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Impeachment Talk Reaches the Mainstream
By William Goodman

Published on March 14, 2006 at Alternet.org
http://www.alternet.org/story/33373/ (http://www.alternet.org/story/33373/)

The groundswell for President Bush's impeachment is growing, and last week the establishment media finally took notice.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story analyzing how a planned impeachment of President Bush will play out as an "election issue," including a helpful pie chart showing 51 percent of Americans support Congress in considering Bush's impeachment if he "didn't tell the truth about the reasons for the Iraq war."

The Washington Post published a commentary acknowledging that support for impeachment is now "reaching beyond the usual suspects," and the Associated Press covered the spike in pro-impeachment resolutions from local officials across the country. Resolutions recently passed in Vermont and California, and this weekend Democratic Party officials in Michigan voted to urge local officials to pass another. Meanwhile, 14 Democratic candidates for Congress have announced their support for impeachment.

These local efforts are beginning to advance impeachment at the national level. The resolution by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to investigate impeachment is slowly but steadily gaining co-sponsors, including three this month. It now has 29 co-sponsors -- roughly one out of every seven Democrats in the U.S. House -- a promising start that ensures that the legislation attracts more votes when it reaches the floor.

These activist and legislative efforts helped finally push the "i-word" on to the notoriously conservative cable news last week. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough aired an impeachment debate on MSNBC -- one of the first times the subject has been debated this year on cable. Scarborough's producers invited me to make the case for impeachment after learning of the new book I co-authored, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush."

Since impeachment rarely receives any consideration on television, I took the opportunity to explain our case, even if it meant going on Joe Scarborough's turf. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who opposes impeaching President Bush, said during the show that he was "fascinated" by some arguments for impeachment. He accurately described the groundswell:

    There's a movement out there right now calling for George W. Bush to be impeached. Just take a look at how many cities and towns across America have either drafted resolutions calling for the president's impeachment or are considering doing so. Not only that, but 11 candidates for the House of Representatives and three for the U.S. Senate are all running on the impeachment platform. Why do they want the president gone? Well, here are the common reasons cited. The war in Iraq, which they say Bush lied to get us into; warrantless eavesdropping, authorized by the president; the torturing of prisoners; and the president`s response to Hurricane Katrina.

It is significant that impeachment activists have received Scarborough's attention. When we debated the topic, Scarborough even conceded that the arguments for impeachment in our book were "intellectually honest." That's because it's easy to make an intellectually honest case for impeachment: President Bush has publicly admitted to breaking the law. Here is how I explained the clearest example of the president's multifaceted illegal conduct -- spying on Americans:

    the fact is that the law provides a clear-cut way that the president has to do these things. He has to go to the FISA court. He knowingly violated that law. And the law says -- there are two laws, in fact, that say that when you do that, you are guilty of a crime. There it is. That is one of the high crimes and misdemeanors.

Pat Buchanan was quick to argue that even Senate Democrats weren't supporting impeachment. While many Washington Democrats appear to be spineless these days, a growing number of House Democrats are supporting a resolution to investigate impeachment. This debate is the start of many to come. Impeachment is finally out of the bottle, and it is not going away. C-SPAN plans to televise a discussion of our impeachment book, moderated by Amy Goodman in New York on March 28, and our attorneys are receiving more requests to explain the legal case for impeachment from grassroots groups and reporters.

This week the Senate will also consider censuring President Bush for illegal wiretapping, a rare move that shows even the conservative upper house may be realizing that President Bush is out of control. But we must remember that a censure resolution won't remove a single wiretap from Americans' phones. Congress and the American people must take real action to address President Bush's illegal policies in wiretapping, Iraq, torture and undermining the constitutional principle of separation of powers.

President Bush has repeatedly broken the law and brazenly promised to continue to betray his oath of office and our Constitution -- clear impeachable offenses. We must grow the impeachment movement across the country and in the halls of Congress to catalyze a substantive debate over illegal conduct, not politics.

[William Goodman is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.]

WOW! Finally the nation is waking up.  Took long enough.  I hope that they do get that 8@st@rd!!!! :twisted:  While they are at it, why not try him, his father, and their companions for war crimes?

:twisted: ----   Great great news:  I've been telling anybody who would listen, that the our lil tyrant has legally and for sure committed the same acts as listed in the article, and that point in fact they were impeachable offenses...   Damn!!   Maybe that lil cocksuckers' gonna have to end up paying the price for trampling the constitution and those he so callously rules over.............  sal--------------

51% of Americans is not what will drive impeachment; more like 51% of Americans in 51% of the districts will drive impeachment.
Getting 51% or more within the Democratic-controlled districts is easy, but does not get 51% of the districts.

Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday, Senator Russ Feingold introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping American citizens.

Censuring a sitting president is serious business. But when the president misleads the public and Congress while willfully and repeatedly breaking the law, there must be consequencesâ€"that's how the law works for everybody else.

While most politicians sat back and weighed the political pros and cons of holding the president accountable, Senator Feingold stuck his neck out and did it. Now it's up to us to show broad public support. Can you sign our petition asking Congress to join the call for censure?

http://political.moveon.org/censure?id= ... wPkXtQ&t=2 (http://political.moveon.org/censure?id=7035-6787141-Qz37rAUtkYZK0ll7wPkXtQ&t=2)

Right now it's unclear how many of Senator Feingold's colleagues will stand with him in this important fight. If we can reach 250,000 signatures, we'll deliver your comments to your senators this week to demonstrate widespread public support censuring the president for breaking the law. We'll also send a copy of the complete petition to Senator Feingold to show our support for his courage.

President Bush already had the authority to wiretap suspected terroristsâ€"he could even wiretap first and get warrants 3 days later.  But he chose to get no warrants at all, clearly violating the law set up to protect innocent Americans and then he misled the Congress and the public about his program.1

Censuring the president means Congress officially acknowledges that the president broke the law and condemns him for doing it. Given the scale of the president's problem, it's a very reasonable first step to holding him accountable. This is a key moment for Congress to show that they're serious about checks and balances.

Our country was founded on the idea that everyoneâ€"even the presidentâ€" has to follow the law. Supporting censure is the best opportunity we've got to keep that ideal alive. Can you sign our petition today?

http://political.moveon.org/censure?id= ... wPkXtQ&t=3 (http://political.moveon.org/censure?id=7035-6787141-Qz37rAUtkYZK0ll7wPkXtQ&t=3)

Thanks for all you do,

â€"Eli, Nita, Tom, Adam, Joan and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
  Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Sources:

1. If you would like more details on the case for censure, please click below.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1535&id=7035- ... wPkXtQ&t=4 (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1535&id=7035-6787141-Qz37rAUtkYZK0ll7wPkXtQ&t=4)

P.S. This is a big moment so we're including the beginning of Senator Feingold's speech outlining the case for censure below. You can read the censure resolution here.

    Mr. President, when the President of the United States breaks the law, he must be held accountable. That is why today I am introducing a resolution to censure President George W. Bush.

    The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program. It is up to this body to reaffirm the rule of law by condemning the President's actions.

    All of us in this body took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and bear true allegiance to the same. Fulfilling that oath requires us to speak clearly and forcefully when the President violates the law. This resolution allows us to send a clear message that the President's conduct was wrong.

    And we must do that. The President's actions demand a formal judgment from Congress.

    At moments in our history like this, we are reminded why the founders balanced the powers of the different branches of government so carefully in the Constitution. At the very heart of our system of government lies the recognition that some leaders will do wrong, and that others in the government will then bear the responsibility to do right.

    This President has done wrong. This body can do right by condemning his conduct and showing the people of this nation that his actions will not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

    To date, members of Congress have responded in very different ways to the President's conduct. Some are responding by defending his conduct, ceding him the power he claims, and even seeking to grant him expanded statutory authorization powers to make his conduct legal. While we know he is breaking the law, we do not know the details of what the President has authorized or whether there is any need to change the law to allow it, yet some want to give him carte blanche to continue his illegal conduct. To approve the President's actions now, without demanding a full inquiry into this program, a detailed explanation for why the President authorized it, and accountability for his illegal actions, would be irresponsible. It would be to abandon the duty of the legislative branch under our constitutional system of separation of powers while the President recklessly grabs for power and ignores the rule of law.

    Others in Congress have taken important steps to check the President. Senator Specter has held hearings on the wiretapping program in the Judiciary Committee. He has even suggested that Congress may need to use the power of the purse in order to get some answers out of the Administration. And Senator Byrd has proposed that Congress establish an independent commission to investigate this program.

    As we move forward, Congress will need to consider a range of possible actions, including investigations, independent commissions, legislation, or even impeachment. But, at a minimum, Congress should censure a president who has so plainly broken the law.
    Our founders anticipated that these kinds of abuses would occur. Federalist Number 51 speaks of the Constitution's system of checks and balances:

    "It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

    Mr. President, we are faced with an executive branch that places itself above the law. The founders understood that the branches must check each other to control abuses of government power. The president's actions are such an abuse, Mr. President. His actions must be checked, and he should be censured.

To continue reading, please click below:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1536 (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1536)

I wrote to my senators and representative yesterday: "In poll after poll, the country is telling all of you in DC that we are against wiretapping, against the Iraq War, against the idea of the 'unitary executive,' against what the Bush regime is doing to the country and to the world. You were each elected to represent our interests. You are not doing your jobs by letting the Admininstration's crimes against humanity continue. You are elected  officials and we will remember this November and the following ones how you do or do not put your own interests above that of the population. It's up to you. Do the right thing; back up Senator Feingold."

I've seen virtually nothing about this in the news. What little mention they make is always a put down and the implication that censure or impeachment is only considered by fringe elements. If this was allowed to be discussed by the public, bush would be hanging by a thread right now. As it is, the powers that be do not want to rock the boat. Therefore, the boat is not rocking. I estimate it would take 70% of the public to be in favor of impeachment plus a lot of grass roots organistations before this comes up on the radar screen.

Bush Approval Falls to 33%, Congress Earns Rare Praise
Dubai Ports Fallout

Released: March 15, 2006

http://people-press.org/reports/display ... portID=271 (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=271)

Summary of Findings

In the aftermath of the Dubai ports deal, President Bush's approval rating has hit a new low and his image for honesty and effectiveness has been damaged. Yet the public uncharacteristically has good things to say about the role that Congress played in this high-profile Washington controversy.

Most Americans (58%) believe Congress acted appropriately in strenuously opposing the deal, while just 24% say lawmakers made too much of the situation. While there is broad support for the way Congress handled the dispute, more Americans think Democratic leaders showed good judgment on the ports issue than say the same about GOP leaders (by 30%-20%).

The new Pew survey underscores the public's alarm over the prospect that an Arab-owned company could have operated U.S. ports. Fully 41% say they paid very close attention to news about the debate, which is unusually high interest for a Washington story and is only slightly lower than the number tracking Iraq war news very closely (43%). There was broad opposition to the proposed deal from across the political spectrum, including two-to-one disapproval among conservative Republicans (56%-27%).

Bush's overall approval measure stands at 33%, the lowest rating of his presidency. Bush's job performance mark is now about the same as the ratings for Democratic and Republican congressional leaders (34% and 32%, respectively), which showed no improvement in spite of public approval of the congressional response to the ports deal.

Harkin Signs on to Censure Measure
By Erin P. Billings

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/brea ... 561-1.html (http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/12561-1.html)

Roll Call Staff
Wednesday, March 15

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has become the first co-sponsor to Sen. Russ Feingold’s (D-Wis.) controversial resolution to censure President Bush for authorizing an allegedly illegal domestic surveillance program.

Great to see that the wrecking ball might just be starting to roll from up on 'Da Hill..... I'm excited to see this happening :twisted: ----------- sal

this is sho' perty:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 364x680013 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x680013)

 :twisted:

and this one:
http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/ (http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/)

Poll: Americans slightly favor plan to censure

Published March 16, 2006 at RawStory.com
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Poll_ ... _0316.html (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Poll_Americans_slightly_favor_plan_to_0316.html)

A new poll finds that a plurality of Americans favor plans to censure President George W. Bush, while a surprising 42% favor moves to actually impeach the President.

A poll taken March 15, 2006 by American Research Group found that among all adults, 46% favor Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) plan to censure President George W. Bush, while just 44% are opposed. Approval of the plan grows slightly when the sample is narrowed to voters, up to 48% in favor of the Senate censuring the sitting president.

Even more shocking is that just 57% of Republicans are opposed to the move, with 14% still undecided and 29% actually in favor. Fully 70% of Democrats want to see Bush censured.

More surprising still: The poll found fully 43% of voters in favor of actually impeaching the President, with just 50% of voters opposed. While only 18% of Republicans surveyed wanted to see Bush impeached, 61% of Democrats and 47% of Independents reported they wanted to see the House move ahead with the Conyers (D-MI) resolution.

The poll, taken March 13-15, had a 3% margin of error.

Leahy, Jeffords support hearings on Feingold censure proposal

Published March 20, 2006 by the Vermont Guardian
http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/ ... l#article1 (http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/032006/032006.shtml#article1)

Vermont’s two senators, Democrat Patrick Leahy and Independent Jim Jeffords, believe that hearings should be held on the Bush administration’s secret domestic wiretapping program before a censure vote is held.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, has introduced a resolution calling for censure, accusing Pres. George Bush of violating the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Few Democrats have openly come out in support of the measure.

“Sen. Feingold says he intended his resolution to prompt congressional investigations into the president’s actions on these issues. Republican leaders so far have been reluctant to allow that,” said David Carle, a Leahy spokesman. “Sen. Leahy believes in first things first, and the first thing is Congress doing its oversight duty in investigating the Bush administration’s illegal domestic wiretapping.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee, on which both Leahy and Feingold sit, have held two hearings on the domestic surveillance program.

Jeffords “would like to have hearings on the resolution,” said Diane Derby, a spokeswoman.

On Jan. 20, Leahy introduced a resolution that would put the Senate on record refuting Pres. Bush’s assertion that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed before the invasion of Afghanistan, authorized warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, Carle added.

“Both the Feingold and Leahy resolutions have been referred to the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Leahy has been pushing for full congressional investigations and oversight of the issues that both resolutions address,” said Carle.

Feingold’s resolution reads, in part:

“Resolved that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required.”

Feingold’s resolution states censure is warranted by Bush’s “failure to inform the full congressional intelligence committees as required by law, and his efforts to mislead the American people about the authorities relied upon by his administration to conduct wiretaps and about the legality of the program.”

The only president ever censured by the Senate was Andrew Jackson, in 1834, for removing the nation's money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig-controlled Senate. In 1999, Senate Republicans tried but failed to bring a censure resolution against Pres. Bill Clinton after he was acquitted by the Senate on House impeachment charges that he committed perjury and obstructed justice.

Feingold was the lone senator to oppose the 2001 Patriot Act. Two weeks ago, he was joined by Jeffords, Leahy and seven other senators in opposing a renewal of the law with some new curbs on police powers.

Damn 2 party system.  With 3 parties, this would already be done by now.

I completely agree 'bout tha 3-party thing....  Question...  What's anyones opinion as to whether we'll see a viable 3rd part anytime in the next , say, 2-3 election timespan???  I hope so, but unfortunately, I think the entrenched parties have a lock on the whole politico-machinery apparatus, and hence; we'll see nothing more than the 'charade in perpetuity'.... :( ------------  sal

White House 'Discovers' Emails Related to Plame Leak
By Jason Leopold

Published Friday 24 February 2006 at Truthout.org

    The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.

    The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.

    Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.

    Cheney was not under oath when he was interviewed. He told investigators how the White House came to rely on Niger documents that purportedly showed that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country.

    Cheney said he had received an intelligence briefing on the allegations in either December 2001 or January 2002.

    Cheney said he was unaware that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to travel to Niger to look into the uranium claims, and that he never saw a report Wilson had given a CIA analyst upon his return which stated that the Niger claims were untrue. He said the CIA never told him about Wilson's trip.

    However, the emails say otherwise, and will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said.

    Some of the emails that were turned over to Fitzgerald contained references to Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status, and developments related to the inability of ground forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the start of the war in March 2003.

    According to sources, the emails also contained suggestions by senior officials in Cheney’s office, and at the National Security Council, on how the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly destructive comments Wilson had been making about the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.

    Last month, Fitzgerald disclosed in court documents that he discovered from witnesses in the case that some emails related to Wilson and his wife, written by senior aides in Cheney’s office and sent to other officials at the National Security Council, had not been turned over to investigators by the White House.

    “In an abundance of caution,” Fitzgerald's January 23 letter to Libby's defense team states, “we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.”

    Sources close to the case said that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales withheld numerous emails from Fitzgerald’s probe citing “executive privilege” and “national security” concerns. These sources said that as of Friday there are still some emails that have not been turned over to Fitzgerald because they contain classified information in addition to references about the Wilsons.

    Attorneys representing Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators related to his role in the leak, were in court Friday arguing that Fitzgerald should be required to turn over classified material, including highly sensitive Presidential Daily Briefs, to Libby’s defense team.

    The defense hopes that the classified materials will establish that Libby was dealing with more pressing matters facing the White House and that he simply did not intend to mislead the grand jury when he testified that he did not disclose Plame Wilson’s name to reporters.

    In another development in the leak case Friday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said another administration official, who does not work at the White House, also spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson. This individual, according to sources close to the case, works at the National Security Council.

    Walton said that Libby’s defense team was not entitled to be told of the individual’s identity because the person is not charged with a crime in the leak. However, the person is said to be one of several people in the administration who is cooperating with the probe.

    Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46450 (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46450)

hehe! :twisted:

Quote from: "senorsalvia"I completely agree 'bout tha 3-party thing....  Question...  What's anyones opinion as to whether we'll see a viable 3rd part anytime in the next , say, 2-3 election timespan???  I hope so, but unfortunately, I think the entrenched parties have a lock on the whole politico-machinery apparatus, and hence; we'll see nothing more than the 'charade in perpetuity'.... :( ------------  sal

I agree, the powers that be are not keen on changing the crooked system we have right now. A viable third party is needed to break up the one party system we have now. I will no longer vote for any D or R. It will be third party candidates only.

I still am not seeing any of this in the news. The censure action seems to have been removed from the public radar screen. Only a few independent news outlets here and there seem to mention it.

Just a quick thought; maybe it's singing in the rain, maybe it'll help a bit....  How's about everybody e-mail and write (yes, a real letter)  to the editor of their local paper telling them that you would be interested in a more in depth covering of the censure/impeachment issue.....   Yeah, I know most of the rags are owned by some some corporate behemoth and have their own agenda, but what the hell...  It would only take a couple of minutes.....  {ya gotta have active participants in 'da revolution, or their just aint 'a gonna be one} :wink: ---------------  sal

Senate hearing set on move to censure Bush

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060324/pl_ ... NlYwN0bWE- (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060324/pl_nm/security_eavesdropping_dc_1&printer=1;_ylt=Agqywbifg24PvGLuJlpdVFMb.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

The Republican-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday it would hold a hearing next week on a call by a Democratic lawmaker to censure President George W. Bush for his domestic spy program.

In a one-sentence notice, the panel said the hearing would be held next Friday by the order of its chairman, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, who has opposed censure.

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record) of Wisconsin introduced a resolution last week calling for a Senate censure of the president, charging that Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program was illegal. Revelation of the once-secret program has triggered a political uproar.

Feingold, who has attracted little support from fellow Democrats for censure, said unless a hearing was held he would push for a vote by the full Senate on his resolution.

The White House and many Republicans in Congress have denounced Feingold's censure resolution as a political stunt.

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy and the terrorist surveillance program is grounds for censuring the president," Vice President Dick Cheney told a Republican fund-raiser in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, adding, "The American people have already made their decision. They agree with the president."

The Senate has censured a president, which amounts to a formal rebuke, only once before and that was Andrew Jackson in 1834 in a banking dispute.

Bush secretly authorized warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans while in pursuit of suspected enemies of the United States shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sought to dismiss the censure resolution against Bush with an immediate vote last week but was blocked by some Democrats who said the resolution needed to be at least debated.

Specter has questioned the legality of Bush's surveillance program but has argued that censure is not justified.

In Senate comments last week, Specter noted that experts had disagreed about whether the president has the constitutional power to conduct the program without court warrants.

"When he (Feingold) comes to the resolve clause and speaks about censure and condemnation of President Bush, I think he is vastly excessive," Specter said.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Feingold will have an opportunity at next week's hearing to debate Specter.

The Wisconsin Democrat, traveling overseas, could not be reached for an immediate comment on Specter's decision to hold a hearing, his office said.

Fitzgerald Will Seek New White House Indictments
By Jason Leopold

Published Tuesday 28 March 2006 by Truthout.org
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032806Z.shtml (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032806Z.shtml)

    It may seem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace, but the second part of the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete, with attorneys and government officials who have remained close to the probe saying that a grand jury will likely return an indictment against one or two senior Bush administration officials.

    These sources work or worked at the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council. Some of these sources are attorneys close to the case. They requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the details of the investigation.

    In lengthy interviews over the weekend and on Monday, they said that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has started to prepare the paperwork to present to the grand jury seeking an indictment against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove or National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

    Although the situation remains fluid, it's possible, these sources said, that Fitzgerald may seek to indict both Rove and Hadley, charging them with perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy related to their roles in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity and their effort to cover up their involvement following a Justice Department investigation.

    The sources said late Monday that it may take more than a month before Fitzgerald presents the paperwork outlining the government's case against one or both of the officials and asks the grand jury to return an indictment, because he is currently juggling quite a few high-profile criminal cases and will need to carve out time to write up the indictment and prepare the evidence.

    In addition to responding to discovery requests from Libby's defense team and appearing in court with his attorneys, who are trying to obtain additional evidence, such as top-secret documents, from Fitzgerald's probe, the special prosecutor is also prosecuting Lord Conrad Black, the newspaper magnate, has recently charged numerous individuals in a child pornography ring, and is wrestling with other lawsuits in his home city of Chicago.

    Details about the latest stage of the investigation began to take shape a few weeks ago when the lead FBI investigator on the leak case, John C. Eckenrode, retired from the agency and indicated to several colleagues that the investigation is about to wrap up with indictments handed up by the grand jury against Rove or Hadley or both officials, the sources said.

    The Philadelphia-based Eckenrode is finished with his work on the case; however, he is expected to testify as a witness for the prosecution next year against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in October on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators regarding his role in the leak.

    Hadley and Rove remain under intense scrutiny, but sources said Fitzgerald has not yet decided whether to seek charges against one or both of them.

    Libby and other officials in Cheney's office used the information they obtained about Plame Wilson to undermine the credibility of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. He had alleged that President Bush misspoke when he said, in his January 2003 State of the Union address, that Iraq had tried to acquire yellow-cake uranium, the key component used to build a nuclear bomb, from Niger.

    The uranium claim was the silver bullet in getting Congress to support military action two months later. To date, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and the country barely had a functional weapons program, according to a report from the Iraq Survey Group.

    Wilson had traveled to Niger more than a year earlier to investigate the yellow-cake claims and reported back to the CIA that intelligence reports saying Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger were false.

    On Monday, though, attorneys close to the leak case confirmed that Fitzgerald had met with the grand jury half a dozen times since January and recently told the jurors that he planned to present them with the government's case against Rove or Hadley, which stems from an email Rove had sent to Hadley in July of 2003 indicating that he had a conversation about Plame Wilson with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

    Neither Hadley nor Rove disclosed the existence of the email when they were questioned by FBI investigators or when they testified before a grand jury, the sources said, adding that Rove testified he found out about Plame Wilson from reporters and Hadley testified that he recalled learning about Plame Wilson when her name was published in a newspaper column.

    Rove testified before the grand jury four times. Rove testified before the grand jury four times. He did not disclose the existence of the email during his first two appearances before the grand jury, claiming he simply forgot about it because he was enmeshed with the 2004 Presidential election, traveling around the country attending fundraisers and meetings, working more than 15 hours a day on the campaign, and just forgot that he spoke with Cooper three months earlier, sources familiar with his testimony said.

    But Rove and Libby had been the subject of dozens of news stories about the possibility that they played a role in the leak, and had faced dozens of questions as early as August 2003 - one month after Plame Wilson was outed - about whether they were the administration officials responsible for leaking her identity.

    The story Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, provided to Fitzgerald in order to explain why Rove did not disclose the existence of the email is "less than satisfactory and entirely unconvincing to the special counsel," one of the attorneys close to the case said.

    Luskin did not return numerous calls for comment. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation and has vehemently denied that Hadley was involved in the leak "because Mr. Hadley told us he wasn't involved."

    In December, Luskin made a desperate attempt to keep his client out of Fitzgerald's crosshairs.

    Luskin had revealed to Fitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Time magazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilson case - inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that her colleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced to testify that Rove was his source who told him about Plame Wilson's CIA status.

    Novak - who bears no relation to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who first published Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column - met Luskin in Washington DC in the summer of 2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame Wilson leak.

    Luskin had assured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIA status after it was published in news accounts and that only then did he phone other journalists to draw their attention to it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Time newsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he would testify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, these sources said.

    According to Luskin's account, after he met with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him about his conversation with her. The two of them then began an exhaustive search through White House phone logs and emails for any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken with Cooper. Luskin said that during this search an email was found that Rove had sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley immediately after Rove's conversation with Cooper, and it was subsequently turned over to Fitzgerald.

    "I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in the email to Hadley immediately following his conversation with Cooper on July 11, 2003. "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

    Luskin wound up becoming a witness in the case and testified about his conversation with Viveca Novak that Luskin said would prove his client didn't knowingly lie to FBI investigators when he was questioned about the leak in October 2003, just three months after Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

    The email Rove sent to Hadley, which Luskin said he found, helped Rove recall his conversation with Cooper a year earlier. Rove then returned to the grand jury to clarify his previous testimonies in which he did not disclose that he spoke with journalists.

    Still, Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothing like he had described in his email to Hadley, according to an email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazine following his conversation with Rove in July 2003.

    "It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip," Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said. "Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The email characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger... "

    It is unclear whether Rove was misleading Hadley about his conversation with Cooper, perhaps, because White House officials told their staff not to engage reporters in any questions posed about Wilson's Niger claims.

    But Fitzgerald's investigation has turned up additional evidence over the past few months that convinced him that Luskin's eleventh-hour revelation about the chain of events that led to the discovery of the email is not credible. Fitzgerald believes that Rove changed his story once it became clear that Cooper would be compelled to testify about the source - Rove - who revealed Plame Wilson's CIA status to him, sources close to the case said.

    If any of the people named in this story believe they have been unfairly portrayed or that what was written in this story is untrue, they will have an opportunity to respond in this space.

Impeachment Talk Becomes More Than Whisper
by Jack Torry
 
Published on Friday, March 31, 2006 by the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0331-03.htm (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0331-03.htm)

WASHINGTON â€" It began with Santa Cruz City Council in September and was regarded as merely another quaint episode in California history.

The council called on the House Judiciary Committee to determine whether President Bush committed an impeachable offense by sending U.S. troops into Iraq.

Since then, the resolutions have continued to pass â€" from the New Mexico Democratic Party to four small towns in Vermont to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who trumped everyone by demanding that Congress impeach both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

This little-noticed impeachment debate is taking place as the Senate Judiciary Committee today considers a censure resolution introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a likely presidential contender in 2008. Feingold argues that Bush violated law when he authorized the interception of Americans’ communications with suspected terrorists without obtaining a warrant from a federal judge.

"There is movement and it is gaining momentum," said Sophie de Vries, who serves as impeachment coordinator for Democrats.com in California. "It’s not just fringe people. You’re going to see towns and cities in red states soon and that will show it’s no bicoastal affair but encompasses large swaths of the country."

Yet though progressive Democrats are pushing impeachment, the national party is trying to avoid a messy debate on such a divisive issue. Many Democrats are convinced that they can win either the House or Senate in November and the last thing they want is an impeachment drive that could energize Republican voters.

"I think we need to let Bush continue to hang himself," said James Ruvolo, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "I’m not in favor of Democrats pushing that. We ought to be talking about the issues that matter and the public gets tired of the process stuff."

Joanna Kuebler, a spokeswoman for Rep. Sherrod Brown of Avon, the likely Democratic nominee for the Senate this year, said, "Sherrod agrees there is a consistent cause for concern in the way the president wiretapped without a warrant. However, the issues that affect everyday Ohioans as he travels the state are job losses, soaring prescription-drug prices and tuition that’s out of reach for many American families . . . That is where Congressman Brown’s focus has been ."

Republicans have welcomed the impeachment calls with barely disguised gusto. With surveys showing that Americans would like to transfer control of Congress to the Democrats, GOP strategists are doing their best to warn their voters that if Democrats win, Bush could be impeached like President Clinton in 1998 when he faced charges from the Republicancontrolled House.

Senate Republicans, despite warnings from Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, to stay away from "sideshows," are pushing for a floor vote on Feingold’s resolution. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., scheduled a hearing on censure even though no other committee Democrat seemed interested in even acknowledging the existence of the resolution.

Sal Russo, a California Republican consultant, said Democrats would be "making a big mistake by going down that road. They’re appeasing the far left of their party and alienating Middle America."

Yet there is mounting pressure from Democratic activists to challenge Bush on the war and wiretaps. Although no Ohio city has passed a resolution, 10 towns, five state Democratic parties and 19 local Democratic committees have approved resolutions calling for an impeachment inquiry.

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told a community forum in San Francisco that she wanted to focus on the November elections instead of impeachment, she was greeted with boos.

"I think the national Democrats have their own agenda," de Vries said. "They …don’t understand impeachment would a valid tool to support taking back the House. The public is ahead of Congress."

In Court Filings, Cheney Aide Says Bush Approved Leak
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published April 6, 2006 by the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-C ... r=homepage (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CIA-Leak.html?hp&ex=1144382400&en=82f91777a6c99ec3&ei=5094&partner=homepage)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Bush's political foes jumped on the revelation about Libby's testimony.

''The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of Americas security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe,'' Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, ''The more we hear, the more it is clear this goes way beyond Scooter Libby. At the very least, President Bush and Vice President Cheney should fully inform the American people of any role in allowing classified information to be leaked.''

Libby's testimony also puts the president and the vice president in the awkward position of authorizing leaks -- a practice both men have long said they abhor, so much so that the administration has put in motion criminal investigations to hunt down leakers.

The most recent instance is the administration's launching of a probe into who disclosed to The New York Times the existence of the warrantless domestic surveillance program authorized by Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The authorization involving intelligence information came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for going to war.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 ''occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate,'' the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the ''certain information.''

''Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his recollection,'' the papers added.

Libby is asking for voluminous amounts of classified information from the government in order to defend himself against five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame affair.

He is accused of making false statements about how he learned of Plame's CIA employment and what he told reporters about it.

Her CIA status was publicly disclosed eight days after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, Wilson had been dispatched to Africa by the CIA to check out intelligence that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger, and Wilson had concluded that there was no such arrangement.

Libby says he needs extensive classified files from the government to demonstrate that Plame's CIA connection was a peripheral matter that he never focused on, and that the role of Wilson's wife was a small piece in a building public controversy over the failure to find WMD in Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the new court filing that Libby's requests for information go too far and the prosecutor cited Libby's own statements to investigators in an attempt to limit the amount of information the government must turn over to Cheney's former chief of staff for his criminal defense.

According to Miller's grand jury testimony, Libby told her about Plame's CIA status in the July 8, 2003 conversation that took place shortly after the White House aide -- according to the new court filing -- was authorized by Bush through Cheney to disclose sensitive intelligence about Iraq and WMD contained in a National Intelligence Estimate.

The court filing was first disclosed by The New York Sun.

I'm begining to write my letter to my tiny local newpaper...it's not that big but still what else can I do?

Bush needs to be impeached

Bush Impeachment - The Illinois State Legislature Is Preparing to Drop a Bombshell
    By Steven Leser
    OpEd News

    Saturday 22 April 2006

Utilizing a little known rule of the US House to bring Impeachment charges.

    The Illinois General Assembly is about to rock the nation. Members of state legislatures are normally not considered as having the ability to decide issues with a massive impact to the nation as a whole. Representative Karen A. Yarbrough of Illinois' 7th District is about to shatter that perception forever. Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature. From there, Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 (hereafter to be referred to as HJR0125) was born.

    Detailing five specific charges against President Bush including one that is specified to be a felony, the complete text of HJR0125 is copied below at the end of this article. One of the interesting points is that one of the items, the one specified as a felony, that the NSA was directed by the President to spy on American citizens without warrant, is not in dispute. That fact should prove an interesting dilemma for a Republican controlled US House that clearly is not only loathe to initiate impeachment proceedings, but does not even want to thoroughly investigate any of the five items brought up by the Illinois Assembly as high crimes and/or misdemeanors. Should HJR0125 be passed by the Illinois General Assembly, the US House will be forced by House Rules to take up the issue of impeachment as a privileged bill, meaning it will take precedence over other House business.

    The Illinois General Assembly joins a growing chorus of voices calling for censure or impeachment of President Bush including Democratic state committees in Vermont, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina as well as the residents themselves of seven towns in Vermont, seventy Vermont state legislators and Congressman John Conyers. The call for impeachment is starting to grow well beyond what could be considered a fringe movement. An ABC News/Washington Post Poll Conducted April 6-9 showed that 33% of Americans currently support Impeaching President Bush, coincidentally, only a similar amount supported impeaching Nixon at the start of the Watergate investigation. If and when Illinois HJR0125 hits the capitol and the individual charges are publicly investigated, that number is likely to grow rapidly. Combined with the very real likelihood that Rove is about to be indicted in the LeakGate investigation, and Bush is in real trouble beyond his plummeting poll numbers. His cronies in the Republican dominated congress will probably save him from the embarassment of an impeachment conviction, for now, but his Presidency will be all but finished.