment candidates. Each one has
committed to making the introduction of articles of impeachment
his or her first act in office. Swanson also works for MyDem.org
, which is giving people tools to help make
sure their votes are counted. A former newspaper reporter, he
was the press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential
campaign./
[This article first appeared on Tomdispatch.com
, a weblog of the Nation Institute,
which offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and
opinion from Tom Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing,
/co-founder of the American Empire Project
and author of The End of
Victory Culture
,
a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, a novel, The
Last Days of Publishing
/,
and in the fall, Mission Unaccomplished
(Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews.]
Posts
