3 Responses to “Conyers Says Impeachment ‘Not Off the Table’”

1. Sharron Says:
   January 31st, 2008 at 9:14 am

   Thanks, Glynn for keeping this topic awake…

2. Sharron Says:
   January 31st, 2008 at 10:25 am

   If we’ve ever had a time in history for a Constitutional obligation, the day is now. To remain complacent as an American citizen on this issue may well make this a last chance. Consider this:

   A year ago, the new Democratic Congress opened up with powerful and revealing oversight hearings. A year later, with little to show for it, a group of nine Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee is proposing a different approach: impeachment hearings for the Vice President. (Six have cosponsored articles of impeachment, and three others have joined them in urging the chairman to begin the hearings.)

   To understand how those Congress members have arrived at that proposal, consider the following exchange.

   The setting was a House Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31, 2007. Congressman Artur Davis (a Judiciary Committee member who has not yet joined the call for Cheney impeachment hearings) had patiently waited for his opportunity to question the witnesses. Davis began by asking Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Elwood whether he believed that the president should disobey laws he deemed unconstitutional. “Yes,” was Elwood’s reply.

   Davis then noted that Alabama once had a Governor who thought that letting black people vote was unconstitutional. How, Davis asked, is that different from the President’s position? Now Elwood avoided a direct answer.

   Davis asked again. This time, Elwood replied that governors are subject to federal law.

   Davis then asked whether Presidents are not subject to the law as well? Elwood, amazingly, replied that Presidents are only subject to laws following Supreme Court rulings.

   The subject of that hearing was “signing statements.” Vice President Cheney’s lawyer David Addington has famously drafted statements for President Bush to release after he signs bills into law. Unlike any previous President’s signing statements, Bush’s frequently announce his right to violate sections of the law. Following the hearing, the Government Accountability Office researched a random sample of Bush signing statements and found that in 30 percent of the cases they looked at, the Bush administration had already proceeded to violate the laws it announced its right to violate.

   But no committee in Congress has ever taken the matter up again. Instead, over the past 12 months we’ve seen hearings on a wide array of abuses of power. Each has resulted in assertions of unconstitutional authority as blatant as the one above, or in unconstitutional refusals to comply with subpoenas and Congressional oversight.

   The Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, one of them for refusal to comply with a subpoena, an abuse that Cheney and Bush have both committed. While an impeachment in the House is merely an indictment, to be followed by a fair and open trial in the Senate, an impeachment hearing is a review of evidence prior even to a decision to impeach. But an impeachment hearing, unlike all the hearings of the past year, is a review of evidence given teeth by the threat of impeachment.

   The areas for possible investigation are numerous. The articles of impeachment already introduced and backed by 25 Congress members charge the Vice President with misleading the nation and the Congress about grounds for war on Iraq, and with threatening an aggressive war on Iran. Cheney’s claims about grounds for war on Iran are also a possible topic. There is strong evidence already public that Cheney led a campaign of retribution against Joseph Wilson that included the outing of a CIA agent, and that Cheney played a lead role in establishing illegal spying programs and the systematic use of torture. Evidence also suggests that Cheney has granted himself unprecedented levels of secrecy and directed an energy task force that operated in defiance of open-government laws. Our democracy might also benefit from an investigation of whether Cheney directed tens of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to a company he previously ran and continued to profit from.

   The point is not to punish Cheney or to benefit his political opponents. The Democratic Party leadership is strongly opposed to impeachment.

   The point is to establish that future presidents and vice presidents must obey laws. Ask any Republican fellow citizen of the United States this simple question: Do you want to risk giving the power to rewrite laws, spy without warrant, detain without charge and torture to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

   The Constitution is for all of us. It mentions impeachment six times and develops the topic in as much or more detail as any other. If we remove impeachment from the Constitution, subpoenas and contempt citations and Freedom of Information Act requests will be unenforceable by any Congress against any President and Vice President. You can hope that the next king or queen is someone you agree with, but Americans are not supposed to have to take that chance.

   With this in mind, don’t you agree that our Congressional leaders should address this issue and do their utmost to uphold their obligations to our Constitution?

   Do they need to take this call to action? If your voice is silent, then they cannot hear you.

   I am asking that Congressman Davis listen to these concerns and to sound his powerful voice to his colleagues to protect our Constitution from this kind of abuse.

   Will you join me?

   Sharron Williams
   Birmingham, AL

3. Glynn Wilson Says:
   January 31st, 2008 at 6:05 pm

   Looks like you are all alone, Sharron. Alabama is a real wasteland, ain’t it?

   I’ve been trying to find out if Davis has the flu - or if he’s out on the Oprah-Obama campaign trail partying : )

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