Time for a Grand Inquest into Bush's High Crimes
One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first acts upon taking the gavel was to rule impeachment off the table. She wanted Democrats to focus on challenging the president on the war and on kitchen table concerns -- from energy to education to health care. With Democrats now enjoying an increasing margin in generic polls and looking towards gaining seats in both the House and the Senate, the strategy certainly hasn't hurt politically.
But the constitutional implications are far more disturbing. This was dramatized as the Congress debated the FISA reform legislation that will provide retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies for warrantless interception of the conversations of Americans -- and by implication, retroactive acceptance of the president's authority to order such wiretaps.
We have witnessed a staggering abuse of power by this president. Even former Bush Justice Department officials now charge President Bush with trampling the Constitution. Bush has claimed the prerogative to declare an endless war without congressional approval, to designate someone an enemy without cause, to proceed to wiretap them without warrant, arrest or kidnap them at will, jail them without a hearing, hold them indefinitely, interrogate them intensively (read torture), bring them to trial outside the US court system. He claims that executive privilege exempts his aides -- even the aides of his aides and his vice president's aides -- from congressional investigation. He claims the right to amend or negate congressional laws with a statement upon signing them. And much more.
Even this Supreme Court, stacked with activist right-wing judges enamored of executive national security powers, has rebuked the president on some of these claims, particularly around the treatment of allegedly enemy combatants. But many of Bush's claims will escape judicial determination.
And there is the rub. According to the leading case on presidential powers, if Bush's extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself, altering the Constitutional division of powers by establishing the president's claims as constitutional powers that the Congress or the Courts may not infringe.
The Steel Seizure case -- Youngstown Sheet and Tube v Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952), remains the leading case on presidential power. In Youngstown, a six member majority of the Court joined in overturning Truman's executive order nationalizing the steel plants to end a strike during the Korean War. Justice Black wrote the opinion for the Court, but the historically influential opinions were penned by Justices Robert H. Jackson and Felix Frankfurter, both Democratic appointees. Frankfurter laid out the argument for a sort of common law of constitutional amendment:
Deeply embedded traditional ways of conducting government cannot supplant the Constitution or legislation, but they give meaning to the words of a text or supply them. It is an inadmissibly narrow conception of American constitutional law to confine it to the words of the Constitution and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon them. In short, a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before questioned, engaged in by Presidents who have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, making as it were such exercise of power part [343 U.S. 579, 611] of the structure of our government, may be treated as a gloss on "executive Power" vested in the President by 1 of Art. II.
In Youngstown, Jackson concurred, arguing that the president's powers vary as to whether he acts with congressional authority (his greatest power), in the absence of it, or in opposition to it:
When the president acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law.
When a president egregiously abuses his power -- particularly in areas relating to the rights of American citizens -- remedies are often difficult. The Supreme Court is reluctant to arbitrate a power struggle between two co-equal branches. That is why the Constitution prescribes the specific remedy of impeachment for crimes and abuses of power -- High Crimes and Misdemeanors -- and empowers the House and Senate to sit in judgment whether the actions are to be accepted or condemned.
What the Court said in Youngstown is that if presidents assert a prerogative -- like the power to make war without a congressional declaration -- systematically, with unbroken regularity, with the knowledge of the Congress and are never questioned -- then that practice becomes a Constitutional power that cannot be infringed upon by the Congress or the Courts.
Thus, Congress must formally object to President Bush's abuses or it risks by "indifference or quiescence" contributing to the powers of our imperial presidency.
When Pelosi took impeachment off the table, it was reduced to being a rhetorical protest vehicle for progressives like Dennis Kucinich or Russ Feingold. But Congress need not convict President Bush to impeach him for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. And arguably, the House need not even impeach the president to hold a Grand Inquest into the powers that he has claimed, registering a formal objection to them. The Judiciary Committee in the House should formally convene that Inquest, no matter what the decision is on impeachment. For if Pelosi's sensible political judgment results, as it has to date, in a show of congressional "inertia, indifference or quiescence," the Democratic majority in Congress may have gained a dozen seats at the cost of relinquishing its own powers, and putting the rights of Americans at risk.
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I have no idea if it is possible without a constitutional convention to modify the structure of our current government; that said, I agree with previous poster that the DoJ should be reporting to congress rather than the executive branch. If some sort of preventative action isn't taken, this will surely happen again, and with BushCo as a prime example, the crimes committed in subsequent abuses could be far worse [and that's not meant to downplay BushCo's EXTREME criminality].
As for Pelosi: she is likely the most hated democratic politician in America, and if she's not, she should be. I sincerly hope she is defeated in her bid for re-election.
Agreed!
Pelosi fiddles while we burn! She shows her great incompetence and has done all other women seeking political position a great injustice!
The leading Democrats don't want to deal with the hassle and don't won't to have the Republicans call them bad names... they would actually have to put out the effort to defend their positions... meanwhile letting Bush set the precident... because they're really in on the whole scam... I'll play this part, you play that part, and we both win the prize of taxpayer dollars...
FISA aside it is still unconstitutional to wire tap without a proper warrant. A mere piece of legislation cannot amend the Constitution.
All that bill will do is further prove the incompetence Congress and the President to lead our country into the future. With no regard or respect for the very Constitution they have sent troops to die to protect, very few of them deserve the office they hold.
It is time for a wholesale house cleaning in Washington, starting with Pelosi, Lieberman and most Republicans. ( I trust Ron Paul more than most Republicans )
“One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first acts upon taking the gavel was to rule impeachment off the table. She wanted Democrats to focus on challenging the president on the war and on kitchen table concerns -- from energy to education to health care.”
Those kitchen table concerns were small things. What I voted for Democrats for was to stop the Bush administration. All of those suppose victories for the Democrats don’t amount of a hill of beans. The minority Republican Party always blocks them on the big issues.
Can someone post a valid email address for Ms. Pelosi? She needs to experience a tidal wave of the opinion expressed in this article.
Online commment link:
http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
Posts aren't going up - i sent this a while ago:
www.house.gov/pelosi/contact/contact.html
mail does not work
I'm a lifelong Democrat and will vote for Obama in Nov. But I will do it holding my nose, since the so-called leaders of this "lesser of the two evils" party has put mis-guided political manuevering above the law and their oaths of office to defend the Constitution!
They just don't get it. Not only is it their DUTY to hold this lawless Bush Administration accountable for unprecedented criminality and incompetence, but just the EXPOSURE of all of this Republican supported and enabled corruption from the White House, in the media via inquiries and hearings and impeachment proceedings would insure a landslide Democratic victory in November.
Why Pelosi can't understand or see this, speaks to a much bigger problem the Democrats have and one the Republicans have exploited for the past 16 years, the Dems don't know how to lead! I only hope Obama changes all this.
Amen!
Isn't there a simple fix to this? What would happen if the Attorney General's office were to be put under the Legislative instead of Executive branch?
The "simple fix" is to follow the Constitution and preserve the system of checks and balances designed by the Founding Fathers.
An important article to remind Congress and all of us that Doing Nothing leaves a permanent scar.
Quote "the democratic congress has abdicated its reponsibilty by not impeaching Cheney" Bruce Fein, a right wing conservative that drew up the articles of impeachment against Clinton, who by the way called for the impeachment of Cheney.
The only thing that has shocked me more than the treasonous acts of the GOP neo-cons as they have systematically transformed democracy into fascism, is the traitorous and cowardly complicity of DEM enablers.
We have seen GOP and DEM collusion that would shock our Founders, but the greatest complicity and the highest blame still lies with the American People, for allowing them to get away with it.
Are we still the heirs of those Americans that lived and died by these words:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness ... when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Hear, hear!! The Democratic "leadership" is basically no different from the Repugnants -- they're all "on the take" and guilty of perjury, at the least; e. g., they lied when they took their oaths of office. The whole bunch, with some notable exceptions, needs to be purged from office, and replaced with people who understand, as well as honor, the Constitution.
So Moshe, what do you suppose we the people do to get justice, take to the streets!
Don't you get it? It finally dawned on me when Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court in his forst term and then won a second term with unprecedented voting corruption by the Ohio Republicans running the State's election that gave Bush the re-election in 04.
Even our votes don't count!
The Republicans with the guidance of Rove figured this out long ago. They knew if they got into power they could do whatever they wanted legal or not, with signing statements, and secrecy and especially executive privilege, and they have broken all sorts of laws and continue to, because there is no one to stop them. The people are powerless and the Democrats are spineless. And the Republicans control the media with their talking points and propaganda through Limbaugh and Hannity and their clones, through Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News network and the Wall Street Journal, through corporate ownership of the networks, through right wing evangelicals, and phony think tanks and tons of partisan columnists, such as Novak, Coulter, Wills, Brooks, and Kristol to name a few.
The more I read, the more in depth you look at Bush and company's abuse of power, the more obvious it becomes that it would be an even bigger crime to let him and those surrounding him escape unscathed. I very much hope that momentum is starting to build to actually prosecute this bunch for war crimes, etc. If there ever was a president deserving of such a fate, it is this one. It is appalling in the extreme.
Chapter & Verse by Bruce Fein a republican conservative calling for impeachment
The vice president asserted presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes. The Supreme Court rebuked Cheney in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Mr. Cheney claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the president's say-so alone, The vice president initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists. This lawlessness has been answered in Germany and Italy with criminal charges against CIA operatives or agents.
. The signing statements are tantamount to absolute line-item vetoes that the Supreme Court invalidated in the 1998 case Clinton v. New York.
The vice president has orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.
Cheney scorns freedom of speech and of the press. He urges application of the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists who expose national security abuses, for example, secret prisons in Eastern Europe or the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. In the end, President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law.
I don't know how you can write an article like this and then characterize Pelosi's dismissal of impeachment as 'sensible.'
Two kinds of precedent are being set here. First, the behavior of the Bush administration is at risk of being codified into precedent. Second, and more dammingly, the propensity of Congress to roll over and not challenge the president is becoming the norm as well.
Hey, Nancy...
Come November, once the election is over, do your job. I understand the political necessity you believe applies to this issue. However, once the election is over, I want action.
Don't tell me it will take too long. You control the House. Ram it through on numbers only if necessary. Leave a couple of days for the Judiciary, there's no reason to make it a long process, just do it.
If George Bush rides off in the sunset, waving his cowboy hat, he will not be the only one trashed by history: YOU will also be shamed--because history will write that YOU abdicated your constitutional duty. Impeachment, m'dear, isn't your prerogative: it's your responsibility when the circumstances warrant it.
This is well said and so true
Hey, Nancy...
Are you capable of doing your job? Can you stand up for justice for the American people?
Do you want to be remembered as a Great Speaker of the House? Then uphold your sworn duty and the Constitution! The sooner, the better!
The power of conspiracy thinkers preaching to uninformed, non-thinking people knows no bounds. The so-called "egregious" violations of Bush regarding FISA, and other things of which he is accused, do not pass muster upon review, and that is why Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid pushed the matter of impeachment off the table. It isn't a lack of political will, it is the lack of a case.
Conspiracy thinking took off with startling speed and energy in 1963 with the grassy knollers pretending to investigate President Kennedy's assassination. It is a cancer.
Put up or shut up, I believe is the phrase. From the grassy knoll to 7 years of a special prosecutor trying to make a case against Ronald Reagan for Iran-Contra, to the pursuit of W. over the Iraq war, nothing but unsubstantiated political poison has been forced upon the populace.
excuse me, but Iran-Contra ended up with lots of folks going to jail, and even Reagan admitted that he traded weapons for hostages, and then allowed the money to be funnelled to the Contras in contravention of the Boland Amendment. How you get that that constitutes "unsubstantiated political poison" is beyond me. Unless, of course, you're a Republican so you believe that no Republican has ever done anything wrong?
What a dolt.
I need links to where Reagan admitted guilt in Iran Contra. I need to see why he wasn't indicted after making such a confession.
Also, the Boland Amendment was a leftwing scam enacted to protect the Sandinistas (Communists) from having the US intervene. Boland et al used VietNam fears as their reason for blocking military help to our allies.
Yes, some people went around the Amendment, some people lied. But their motives were pure, and that's one reason why the Iran-Contra matter never really dug in with the American public. The fact that it dug in with the New York Times and their followers doesn't mean the whole universe was hooked.
Also, the independent counsel spent 7 years trying to smear innocent people and rewrite history. That's on the record.
Signed,
The Dolt
I suppose you're going to call us anti-semites now as well...
It's not a matter of the President being above the law. It's that, under the law of our land, he is not above the Congress. Is the President a servant to the people of this country or the other way around? Bush has consistently acted with utter disregard for the American people. He governs as he sees fit, doing what he wants regardless of input or consideration for those who disagree with him. He has spied on the American people. He deceived the Congress and the People to get us into a war that has cost untold lives and totally decimated the reputation of our country in the world. The people know, and if you are one of those dwindling few who is still convinced that he is not a liar and a thief, then you are in an ever-diminishing minority.
"The so-called "egregious" violations of Bush regarding FISA, and other things of which he is accused, do not pass muster upon review"
That depends on who's reviewing. You may have a political axe to grind, but I found a large number of clearly impeachable offenses, and so did Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley.
www.kucinich.us/impeachment
If the accusations were backed by EVIDENCE, there would be a case. Allegation, innuendo, and wishful thinking do not amount to evidence.
Dennis Kucinich is a flake, by the way. His own colleagues know it but won't say it publicly.
"The so-called "egregious" violations of Bush regarding FISA, and other things of which he is accused, do not pass muster upon review"
I reviewed them and the accusations are clearly stated and well documented. Read them and direct your comments to the issue at hand or shut up yourself.
www.kucinich.us/impeachment
The accusations are well-documented. But you can "well document" lies, if you're a good story teller. Problem is, there is no real documentation or real evidence to take the case to an impeachment proceeding, not to mention a criminal or war crimes trial.
At the risk of sounding condescending, it takes knowledge of the law, of which I have some. I don't know your background, but I'd go head-to-head with you in disagreeing.
Put up or shut up still applies to the Left.
There is a famous old trinket that defines your political partisanship, jearsfor fears, it is that of the three monkeys, one with his hands over his ears, one with his hands over his eyes, and in your case and all the other Republican enablers, one with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker across it's mouth!
The decision to take impeachment hearings off the table seems to consist entirely of a fear on the democrats part that the country will react negatively at the election polls against them, period. I don't agree. But, democrats have made their decision and they will have to live with the damage done to the country because they refuse to even have an inquiry into possible abuses by this idiot of a president and that devil Dick Chaney. The whole affair (Bush's lawlessness, Cheney's evil and democrat's weak knees) leave me with a sickening feeling about our country. It is entirely true that if unchallenged on these issues (disregard for the letter of the law and the constitution) this administration will breed your next dictator president and his or her control will be even worst (because of the precedent set by this evil president). America will than cease to be a democracy except on paper and in the media. In reality we will become the next Communiist superpower (with heavy overtones of Nazi facism). Beware of what you ask for, America (by standing by and allow this administraton do these illegal things).
"democrats have made their decision and they will have to live with the damage"
It's not over yet. Contract your Legislators and ask them to support Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Impeachment Resolution, or share the blame.
The primary goal of a legislator entering office should never be to get re-elected. Yet that seems to be the story with this bunch.
This has become so obvious and blatant in Washington that no one even bothers to cover these aspirations anymore under a cloak of decency. Instead, the reason so often given for not doing the right thing is couched in terms of how the action might affect the individual's re-election bid.
If voters had any balls, we would be in the streets demanding action, and throwing every damn one of these careerist politicians out of office.
Pelosi betrayed us.
She betrayed the people, the constitution and herself. She is not fit to lead the house. She is not fit for much other than maybe, "fashion consultant." She is guilty of abetting and aiding bush and cheney in war crimes. It's that simple. There is no other way of saying it. She is guilty of conspiring to coninue this illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Anybody defending the war criminals is also guilty of aiding and abetting them.
Pelosi betrays us.
Pelosi betrays the US.
Pelosi's "Impeachment is off the table" is going to be her curtain call. A more savvy approach would have been to say "Impeachment at this time is not the highest priority"- still giving it some level of importance but putting it on the back burner for a slow boil.
Bush lied, and many died. Clinton lied, and he was tried.
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