THE IMPENDING INDICTMENT OF
GEORGE W. BUSH
The government which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of their bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.
– Woodrow Wilson
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
July 27, 2009
Washington Post editorial
calls for a prosecutor
The flood gates have been opened!
Dear Bobby,
We will succeed! The indictment and prosecution of those who committed crimes during the Bush era will soon become a reality. Nothing is more important to restore the Constitution.
The flood gates have been opened because of the massive grassroots intervention by you and hundreds of thousands of others who have petitioned, sent emails and letters, and made phone calls that deluged the White House, Justice Department, Congress and the mass media.
The Washington Post lead editorial today calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a prosecutor to "look at the facts and apply the law" for the "violent deaths of detainees" in U.S. custody.
This is a remarkable development. The pressure to appoint a prosecutor will not go away until justice is served.
Once the prosecution opens, it will lead inevitably to the doorsteps of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. It was they who ordered the torture, secret assassination teams, the breathtaking massive spying operation against the American people and, most importantly, launched a war of aggression in Iraq that led to the deaths of nearly 1 million people at the cost of nearly $2 trillion.
Now we are entering the next stage of the IndictBushNow movement. We must guarantee that the truth be told—all the truth—and that the prosecution not end with the indictment of low-level officials and operatives.
Please make an urgently needed donation now so that we can sustain this national movement, place newspaper ads and provide the general public with the full story of the unfolding details and revelations of the criminality of the Bush Administration.
We can’t do it without you support. Please donate today by clicking this link.
June 2, 2009
A tale of two war criminals:
Bush and Clinton do Toronto
by Krystalline Kraus, Global Research
When you accuse anyone of war crimes, you’d better be sure you have the evidence to back it up; such an accusation is the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded shopping mall.
It’s a serious charge, something that sits heavily on our psyche as fragile human beings who generally tend to disbelieve that any one could be capable of committing crimes against humanity, especially if they have elected him president.
Perhaps that’s why such a presidential event as a “conversation” between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton happened in Toronto, Canada on May 29, 2009 -- the event was billed as a “conversation,” maybe because the terms “meeting of the minds” or “great intellectual debate” would embarrass one of the two parties involved?).
The two men got a standing ovation from a packed audience that paid from $200 to over $2,000 a ticket at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Yes, that’s right, a standing ovation from the crowd inside the Convention Centre. And both Presidents got paid for their time. While no one is telling how much each ex-President made off the 90 minute conversation, Bush reportedly received (US) $160,000 for his last appearance in Canada, in Calgary Alberta in March 2009. Clinton can charge up to (US) $350,000 per speaking engagement. Good work if you can get it.
But ask the 500 or so protesters across the street from the Convention Centre, organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, and the only standing up the presidents got were erect middle fingers. It was this side third and uninvited side of the conversation that chanted slogans such as "Bush and Clinton, war criminals: shame on you!”
Here are a few of the numerous examples of war crimes committed by each of the two men.
Bush as a war criminal
Bush is accused of numerous war crimes, resulting from him ignoring his own constitution’s “supremacy clause,” Article II, section 4, and the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18USC §2441).
Regarding the United States’ War Crimes Acts, author Mike Ferner from Veterans for Peace [4], writes: “To give just a snapshot of how serious these laws are, consider this portion of 18 USC 2441 which defines a war crime as '... a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party ...' The guilty can be '... fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.'"
Not to mention important international treaties and conventions such as the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg rulings, the Laws and Customs of War on Land and UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. Breaches of these international treaties and conventions amounting to war crimes are too numerous to mention here (though they are listed at the website War Criminals Out, which has lists of charges and broken resolutions.)
The invasion of Iraq is cited as a prime example of Bush’s war crimes, where activists insist Bush should be charged under the UN Resolution 3314, Article 5 (codified from the principles of Nuremberg concerning “Wars of Aggression,” which cites as an historical example Hitler’s invasion of Poland) for committing a “crime against peace.” The invasion of Iraq is thus considered a war crime and a crime against humanity, which is spelled out in detail in the Geneva Conventions.
In Iraq alone, Ferner points out that Bush is responsible for, among other things, “illegally invading a sovereign state, using banned weapons such as white phosphorous and napalm, bombing hospitals and civilian infrastructure, withholding aid and medical supplies, terrorizing and knowingly killing civilians, torturing prisoners, killing a million people and displacing 4 million more in Iraq alone.”
Now, we’re talking big crimes here, a big fire someone should point out to the general public.
Clinton as a war criminal
While Clinton's presidency might enjoy a different reputation (think blue dress), there’s a case to be made regarding his culpability in committing war crimes. He was not the focus of the demo, but I don’t think he should get a free pass. Again, using the same international conventions and treaties listed above, there’s a list of actions to consider in regards to charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Clinton imposed, through the UN Security Council, sanctions on Iraq between 1990 and 2003, which had a devastating effect on the Iraqi population. The UN, in 1999, reported more that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions, disproportionately among children.
On June 26, 1993, the Clinton administration bombed Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged but unproven Iraq plot to assassinate former President George Bush, Sr.
Clinton’s administration and NATO conducted the bombing campaign of Serbia from March 22 to June 11, 1999 without UN Security Council approval, against the rules of the Geneva Conventions.
Again, big fire here! Not only should Bush and Clinton’s actions translate into war crimes charges, but their disregard for not only American law but also international treaties and conventions undermines the rule of international law and undermines the consensus of the international community.
And we’re not even talking torture charges against Bush regarding his country’s treatment of foreign nationals at military and CIA run prisons, military or rendition sites around the world, an obvious breach of the Geneva Conventions. Reports from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay alone might be enough to prosecute Bush and win convictions.
These reasons alone were enough to compel the group Lawyers Against The War to issue this statement to the RCMP on March 12, 2009, asking that Bush be denied entry into Canada under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (section 35(1)(a)), because Bush is a war criminal (Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWC)).
War crimes in World Court
The latest rumour regarding actually holding Bush and his administration accountable for war crimes comes from Spain, where Harper’s reports that the Spanish press El País and Público state, “the Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe focusing on Bush Administration lawyers who pioneered the descent into torture at the prison in Guantánamo.”
This could be the first step of bringing the Commander and Chief himself before an international court if the lawyers claim they were just following orders.
Is prosecuting the leaders enough?
While I am certainly not against using international criminal courts to prosecute political leaders with war crimes, I believe their function and scope to be too limiting to bring about real justice to victims of crimes against humanity. The problem with any war crimes court stems from the fact that, as prosecution goes, the international community at best gets to nail one of two ringleaders with convictions but leaves the functioning war machine or war bureaucracy untouched, the unknown number of faceless bureaucrats and military personnel untouched.
While we get a vicarious sense of justice because we got the top brass, those big arrests give the media permission to declare justice complete and us permission to move on to the next conflict of the day. And by “us,” I mostly mean the Western world, as if prosecuting international, political criminals has become a judicial white man’s burden.
This assumed distance can also amount to a coolly calculated mood of international NIMBY and moral superiority, where one nation can quickly vilify another by pointing out the atrocities committed in that country while claiming such crimes could never occur in their own.
It also assumes a stance of culpability after the fact. Regarding Iraq, the American public needs to look inwards to whether domestically they did enough to prevent the events of Iraq from occurring in the first place.
But can we as Canadians sit so smugly with the notion that we did not invade Iraq, or that it was the progressive Left that kept Canada out of Iraq and therefore we have clean hands and the permission to look the other way. Can we point to Bush and Clinton, two American presidents, and declare their country the new international fixture of Evil while in contrast considering ourselves the good guys?
Instead of sitting on our presumed laurels and pointing to our deified notion of peacekeeping, perhaps we should be more aware of our own actions, non-actions and culpability in global and domestic affairs. Everything from Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka to the treatment of our aboriginal citizens.
If Americans need to look inward to understand their own heart of darkness, then we must demand that we as Canadians do the same.
- Krystalline Kraus is a Toronto-based writer.
Global Research Articles by Krystalline Kraus
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13831
May 13, 2009
Bush's 'Smoking Gun' Witness Found Dead
IndictBushNow files Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit to get to bottom of story
The cover-up of Bush-era crimes is taking a shocking but not unexpected turn. A fateful move has been made and it is certain to backfire.
Colin Powell used al-Libi's tortured and knowingly fabricated testimony to tell the United Nations that Saddam Hussein's government was helping al-Qaeda develop weapons of mass destruction to kill Americans. It was all a lie.
IndictBushNow.org is joining with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the ANSWER Coalition to demand that the truth be told. We have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the CIA, Department of Defense, Department of State and other agencies to reveal information in their possession about Libi’s imprisonment, torture, false testimony on Iraq and the circumstances of his death. To read a copy of the FOIA, click this link.
A prisoner who was horribly tortured in 2002 until he agreed - at the demand of Bush torturers - to say that al-Qaeda was linked to Saddam Hussein is suddenly dead. Several weeks ago, Human Rights Watch investigators discovered the missing inmate and talked to him. He had been secretly transferred by the administration to a prison in Libya after having been held by the CIA both in secret “black hole prisons” and in Egypt.
Under conditions of extreme torture, the prisoner, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, agreed in 2002 to supply the Bush-ordered interrogators what they sought as a political cover for Bush’s marketing of the pending war of aggression against Iraq. Mr. Libi agreed to tell them whatever they wanted in exchange for an end to the torture. The now famous Torture Memos providing legal cover for the torture were written at the same time starting in the summer of 2002.
Libi’s tortured and knowingly fabricated testimony was the source of information used by Bush to sell the war to the U.S. Senate, and the source for Colin Powell’s bogus and lying presentation to the United Nations in 2003.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are now running around saying that the torture regime “protected the country from terrorist attack.” But the torture was used for the personal political goals of Bush and Cheney: namely, to sell their Iraq invasion to a very skeptical and disbelieving country.
Having been discovered by human rights investigators two weeks ago, Mr. Libi’s story coincided with the release of the Torture Memos and the growing clamor for criminal prosecutions of Bush officials.
His testimony is the smoking gun that would reveal that the torture regime was not for “national security” but for the personal political aims of Bush and Cheney.
He was Exhibit A in the indictment that alleges that tortured confessions and the contrived legal justifications of torture set up by Justice Department lawyers in July/August 2002 were central to the launch of the war against Iraq.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and tens of thousands of U.S. service members have either been killed or badly wounded in a war that was based on lies fortified and promoted by the most sadistic torture.
Mr. Libi is suddenly dead. A Libyan “newspaper source” says that his death is an apparent suicide. His friends don’t believe that.
We are building a movement for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. This is not a political choice. It is a legal imperative. Mr. Libi’s death must be the first business of the investigation. When other prisoners who had been kept at secret sites were sent to Guantanamo, the Bush administration and the CIA intentionally kept Mr. Libi from being part of that transfer. Mr. Libi was publicly stating that the Iraq-al-Qaeda links attributed to him from his torture sessions were not true.
“Who was the beneficiary” from his death? Why was he spirited away by the Bush administration to hidden foreign prisons after he recanted his tortured testimony and revealed that he was forced to make false statements about Iraq under torture?
IndictBushNow.org is joining with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the ANSWER Coalition to demand that the truth be told. We have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the CIA, Department of Defense, Department of State and other agencies to reveal information in their possession about Libi’s imprisonment, torture, false testimony on Iraq and the circumstances of his death. To read a copy of the FOIA, click this link.
Please Donate Today
Please help us continue this work with a generous donation. The truth is coming out and the pressure is building, but we can’t do it without your contribution. Please click this link to donate today.
--From all of us at www.IndictBushNow.org
April 10, 2009
Breaking news: Indictment of Bush
Officials May Come in Days
Newsweek Breaks Shocking New Revelations
About Disappeared Persons
From Pinochet to Bush, the Path to Prosecution
* The imminent indictment in Spanish courts of former officials of the Bush Administration is being applauded by civil and human rights organizations and legal scholars. The popular wave of support for indictment of Bush officials will inevitably lead to Bush himself.
* Newsweek Magazine blew open more shocking news about Bush' system of kidnapping, secret prisons and torture. A secret Red Cross report indicates that many kidnapped and tortured people were turned into "disappeared persons" by the CIA under instructions from Bush and Cheney. A former Bush administration official told Newsweek's Michael Isikoff that the information had been hidden from the Red Cross. "The majority of the people in the CIA program are unaccounted for. We don't know what happened to them," a human rights investigator told Isikoff.
* Like Bush, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, thought his power would shield him from criminal prosecution when his regime kidnapped and tortured and assassinated individuals who became known as the "disappeared." It was when Spanish courts brought indictments against Pinochet that everything changed. As Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "the importance of this investigation [in Spain] can not be understated. Contrary to statements by some, the Spanish investigations are not 'symbolic.' Just ask Augusto Pinochet, who was stranded under house arrest in England and who ultimately faced criminal charges in Chile because of the pressure of the Spanish courts. If and when arrest warrants are issued, 24 countries in Europe are obligated to enforce them. The world is getting smaller for the torture conspirators.”
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General has called for the prosecution of Bush and other high officials in the United States, stating, "The greatest danger arising from impunity for President Bush and his cohorts would be that all subsequent officials will feel secure in committing the same crimes and the people, having failed to compel impeachment for such open, notorious and egregious crimes, will feel even more helpless to prevent them. Ultimately the power and the responsibility to prevent criminal acts by government is with the people."
Now is the time for massive outreach and publicity. This requires newspaper ads, organizing national call-in days to pressure Congressional representatives, intensive media work, teach-ins and educational forums, and providing literature for people of conscience to distribute in cities and towns across the country....
--All of us at http://www.IndictBushNow.org
“Blinded by the lies,” by Carl Klang
"Can't you see? Are you blinded by the lies?"
- Jesus Christ of Nazareth
July 31, 2008
Federal judge rules Bush's aides
can be subpoenaed
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Thursday rejected President Bush's contention that senior White House advisers are immune from subpoenas, siding with Congress' power to investigate the executive branch and handing a victory to Democrats probing the dismissal of nine federal prosecutors.
The unprecedented ruling undercut three presidential confidants who have defied congressional subpoenas for information that Bush says is protected by executive privilege. Democrats swiftly announced they would schedule hearings in September, at the height of election season.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House could soon vote on a contempt citation against one of the three officials, Karl Rove, formerly Bush's top adviser.
"It certainly strengthens our hand," she said of the ruling. "This decision should send a clear signal to the Bush administration that it must cooperate fully with Congress and that former administration officials Harriet Miers and Karl Rove must testify before Congress."
That wasn't clear at all to the White House or Rove's attorney. Bush administration lawyers were reviewing the ruling and were widely expected to appeal. They also could seek a stay that would suspend any further congressional proceedings.
"We disagree with the district court's decision," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
With only a few months left in Bush's presidency, there appeared to be no sense of urgency to make the next move.
"I have not yet talked with anyone at the White House ... and don't expect that this matter will be finally resolved in the very near future," Rove attorney Robert Luskin said in an e-mail.
The case marked the first time Congress ever has gone to court to demand the testimony of White House aides.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Bates said there's no legal basis for Bush's argument that his former legal counsel, Miers, must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person. The committee also has sought to force White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten to release documents on any role the White House may have played in the prosecutor firings.
"Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena," Bates wrote. He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all nonprivileged documents related to the firings.
Bates, who was appointed to the bench by Bush, issued a 93-page opinion that strongly rejected the administration's legal arguments. He said the executive branch could not point to a single case in which courts held that White House aides were immune from congressional subpoenas.
"That simple yet critical fact bears repeating: The asserted absolute immunity claim here is entirely unsupported by existing case law," Bates wrote.
The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to bolster the power of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative branch. Disputes over congressional subpoenas are normally resolved through political compromise, not through the court system. Had Bush prevailed, it would have dramatically weakened congressional authority in oversight investigations.
That remains a risk, one Republican said.
"Unfortunately, today's victory may be short-lived," said Rep. Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. "If the administration appeals the ruling, our congressional prerogatives will once again be put at risk."
Congressional Democrats called the ruling a ringing endorsement of the principle that nobody is above the law. Shortly after the ruling, the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees quickly demanded that the White House officials subpoenaed appear before their panels.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House panel, signaled that hearings would commence in September on the controversy that scandalized the Justice Department and led to the resignation of a longtime presidential confidant, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
"We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims," Conyers said in a statement. "We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers to testify in September."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said, "I look forward to working with the White House and the Justice Department to coordinate the long overdue appearances."
Between now and September, Congress will recess for five weeks of summer vacation. Bates scheduled a conference between the litigants on Aug. 27 to take stock of whether negotiations had moved forward, as he urged in his ruling. Congress then returns to a brief, three-week session before scattering to the campaign trail. All 435 House seats and a third of the Senate are up for grabs, as well as the presidency.
Republicans said there was little reason to rush to an accommodation, noting that subpoenas will expire at the end of the 110th Congress in January.
"I'm sure it will be appealed and it will go on into next year, and it will become a moot issue," said House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Several Democratic officials said they expected the subpoenas to be reissued in January if their party retains control of Congress in the November elections.
www.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080731/ap_on_go_ot/congress_contempt
January 22, 2008
Study: False statements preceded war
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.
"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.
The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.
"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.
On the Net:
Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx
Fund For Independence in Journalism: http://www.tfij.org/
* * * * *
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts.
-- Abraham Lincoln
* * * * *
December 8, 2006
"No American is above the law"
by Cynthia McKinney
Rep. McKinney's floor statement on
the impeachment of George W. Bush
~ ~ ~
Mr. Speaker:
I come before this body today as a proud American and as a servant of the American people, sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Throughout my tenure, I’ve always tried to speak the truth. It’s that commitment that brings me here today.
We have a President who has misgoverned and a Congress that has refused to hold him accountable. It is a grave situation and I believe the stakes for our country are high.
No American is above the law, and if we allow a President to violate, at the most basic and fundamental level, the trust of the people and then continue to govern, without a process for holding him accountable — what does that say about our commitment to the truth? To the Constitution? To our democracy?
The trust of the American people has been broken. And a process must be undertaken to repair this trust. This process must begin with honesty and accountability.
Leading up to our invasion of Iraq, the American people supported this Administration’ s actions because they believed in our President. They believed he was acting in good faith.
They believed that American laws and American values would be respected. That in the weightiness of everything being considered, two values were rock solid—trust and truth.
From mushroom clouds to African yellow cake to aluminum tubes, the American people and this Congress were not presented the facts, but rather were presented a string of untruths, to justify the invasion of Iraq.
President Bush, along with Vice President Cheney and then-National Security Advisor Rice, portrayed to the Congress and to the American people that Iraq represented an imminent threat, culminating with President Bush’s claim that Iraq was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon. Having used false fear to buy consent — the President then took our country to war.
This has grave consequences for the health of our democracy, for our standing with our allies, and most of all, for the lives of our men and women in the military and their families — who have been asked to make sacrifices — including the ultimate sacrifice — to keep us safe.
Just as we expect our leaders to be truthful, we expect them to abide by the law and respect our courts and judges. Here again, the President failed the American people.
When President Bush signed an executive order authorizing unlawful spying on American citizens, he circumvented the courts, the law, and he violated the separation of powers provided by the Constitution. Once the program was revealed, he then tried to hide the scope of his offense from the American people by making contradictory, untrue statements.
President George W. Bush has failed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; he has failed to ensure that senior members of his administration do the same; and he has betrayed the trust of the American people.
With a heavy heart and in the deepest spirit of patriotism, I exercise my duty and responsibility to speak truthfully about what is before us. To shy away from this responsibility would be easier. But I have not been one to travel the easy road. I believe in this country, and in the power of our democracy. I feel the steely conviction of one who will not let the country I love descend into shame; for the fabric of our democracy is at stake.
Some will call this a partisan vendetta, others will say this is an unimportant distraction to the plans of the incoming Congress. But this is not about political gamesmanship.
I am not willing to put any political party before my principles.
This, instead, is about beginning the long road back to regaining the high standards of truth and democracy upon which our great country was founded.
Mr. Speaker:
Under the standards set by the United States Constitution, President Bush — along with Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Rice — should be subject to the process of impeachment, and I have filed H. Res. 1106 in the House of Representatives.
To my fellow Americans, as I leave this Congress, it is in your hands — to hold your representatives accountable, and to show those with the courage to stand for what is right, that they do not stand alone.
Thank you.
"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our Fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-- Abraham Lincoln
December 13, 2007
Lawmakers vote to hold
Bush aides in contempt
By Thomas Ferraro, Rueters
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to hold two men who have been top aides to President George W. Bush in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas in its probe of the firing of federal prosecutors.
On a largely party-line vote, the Democratic-led panel sent contempt of Congress citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to the full Senate for consideration.
"This is not a step I have wanted to take," said Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. He accused the White House of "stonewalling" and refusing to reach an acceptable compromise on providing documents and testimony.
In a battle dating back to shortly after Democrats took control of Congress in January, Bush has claimed executive privilege to protect aides from complying with subpoenas demanding documents and testimony in a congressional probe into the firing last year of nine federal prosecutors.
Setting the stage for a possible lengthy court fight, the committee rejected the privilege claim as unfounded.
At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino said, "The Democrats should know the futility of trying to press ahead with a criminal case."
In July, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee also approved along party lines contempt citations against Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.
It was unclear when the full House or Senate would vote on the citations. If approved, they would be sent to the U.S. Justice Department for prosecution.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey said during his confirmation hearing he did not believe the department could prosecute since it had deemed Bush's privilege claim as valid.
If the case does end up in the courts, it could takes years to conclude, long after Bush's term ends in January 2009.
Bush nominated Mukasey as attorney general after Alberto Gonzales, Bush's former White House counsel, resigned under pressure from lawmakers who questioned his competency and honesty.
Critics charged Gonzales had politicized the Justice Department and fired prosecutors because they were not seen as sufficiently loyal to the administration.
The White House has contended the dismissals were improperly handled, but did not involve any wrongdoing.
November 20, 2007
BUSH/CHENEY MISLED PUBLIC
ABOUT CIA IDENTITY LEAK
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."
Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.
The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field — and often duck — those types of questions.
Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. "The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information," she said.
Plame issued a statement saying the opposite.
"I am outraged to learn that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirms that he was sent out to lie to the press corps," Plame said. "Even more shocking, McClellan confirms that not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him to lie but Vice President Cheney, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card and President Bush also ordered McClellan to issue his misleading statement."
McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.
Plame maintains the White House quietly outed her to reporters. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said the leak was retribution for his public criticism of the Iraq war. The accusation dogged the administration and made Plame a cause celebre among many Democrats...
"Just when you think the credibility of this White House can't get any lower, another shoe drops," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "If the Bush administration won't even tell the truth to its official spokesman, how can the American people expect to be told the truth either?"
In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff.
"They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved," McClellan said at the time.
Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case.
Since that news conference, however, the official White House stance has shifted and it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened behind closed doors around the time of the leak.
McClellan's flat denials gave way to a steady drumbeat of "no comment." And Bush's original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak became a promise to fire anyone who "committed a crime."
In a CNN interview earlier this year, McClellan made no suggestion that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president "believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given."
Bush most recently addressed the issue in July after commuting Libby's 30-month prison term. He acknowledged that some in the White House were involved in the leak. Then, after repeatedly declining to discuss the ongoing investigation, he said the case was closed and it was time to move on.
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National Priorities Project - Cost of War
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A Timeline of Oil and Violence in Iraq
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The Dixie Chicks: “I Hope”
THE EAGLE HOODED:
THE 9-11 COVERUP
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SOME OF THE LATEST NEWS
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33969
http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer
http://impeachbushcoalition.blogspot.com/
http://www.rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=2798
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/182182.html
http://impeachbush.meetup.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/impeach-bush/
http://impeachforpeace.org/ImpeachNow.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/03/01/keillor/
http://www.thefourreasons.org/
http://www.friedwire.org/fried020305crooked.html
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STILL NOT SURE WHO’S TELLING THE TRUTH?
THEN GO TO
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Last Update July 27, 2009, by The Catbird