Rationales provided by advocates of the impeachment of George W. Bush: Difference between revisions

Main article: Movement to impeach George W. Bush

Proponents of the impeachment of current President of the United States George W. Bush assert that one or more of President Bush's actions qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors" under which the president can constitionally be impeached. This article is a list of suggested rationales to impeach Bush, which have been offered as of recently, by various partisans, commentators and others who favor Bush's impeachment. The points raised in this article are not to be viewed as a monolithic list which is being uniformly touted anywhere. Rather, it is an assembly of discrete rationales which favor impeaching Bush, that have been gathered from multiple sources.

Suggested reasons to impeach

NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

Main article: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

As part of the actions taken by President Bush in the war on terror was the order to authorize wiretapping of certain international calls to and from U.S. without a warrant. Whether this is illegal is currently debated, since the program appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was adopted to remedy supposedly similar actions in the past (i.e. Operation Shamrock, Operation Minaret, Church Committee). Additionally, it allegedly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures - this includes electronic surveillance. These allegations have been advanced by articles published in The Christian Science Monitor and The Nation. In its defense, the administration has asserted that FISA does not apply as the President was authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the presidential powers as Commander-in-Chief inherent in the Constitution (unitary executive theory), to bypass FISA. (See also: Separation of powers and rule of law.)

In January 2006, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service released two legal analyses concluding that "...no court has held squarely that the Constitution disables the Congress from endeavoring to set limits on that power. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has stated that Congress does indeed have power to regulate domestic surveillance... the NSA surveillance program... would appear to be inconsistent with the law." On February 13, 2006, the American Bar Association issued a statement denouncing the warrantless domestic surveillance program, accusing the President of exceeding his powers under the Constitution. Their analysis observes that the key arguments advanced by the Bush administration are not compatible with the law. Also five former FISA judges voiced their doubts as to the legallity of the program.

Some commentators responded to the Bush administration's justification of the program, that its interpretation of presidential power overthrows the Constitutional system of checks and balances and ignores other provisions of the Constitution mandating that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"and vesting Congress with the sole authority "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" and "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." Elizabeth Holtzman, John Conyers, John Dean and Jennifer van Bergen from FindLaw assert that FISA has been violated and the claimed legal authority is invalid, constituting a felony and as such an impeachable offense.A detailed investigation into the matter seems to be averted.

Invasion of Iraq

Consitutionality of Invasion

Main article: Invasion of Iraq

The case put forward by John Bonifaz in the book Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush is the same as the grounds for his John Doe I v. President Bush lawsuit; namely, that Bush invaded Iraq without a clear Congressional declaration of war. The argument is that the Congressional resolution to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq was unconstitutional because it "confers discretion upon the President to wage war", contrary to the War Powers Clause of the Constitution.

Justification for Invasion

Furthermore the arguments put forward for the invasion of Iraq: the possession and development of weapons of mass destruction and active links to al Qaeda have been found to be false, according to all official reports . The Bush administration advocated that this was due to failure by the intelligence community. However, it has become clear that prior to the invasion these arguments had already been widely disputed, which had purportedly been reported to the U.S. administration. Until today an in-depth investigation into the nature of these discrepancies has been frustrated. Supporters of impeachment argue that the administration knowingly distorted intelligence reports or ignored contrary information in constructing their case for the war. The Downing Street memo and the Bush-Blair memo are used to substantiate that allegation. Congressional Democrats sponsored both a request for documents and a resolution of inquiry.

Activists charge that Bush committed obstruction of Congress, a felony under 18 U.S.C. 1001, by withholding information and by supplying information Bush should have known to be incorrect in his States of the Union speeches. This law is comparable to perjury, but it does not require that the statements be made under oath.

John Conyers, Robert Parry and Marjorie Cohn -professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists- asserts that this was not a war in self-defense but a war of aggression contrary to the U.N. Charter and therefore is possibly a war crime.

Geneva Conventions controversy

Main article: Illegal combatant

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001 the Bush administration advocated that Al Qaeda and Taliban would be determined to be unlawful combatants. As such it was suggested they did not have the protection by the Geneva Conventions. The American Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, the Council on Foreign Relations and Joanne Mariner from FindLaw have dismissed this as not compatible with U.S. and international law.

Representative John Conyers and Veterans For Peace hold that violating the Geneva Conventions is an impeachable offense.

Extraordinary rendition

Main articles: Extraordinary rendition and United Nations Convention Against Torture

Critics have accused the CIA of rendering suspected terrorists to other countries in order to avoid U.S. laws prescribing due process and prohibiting torture and have called this "torture by proxy" or "torture flights". Alberto Gonzales explicitly testified to Congress that the administration's position was to extradite detainees to other nations as long as it was not "more likely than not" that they would be tortured, although he later modified that statement. However, the Convention against torture states:

No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

Commentators, among which the United Nations and Louise Arbour, have stated that under international law rendition as practiced by the U.S. government is illegal.

Treatment of detainees

As part of the war on terror several memos were written analyzing the legal position and possibilities in the treatment of prisoners. The memos, known today as the "torture memos," were written advocating enhanced interrogation techniques but also pointing out that refuting the Geneva Conventions would reduce the possibility of prosecution for war crimes. In addition, a new definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S.

Several top military lawyers including Alberto J. Mora reported that policies equivalent to torture were officially handed down from the highest levels of the administration, and led an effort within the Department of Defense to put a stop to those policies and instead mandate non-coercive interrogation standards.

Notwithstanding the suggestion of official policy the administration repeatedly assured critics the publicised cases were incidents and President Bush later stated that:

"The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand."

To address the multitude of incidents of prisoner abuse the McCain Detainee Amendment was adopted. However, in his signing statement President Bush made clear that he reserved the right to waive this bill if he thought that was needed.

Over the years numerous incidents have been reported and a UN report denounced the abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture. Several legal analysts -such as Marjorie Cohn, Elizabeth Holtzman, Human Rights First- have advocated that writing these memos, not preventing or stopping the abuse could result in legal challenges involving war crimes under the command responsibility.

Allegedly leaking classified information

Main articles: Yellowcake forgery and Plame affair

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush cited British government sources in saying that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium. He referred to what turned out to be falsified documents. After Ambassador Wilson wrote an article denouncing this assertion, the identity of his wife as CIA employee was made public, allegedly for the 1st time. Wilson later made the allegation this was done to retaliate after his article. An investigation about this by Patrick Fitzgerald is ongoing. It has led so far to the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, though not for releasing any Plame information. There are reports that an indictment of Karl Rove may be pending. Additionally, the litigation surrounding Libby has yielded court papers showing that Libby was ordered to disseminate classified information by his "superiors". It has been pointed out that, as Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Libby's only superiors were the President and the Vice President.

As of April 06, 2006 it became known that Libby had testified that President Bush authorized the disclosure of the previously classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The position of the Bush administration is that a Presidentally authorized release of material is not a "leak" in the sense that Presidents are authorized to de-classiffy material and the release of de-classified material is not leaking. Some argue that this contradicts previous statements by Bush in which he made clear that leaking information is unacceptable. Bush's alleged misrepresentations on this point and his declassifying of information for allegedly a political purpose, is seen by some as impeachable offense.

Hurricane Katrina

The alleged responsibility of the George W. Bush administration in the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina has been used by Ramsey Clark, Francis Boyle, PopMatters, Green Party of Humboldt County and the Sunday Independent to suggest failure by the administration to adequately provide for the need of its citizens. To date, precisely how any Katrina related complaints rise to the level of an impeachable offense, has not been explained.

Alleged abuse of power

Main article: Unitary executive theory

As Commander-in-Chief in the war on terror, President Bush has asserted broad war powers to protect the American people. These have been used to justify policies connected with the war. Elizabeth Holtzman, John Dean, Elizabeth de la Vega, AlterNet, the St. Petersburg Times and the Santiago Times have claimed that Bush has exceeded constitutional or other legal limitations on such war powers.

The Bush administration denies this allegation by explaining that the President is only asserting his Constitutional duty as Commander-in-Chief to protect the country.

See also

• George W. Bush
• Impeachment in the United States
• Movement to impeach George W. Bush