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The movement to impeach George W. Bush is a political movement advocating the impeachment of United States President George W. Bush. Those who have voiced support for impeachment include some Democratic and Republican members of the United States Congress, various other politicians and government officials, demonstrators, scholars, authors, members of the media, and a segment of the American people and international community. The reasons they offer for Bush's impeachment include concerns about the legitimacy, legality, and constitutionality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the controversial electronic surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency.

2007 polls have shown public support ranging between 39 and 45 percent in favor of impeaching Bush, and between 46 and 55 percent opposed. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has not considered the impeachment of President Bush and the House of Representatives has taken no action to do so. The Democratic Party leadership has indicated that they have no intention of resolving to impeach him.

Impeachment

To impeach the President of the United States, a majority of the United States House of Representatives must agree to pass a resolution that alleges the President committed "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." This impeachment resolution is also commonly called an "Article of Impeachment" and spells out in detail the charges against the President. The House of Representatives then exhibits these Articles of Impeachment to the United States Senate since the latter body has the "sole Power" to "try all impeachments."

If the U.S. Senate, by two-thirds vote, finds the President "guilty" on any Article of Impeachment, then the President is removed from office and the Senate next votes on whether or not to disqualify the ex-President from holding further office under the United States. Although already tried by the Senate, the ex-President is still liable to indictment and trial under regular criminal statutes for any federal crimes he may have committed. If the U.S. Senate fails to reach a two-thirds majority for conviction, the President is acquitted and the trial is over.

In the House, the Judiciary Committee is the typical committee to where impeachment resolutions are referred. The Judiciary Committee has formally reported to the full House of Representatives impeachment resolutions against four Presidents: President John Tyler, President Andrew Johnson, President Richard Nixon, and President Bill Clinton. Of those four Presidents, only Johnson and Clinton were impeached by the House. Both were acquitted by the Senate. Nixon resigned after the Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment but before the full House considered the report. (Nixon resigned apparently after being told that his impeachment and conviction were near certainties by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a conservative Senator who ran for President in 1964.)

The President's pardon power does not extend to "Cases of Impeachment", as explicitly stated in Article Two of the United States Constitution. Thus a President may not intervene in either the House impeachment or the Senate trial. Dispute exists about whether the Impeachment exception to the pardon power extends to cases brought in the regular court system after Senate conviction.

Political views and actions

Democrats in Congress

On May 10, 2006 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) indicated she was not interested in pursuing impeachment and had taken it "off the table", reiterating this phrase on November 8, 2006. In July 2007, Pelosi stated that she "would probably advocate" impeaching Bush if she were not in the House nor Speaker of the House.

On June 16, 2005 Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) assembled an unofficial meeting to discuss the Downing Street Memo and to consider grounds for impeachment. Dozens of members of Congress, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Ray McGovern participated.

On December 20, 2005, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, at Conyers' request, filed its report. Regarding this report, Conyers makes several allegations favoring impeachment on his blog.

Conyers filed a resolution on December 18, 2005 to create an investigative committee to consider impeachment. His resolution gained 38 co-sponsors before it expired at the end of the 109th Congress. He has not re-introduced a similar resolution for the 110th Congress.

As of May 18, 2006, Conyers' current position regarding impeachment is "... rather than seeking impeachment, I have chosen to propose comprehensive oversight of these alleged abuses."

On December 19, 2005, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) issued a press release, saying that she had written four undisclosed legal scholars, asking if there were grounds for impeachment. In the press release, she cited the December 16, 2005, New York Times disclosure of Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to monitor Americans without warrants. However, in a December 20, 2005, CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, Boxer stated she was not ready to call for Bush's impeachment.

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) has said that Bush should be impeached for authorizing the NSA's actions.

At another unofficial hearing convened by Conyers on January 20, 2006, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called for the committee to explore whether Bush should face impeachment, stemming from his decision to authorize domestic surveillance without court review. The proceedings had no legal authority, as committee chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, (R-WI), rejected Democrats' requests for an inquiry.

Keith Ellison was the leading figure behind the resolution to impeach Bush brought to the Minnesota State House of Representatives in May 2006 (see below). Ellison said “I absolutely know and can show that (the president) deserves it; he deserves to be impeached.”

Ellison was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006. During the campaign and when he was named to the House Judiciary Committee, Ellison repeatedly called for an investigation into a possible impeachment. In support of his candidacy, he “received a $1,000 contribution from ImpeachPAC”.

One of Ellison’s Republican counterparts from Minnesota, Rep. John Kline, said “Ellison's views won't matter because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has already said impeachment is ‘off the table.’ In all fairness to the gentleman from Minneapolis, he is a freshman member. I understand that he was endorsed by ImpeachPAC and supported financially. ... He probably feels that he made a commitment and he's got to make some noise, but so what?” On April 22, 2007 Ellison later met with constituents, and listed new conditions for his support for impeachment hearings, such as verifiable facts and the backing of a majority of the American people.

On December 8, 2006 (the last day of the 109th Congress), then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) submitted a resolution, H. Res. 1106, introducing articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The bill expired along with the 109th Congress.

Conyers brought up impeachment on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos July 8th, 2007, stating:

"We're hoping that as the cries for the removal of both Cheney and Bush now reach 46 percent and 58 percent, respectively, for impeachment, that we could begin to become a little bit more cooperative, if not even amicable, in trying to get to the truth of these matters."

In late July 2007, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) stated his intentions to introduce legislation to formally censure the president and vice president "within days." During an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Feingold stated "there's a lot of sentiment in the country...for actually impeaching the President and the Vice President. I think that they have committed impeachable offenses with regard to this terrorist surveillance program and making up their own program", later referring to censure as a "moderate course."

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich' major point in the Democratic Presidential Debate on October 30, 2007 was that the president and vice-president should be impeached for the war in Iraq. On November 6, 2007, Kucinich introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney in the House of Representatives, and is currently preparing another impeachment resolution he says is more than 300 pages long.

In November 2007, Presidential candidate Joe Biden stated that he will move to impeach if President Bush bombs Iran without first gaining congressional approval.

Republicans in Congress

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has raised the possibility of impeachment . In an interview on ABC News' This Week on March 25, 2007, however, Hagel said, “I didn't call for it, I didn't predict it. What I was saying, I was laying out options here.”

Several weeks after Ignacio Ramos, one of the border guards imprisoned for shooting an alleged drug dealer on the US-Mexico border, was assaulted in prison, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said, ""I tell you, Mr. President, if Ignacio Ramos or Jose Compean -- especially after this assault -- are murdered in prison, or if one of them lose their lives, there's going to be some sort of impeachment talk in Capitol Hill."

In July 2006, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) stated on Alex Jones' radio show "I would have trouble arguing that he's been a Constitutional President, and once you violate the Constitution and be proven to do that I think these people should be removed from office."

State Legislatures

As of June 2007, 11 state legislatures have considered impeachment resolutions; none has passed such a resolution. Impeachment resolutions in Wisconsin and Maine were still pending votes; in the other nine states, resolutions have either been defeated or 'died' with the closure of the legislative session without ever coming to a vote. These states were: Illinois (the first state to consider such a measure, introduced April 20, 2006), California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Vermont and Washington

On April 20, 2007, the Vermont State Senate passed a resolution calling for impeachment on a 16-9 vote, without debate. A similar resolution made its way through the Vermont House less than a week later, but was defeated 87-60.

On April 20, 2006, the Illinois State Legislature began to consider Resolution 125 (HJR0125), which brought five specific charges against Bush. On April 25, 2006 over a dozen members of the Illinois house co-sponsored the bill, and referred it to the Rules Committee.

In April 2006, an impeachment proposal was introduced in the California state legislature. On November 7 2006, voters in San Francisco and Berkeley approved ballot measures calling for Bush and Cheney's impeachment. Both measures call upon the California State Legislature and both houses of Congress to pursue impeachment proceedings.

On May 4 2006, then-State Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-Minneapolis) and four other DFL state legislators proposed a "resolution relating to impeachment of President George W. Bush".

On January 23 2007 a resolution was introduced to the New Mexico Legislature.

The Democrats hold both chambers of New Mexico’s Legislature, but the resolution has been set to come before three different committee hearings. The New Mexican reported “That many committee assignments generally is thought of as the kiss of death for legislation. Not only are there three chances to kill a measure before it gets to a floor vote, it also increases the chance that time will run out in the 60-day session before a measure can make it through both chambers.” Republican members told reporters that they were not taking the resolution seriously and cited the number of committee hearings as one of the reasons for their opinion.

Washington state senator Eric Oemig introduced Senate Joint Memorial 8016 in February 2007 calling on Congress to investigate and consider the impeachment of President Bush.

State Party Conventions

On April 28, 2007, the California Democratic Convention passed a resolution for impeachment. On May 19, 2007, the Massachusetts Democratic Convention passed a resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney. On March 21 2006 the New Mexico Democratic Party, at a convention in Albuquerque, adopted a plank to their platform saying “the Democratic Party of New Mexico supports the impeachment of George Bush and his lawful removal from office.”

On March 24, 2007, the Vermont Democratic State Committee voted to support JRH 15, a state legislative resolution supporting impeachment, calling for its passage as "appropriate action."

Local communities

As of July 2007, a total of 80 cities and townships in the United States had passed declarations calling for the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

By March 6, 2007, 39 towns in Vermont (up from just five towns in 2006) had passed resolutions calling on Congress to file articles of impeachment against Bush for claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and for it's warrantless wiretapping program. On May 17, 2007, the Detroit City Council passed a unanimous, non-binding resolution calling for the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. The resolution was sponsored by Monica Conyers, wife of Rep. John Conyers.

As of June 2007, a number of local community governments had passed similar impeachment resolutions. They are as follows

• California: 8 cities (including Arcata, Berkeley, Eureka, San Francisco, Santa Rosa and West Hollywood)
• Illinois: 1 city (Urbana)
• Massachusetts: 17 towns
• Michigan: 2 cities (Detroit; Ferndale)
• New Hampshire: 1 township (Hanover)
• New York: four townships; one county (Tompkins)
• North Carolina: two towns (Carrboro; Chapel Hill}
• Ohio: 1 city (Oberlin)
• Vermont: 39 townships
• Washington: 11 state legislative districts; 1 city (Olympia)

Reported White House reaction

The January 23-29 2006 issue of Insight on the News, self-described as "a sister publication" of the Washington Times, included an article, "Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst." This article said administration sources regard Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy as "a prelude to the impeachment process." An anonymous source criticized Congress, saying, "We will tell the American people that while we have done everything we can to protect them, our policies are being endangered by a hypocritical Congress."

Public opinion

2005 polls

In October 2005, an anti-Iraq war organization, After Downing Street, commissioned a poll by the independent Ipsos Public Affairs Research, which found that by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent Americans say that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. A Zogby International poll from October 29 to November 2 2005 confirmed this result by a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent. This was supported by 76 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Independents, and 29 percent of Republicans. A November 2, 2005 Washington Post-ABC News poll found 55 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration "intentionally misled the public" in making its case for war.

On December 15 2005, Rasmussen Reports released a poll that showed that 32 percent of the 1,000 Americans polled would support an impeachment of Bush and 35 percent would support an impeachment of Cheney.

2006 polls

A March 16 2006 poll by American Research Group showed that 42 percent of American adults favored impeaching Bush, with 49 percent opposed.

A September 2, 2006 poll conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. indicated that 30 percent of the American people supported impeachment, and 69 percent were opposed. One percent had no opinion. This support for impeachment was similar to the 34 percent who favored impeachment for Bill Clinton during the height of the Lewinsky scandal.

An October 2006 Newsweek poll found support for the impeachment of President Bush as follows: 28 percent felt that impeachment should be a "top priority", 23 percent a "lower priority", and 44 percent that it should not be done.

2007 polls

According to Angus Reid, an InsiderAdvantage poll around May 1, 2007, found 39 percent of American voters to favor impeaching both Bush and Cheney, and 55 percent opposed. Analyzing these numbers, Bob Barr, who initiated the Clinton impeachment hearings, said that "this indicates the surprising depth of dissatisfaction with Bush."

On July 6, 2007, a telephone poll conducted by the American Research Group found that 45 percent of American adults favored the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush, with 46 percent opposing the proceedings. In the same poll, 54 percent wanted impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and 40 percent were opposed.

In another July 2007 pool by USA Today/Gallup, 36% of Americans felt there was justification for congress to begin impeachment proceedings against the President, while 62% felt that there was no justification

In October 2007, a poll found 61 percent of likely voters in Vermont to be in favor of Congress beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush, with 33% opposed.

A November 13, 2007 nationwide poll by American Research Group found 34% of all voters agreeing that "President Bush has abused his powers as president which rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution and he should be impeached and removed from office", distributed among 50% of Democrats, 18% of Republicans and 34% of independents. 43% of all voters nationwide agreed Dick Cheney has abused his powers as vice president to the level of impeachable offenses and he should be impeached and removed from office.

Online polls and surveys

A number of organizations provide online voting and petitions regarding Bush/Cheney impeachment. The MSNBC "Live Vote: Should Bush be impeached?" is ongoing and has garnered in excess of 585,000 votes, 89% in favor of impeachment (as of November 19, 2007). However, MSNBC provides the disclaimer that "MSNBC's online surveys ... are not necessarily representative of the general population." Democrats.com has an active online petition, "Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney", which has received more than 124,000 of its targeted 1,000,000 signatures.

MoveOn has not officially taken up the cause for Bush/Cheney impeachment; however, they have quietly initiated an online survey entitled "Dealing with the Administration". Ironically, MoveOn's reluctance to act more forcefully has led to yet another online petition, "It's Time for MoveOn to Start Talking about Impeachment", endorsed by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, with more than 2,300 additional signatures.

Media response to polls

The major media have largely ignored these opinion polls and protests. However, several columnists have endorsed impeachment. Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group predicted on November 6, 2005 that "if the country, according to the polls, believes by a margin of 55 percent that President Bush misled us into war, the next logical step is impeachment and I think you’re going to hear that word come up and if the Democrats ever capture either house of Congress there are going to be serious proceedings against this administration." However, Clift's prediction proved to be in error. After the Democrats took both the House and Senate in the 2006 elections, there was no serious movement undertaken in Congress to initiate impeachment hearings.

When the Washington Post's chief pollster, Richard Morin, was asked by readers why the Post has not polled on impeachment he responded, "This question makes me angry" and explained: "we do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion--witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in '08 are calling for Bush's impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls." According to Media Matters for America, the Washington Post asked about impeachment in a poll conducted a few days after the revelation of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky in 1998. Frank Newport, the director of the Gallup Poll, has said he would only run a poll on the subject if it starts to gain mainstream attention and not until then. By September of 1998, Gallup had conducted and published a poll on the subject of President Clinton's impeachment.

Rallies and marches

An anti-Iraq war protest march in Washington, DC on 24 September 2005 attracted over 100,000 people. The march among other things included calls for impeachment and for investigations leading to impeachment.

On November 2 2005, The World Can't Wait mobilized marches across the country that called for the ousting of Bush.

Groups formed to support impeachment

Numerous groups have been created to support impeachment. The ImpeachBush.org website claims to have collected 984,746 signatures (as of December 15, 2007) on a petition to impeach Bush; roughly 0.3 percent of the country's population. In Los Angeles on July 4, 2007 the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center was launched by Executive Director, attorney and longtime Green Party activist Peter Thottam. The Impeachment Center is also known as LANIC with its website at .

On LANIC's website there is an updating set of resolutions, volunteer video clips and other information on its website located at www.BCIMPEACH.com. LANIC is focusing on H Res 333, the resolution to impeach Cheney. As of September 10, 2007, LANIC had collected 4,892 handwritten signatures of pro-impeachment signatures of Los Angeles residents together with verifiable addresses. LANIC's goal is to have 5,000 such signatures for submission to the L.A. City Council by September 15, 2007.

LANIC's Impeachment headquarters is the first of its kind in the U.S. . It was launched with the purpose of being a public space facilitating the cooperative work of Progressive Democrats, Green Party members, activists from World Can't Wait, 911Truth, Interfaith Communities United for Justice & Peace (ICUJP) and many other progressive groups. On July 16, 2007, LANIC was successful in working with the West Hollywood City Council to unanimously approve a symbolic, non-binding resolution calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This was the first city council in Southern California to pass such an impeachment resolution. Building on the success of the West Hollywood vote and on impeachment resolutions co-sponsored by LANIC at the July 2007 US Social Forum, LANIC organizers are currently focusing on Santa Monica, Culver City, Glendale, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and Los Angeles city councils. Volunteers are also lobbying California legislative and federal representatives to approve resolutions calling for impeachment of Bush and Cheney for high crimes involving abuse of executive power.

The day after its July 4, 2004 launch, the Los Angeles Times ran a full page story on the Center noting its potential as a national model for impeachment centers across the country. The July 5, 2007 Times story noted Congresswoman Maxine Waters' observation that '"This is one of the most important efforts this country has ever seen," as " spoke to over 500 citizens gathered for a noon rally at nearby La Cienega Park.' The center is now serving as a model for similar impeachment centers throughout California as well as Affiliate Centers that have launched in states such as Vermont, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Missouri, Illinois and Minnesota.

On December 20 2005, The AfterDowningStreet.org website mounted an effort to support Conyers' legislation to censure Bush and Cheney and to investigate the administration's lead-up to the Iraq war, in possible preparation to impeachment.

Constitution Summer , a nonpartisan coalition of students and young people at law schools and universities nationwide, helped the cities of Berkeley and San Francisco put impeachment on their municipal ballots, and are working to help other cities pass city council resolutions.

Advocates of impeachment

Organizations

• Impeach For Peace.org advocates "do-it-yourself" impeachment initiation by U.S. citizens.
• Even before Bush took office, on December 13 2000, the Impeachbush.tv organization was formed.
• On June 27 2006, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to place Articles of Impeachment on the municipal ballot. The ballot initiative was based on the Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush by the Center for Constitutional Rights. It was drafted by the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, and was lobbied for by Constitution Summer. On November 7 2006, the measure passed with a 68.9% majority.
• On August 8 2006, Constitution Summer announced that San Francisco Supervisors Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Tom Ammiano, and Jake McGoldrick had placed an initiative favoring impeachment on the San Francisco municipal ballot.
• The National Lawyer's Guild has drafted an impeachment resolution . The National Lawyers Guild voted unanimously for a resolution calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at their national convention in Washington, DC on November 2, 2007.
• In Los Angeles, on July 4, 2007 the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center was launched by Executive Director, attorney and longtime Green Party activist Peter Thottam. The Impeachment Center is also known as LANIC www.BCIMPEACH.com.
• On March 1 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution 7-3 calling on the congressional delegates representing California to impeach Bush. The mayor of the city has said he does not know whether he will sign it, and in either case, it will remain a low priority for him even if he does.
• The Green Party National Committee passed a resolution calling for impeachment of Bush and Cheney at its national meeting on July 21 2003.
• At the most recent state convention, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin called for the Impeachment of Bush, Cheney and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (who has since resigned).
• On July 9, 2006, the Wisconsin Green Party and the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin called for Bush's impeachment.
• AfterDowningStreet, an organization begun by liberal activists Bob Fertik and David Swanson and constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, advocates a congressional Resolution of Inquiry into the Downing Street Memo and related evidence.
• Impeach Central is dedicated to the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
• United for Peace of Pierce County (WA) adopted statements calling for the impeachment of President Bush on April 21, 2005, and again on May 19, 2005.
• Veterans for Peace has called for the impeachment of George Bush.
• Gold Star Families for Peace sent a bus to Crawford, Texas, emblazoned with the words "Impeachment Tour" in August 2005.
• On June 4, 2006, the board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously to investigate whether or not Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority by using signing statements.
• Tim Carpenter, president of Progressive Democrats of America, has made statements supporting impeachment.
• In November 2007, Green Party of the United States leaders called impeachment "an urgent necessity" after former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's revelation that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were involved in the conspiracy to expose the identity of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame.

Politicians and government officials

• Ralph Nader's 2004 presidential campaign also promoted the cause of a Bush impeachment. Nader also wrote an op-ed, (with Kevin Zeese, director of DemocracyRising.us) favoring impeachment.
• Elizabeth Holtzman, former Congresswoman who served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach Richard Nixon, advocates impeaching Bush in her 2006 book, coauthored with Cynthia L. Cooper, The Impeachment of George W. Bush, and in numerous articles and public appearances.
• Pat Buchanan, in his syndicated column, called for a bill of impeachment in regard to issues with illegal immigration.
• Dennis Morrisseau, a candidate for the Vermont House of Representatives seat has said he will campaign for impeachment against Bush. Although Morrisseau is campaigning for the Republican nomination, he has previously run for public office only as a Democrat, and says he voted for John Kerry for president in the 2004 election.
• Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration has repeatedly stated support for impeachment.
• Former Clinton Administration Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury J. Bradford DeLong has called for Bush's impeachment.
• On March 7 2006, Vermont town meetings in Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro, Newfane and Putney called for impeachment of the president, and instructed then-Rep. (now Senator) Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to pursue this end. Five Vermont towns endorse move to impeach the president After initially labelling the request as "impractical", Sanders added his name to Conyers' impeachment investigation bill.
• Former Central Intelligence Agency officer Ray McGovern wrote on July 3, 2007 that he no longer had "any doubt in my mind whether he and President George W. Bush have committed the kinds of high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant impeachment." He has also previously argued for impeachment.

Legal and academic professionals

• John Dean, former White House Counsel to President Nixon, and convicted felon for his role in the Watergate scandal. was an early advocate of a Bush impeachment. More recently, Dean stated: I myself have no doubt that Bush has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses, and that for each Bush "high crime and misdemeanor," Cheney's culpability is ten or twenty times greater. However, Dean goes on to argue in favor of refocusing the impeachment movement on administration officials below the President and Vice-President.
• Ramsey Clark, United States Attorney General under Lyndon Johnson, and lawyer for Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, has set up a website, VoteToImpeach.
• Constitutional Law Professor Francis Boyle has written six draft articles of impeachment against Bush.
• Scholars Bruce Fein (constitutional scholar and former deputy attorney general in the Reagan Administration) and Norm Ornstein (scholar at the American Enterprise Institute) argued on the December 19 2005 Diane Rehm show that Congress should consider impeachment. In a Slate editorial in June 2007, he advocated impeaching Cheney.
• Constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz has written a book on the case for impeaching Bush, is a co-founder of After Downing Street, and has spoken regularly in favor of impeachment.
• Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a specialist in surveillance, spoke about Bush's admission that he authorized warrantless wiretaps and indicated that the authorization might be an impeachable offense.
• Attorney Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights and journalist Dave Lindorff published a book in May 2006 entitled, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (ISBN 0-312-36016-9).

Media editorials and opinion pieces

• The right-wing John Birch Society magazine The New American published an opinion piece on January 9, 2006 in favor of impeachment, titled “It's Not Just a Piece of Paper” in reference to the US Constitution.
• Radio personality and syndicated columnist Garrison Keillor wrote a column on February 28 2006, calling for impeachment.
• Robert Scheer, columnist formerly at the Los Angeles Times and currently at the San Francisco Chronicle, and contributing editor of The Nation, has repeatedly called for impeachment.
• In an October 28 2004 column, "Hold Bush Accountable," Richard Cohen, of the Washington Post, accused Bush of impeachable offenses.
• Lyndon LaRouche stated in July 2007 that "if Hillary Clinton were to call for the immediate impeachment of Dick Cheney, she could win the Presidency by acclamation."
• On the September 11, 2006 episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, host Keith Olbermann' made reference to impeachment during the show's "Special Comment" section. Olbermann also frequently discusses possible impeachment proceedings and grounds for same with experts on his program.
• Cindy Sheehan announced in July 2007 that she would run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her refusal to try to impeach Bush.
• On November 25, 2007, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed a full page editorial in favor of impeachment written by Linda Boyd, the director of Washington For Impeachment. The article included a quarter-page sized picture depicting criminal mugshots of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Rationales for impeachment

Proponents of impeaching Bush assert that one or more of his actions qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors" under which the president can constitutionally be impeached.

This section collates a list of pro-impeachment advocates' rationales as suggested by commentators, legal analysts, members of the Democratic Party, the Center for Constitutional Rights and others. However, since impeachment is inherently political, and not a legal process, there is no exact definition of what constitutes an impeachable offense. Therefore, this list is not necessarily accurate. Simply stated, it is up to Congress to determine if something rises to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

In the context of the "war on terror", Bush ordered the wiretapping of certain international calls to and from the U.S. without a warrant. The program's critics contend that it violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was adopted to remedy similar actions in the past (e.g. Operation Shamrock, Operation Minaret, Church Committee). They also allege that it violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures of US citizens, including 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, to bypass FISA. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court majority held that neither the AUMF nor the president's role as Commander-in-Chief trumps explicit federal law, in this case the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In January 2006, the 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.

In addition, the American Bar Association, in February 13, 2006, issued a statement denouncing the warrantless domestic surveillance program, accusing Bush of exceeding his powers under the Constitution. Their analysis opines that the key arguments advanced by the Bush administration are not compatible with the law. David Kris and five former FISC judges, one of whom resigned in protest, have also voiced their doubts as to the legality of a program bypassing FISA.

Aside from these organisations, others (see below) have stated that the Bush administration's justification of the program, using 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." The Senate Committee voted along party lines, and decided a detailed investigation into the matter was unwarranted.

Former House member Elizabeth Holtzman (who played a key role in House impeachment proceedings against Nixon), John Dean (Nixon's former counsel) and Jennifer van Bergen from FindLaw assert that by authorizing warrantless domestic wiretapping, President Bush violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without legal basis, constituting a felony and as such an impeachable offense.

On August 17 2006, the case, ACLU v. NSA, in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the Bush administration’s program to monitor the phone calls and e-mails of Americans without warrants was unconstitutional and must be stopped. It was the first ruling by a federal court to strike down the National Security Agency surveillance program. In her ruling, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor dismissed the government’s argument that the president "has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself." In the conclusion of the ruling, Justice Warren was quoted from the case U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967) where he wrote:

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart…It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of…those liberties…which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. Id. at 264.

In response to this decision, on September 20, 2006, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as both committees approved H.R. 5825, the "Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act." According to the ACLU, that bill, authored by Representative Heather Wilson (R-NM) would give the president unprecedented power and authorize the warrantless surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency. Some civil liberties groups opposed the bill commenting that the new bill gives the president tacit approval to ignore the Constitution.

Bush notified Congressional leaders of his decision to authorize warrantless wiretapping at the time of the decision. However, they were not totally informed, nor were they allowed to take notes or confer with others to assess the possible ramifications of this program.

2003 invasion of Iraq

Constitutionality of invasion

In February and March 2003, John Bonifaz served as lead counsel for a coalition of US soldiers, their parents, and members of Congress in John Doe I v. President Bush, a constitutional challenge to Bush’s authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. Bonifaz argued in court that Bush's planned first-strike invasion of Iraq violated the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution. As a corollary to his lawsuit, Bonifaz has argued publicly and in writing that Bush ought to be impeached for this. However, Bonifaz's lawsuit was dismissed in February 2003 and, in March 2003, the dismissal was upheld on appeal. Regarding the dismissal, Bonifaz said:

"They’re not supposed to sideline... Courts cannot shirk from responsibility when it looks like a political battle."

Regarding the affirmation of the dismissal, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held:

"...the text of the October Resolution itself spells out justifications for a war and frames itself as an 'authorization' of such a war."

Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois also uses this argument as reason in his Draft Impeachment Resolution.

Justification for invasion

Furthermore, the arguments put forward for the invasion of Iraq — the continued 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. A report by the Defense Department in 2007 conclusively stated the claimed working relationship with Al Qaeda did not exist. As the Washington Post described it:

"the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and ... that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information."

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 Bush administration. An in-depth investigation into the nature of these discrepancies by the Senate Intelligence Committee has been frustrated. A New York Times editorial states:

Mr. Roberts (chairman of the Senate panel) tried to kill the investigation entirely, and after the Democrats forced him to proceed, he set rules that seem a lot like the recipe for a whitewash.

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. A report by the Post on April 12, 2006, corroborates that view. It states that the Bush administration advocated that two small trailers which had been found in Iraq were "biological laboratories," despite the fact that U.S. intelligence officials possessed evidence to the contrary at that time.

"The three-page field report and a 122-page final report published three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories."

U.N. Charter

By Article VI of the Constitution, Senate-ratified treaties such as the U.N. Charter are "the supreme Law of the Land." 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 – assert that this was not a war in self-defense but a war of aggression contrary to the U.N. Charter (a crime against peace) and therefore a war crime. Also, Kofi Annan called the war in Iraq a violation of the UN Charter and therefore "illegal." A war of aggression refers to any war not initiated out of self-defence or sanctioned by the UN. Such a violation of international law would constitute an impeachable offense according to Francis Boyle, John W. Dean, from FindLaw, Marcus Raskin and Joseph A. Vuckovich, from the Institute for Policy Studies.

Geneva Conventions controversy

Unlawful combatant status

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration advocated that suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban members would be designated as "unlawful combatants". They suggested that, as such, they were not protected under the Geneva Conventions. To address the mandatory review by a "competent tribunal" as defined by article five of the Third Geneva Convention, Combatant Status Review Tribunals were established. The American Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, the Council on Foreign Relations and Joanne Mariner from FindLaw have dismissed the use of the unlawful combatant status as not compatible with U.S. and international law. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court held that Common Article 3 (CA3) of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in the Global War on Terror. Per the War Crimes Act of 1996, any US national who "commits a war crime shall be fined ... or imprisoned ... , and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death."

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to provide a legal framework for the designation of "unlawful combatants", their detention, and trial through military commission. This was described as unconstitutional by several Senators during the floor debates, so it has not changed the views of those advocating impeachment on these grounds.

Extraordinary rendition

The CIA has "rendered" suspected terrorists, such as Maher Arar, to other countries. Critics accuse them of doing this in order to avoid U.S. laws prescribing due process and prohibiting torture, calling this "torture by proxy" and "torture flights". Then-U.S. Attorney GeneralAlberto 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, including the United Nations and Louise Arbour, have stated that, under international law, rendition as practiced by the U.S. government is illegal. Conyers has called for investigating whether these violations of international and US law constitute an impeachable offense, whereas Boyle thinks it does, and included this in his Draft Impeachment Resolution.

A report, on May 19 2006, by the UN Committee against Torture concluded that the US should not send suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture, since that would violate international law.

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," advocate enhanced interrogation techniques, but point 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 allowing methods 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 that the publicised cases were incidents, and Bush later stated that:

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

The administration adopted the McCain Detainee Amendment to address the multitude of incidents of detainee abuse. However, in his signing statement, 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 made public and a UN report denounced the abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture. Conyers has advocated investigating these abuses to see if they violate the Geneva Conventions and are thus cause for impeachment, while Boyle, Holtzman and Veterans For Peace hold that violating these laws is grounds for impeachment. An article in the Progressive supports the view that these alleged violations of US and international law could be an impeachable offense too.

Several legal analysts — such as Holtzman, Marjorie Cohn, and Human Rights First — have advocated that writing the so-called "torture memos," not preventing or stopping the abuse could result in legal challenges involving war crimes under the command responsibility. This view was confirmed when the US Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that, contrary to what the Bush administration advocated, the Third Geneva Convention (regarding the treatment of prisoners) applies to all detainees in the war on terror and as such the Military Tribunals used to try suspects were violating the law. The Court reaffirmed that those involved in mistreatment of detainees violate US and international law. Dave Lindorff contends that by ignoring the Geneva Conventions the Bush administration — including Bush himself, as Commander-in-Chief — is culpable for war crimes, and as such that constitutes an impeachable offense.

On May 19, 2006, the UN Committee against Torture issued a report stating the U.S. should stop, what it concludes, is "ill-treatment" of detainees, since such treatment, according to the report, violates international law. It also calls for cessation of the US-termed "enhanced interrogation" techniques, as the UN sees these methods as a form of torture. The UN report also admonishes against secret prisons, the use of which, is considered to amount to torture as well and should be discontinued.

Leaking of classified information

Possible involvement in the CIA leak

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, Bush cited British government sources in saying that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium. He referred to what ultimately turned out to be falsified documents. After Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an OpEd article in the New York Times denouncing the yellowcake basis and other justifications for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA employee, and specifically as a covert agent, appeared in media reports for the first time. Wilson later made the allegation her identity was leaked as personal retaliation against him for his pointing out misrepresentations regarding the uranium claim.

An investigation into this by Patrick Fitzgerald led to an indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby on perjury charges and for obstructing the investigation into the release of Plame's covert status. Hence, nobody has been indicted for divulging the name of a covert agent. The actual first source of Plame's name to the media was Richard Armitage.

At one point, Libby's indictment states:

"Prior to July 14 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community."

The litigation surrounding Libby has yielded court papers showing that Libby was authorized and instructed to disseminate formerly classified information by his superiors. No court papers have alleged that Bush or Cheney authorized the release of Plame's name. On April 13 2006, Bloomberg.com reported Libby has testified that Bush and Cheney did not authorize the release of Plame's name. Libby's position is that he did not leak Plame's name.

Libby was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. A court filing by Fitzgerald during his sentencing hearing revealed that Plame was indeed a covert agent.

Commuting Libby's sentence

Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a fine of $250,000. While Libby's appeal in United States v. Libby was still pending, the presiding judge, Reggie Walton, denied his request for a stay and ordered Libby to begin his prison sentence. Following that decision, Bush commuted Libby's sentence, eliminating the prison term while not changing the other parts and their conditions and stating that he believes the sentence too harsh given that "The reputation gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged" and that "The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting." Libby paid the required fine of "$250,400, which included a 'special assessment' of costs" that same day. Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... will face two years of probation, as said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... lawyers to file arguments on the point....""If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice."

Fitzgerald "took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive,' saying it was 'imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals,' Fitzgerald said. 'That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.'" Commentator and sentencing expert Harlan J. Protass noted that in Rita v. United States, the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.

Conyers announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves. And Rep. Robert Wexler stated:

I will file a Congressional resolution censuring President George W. Bush for his egregious and politically motivated commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence.

In light of the unprecedented decision and suspicion of obstructing justice, to cover up prior or ongoing criminal activities, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Marjorie Cohn, Elizabeth de la Vega, Dan Froomkin, and William Rivers Pitt have suggested this is an impeachable offense. According to Froomkin the President is within his prerogative, but continued to cite a Judiciary Committee report, drafted in response to Watergate, to concur with Marjorie Cohn that when used in matters in which he himself may be involved impeachment is warranted:

"In the convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to 'pardon crimes which were advised by himself' or, before indictment or conviction, 'to stop inquiry and prevent detection.' James Madison responded:

"f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. . . ."

"Madison went on to contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected."

Alleged Declassification for political purposes

On April 6, 2006, court papers were filed in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, stating that Libby had testified that Bush authorized the disclosure of select portions of the then classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The position of the Bush administration is that a Presidentially authorized release of material is not a "leak" in the sense that Presidents are authorized to de-classify 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. According to the court filings by Fitzgerald:

“Defendant (Libby) testified that this July 8 meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be declassified.”

Elizabeth de la Vega, Ray McGovern and Greg Mitchell have noted that the Bush Administration's asserted motivation — that this declassification was needed to counter misinformation spread by opponents of the Bush administration's casus belli — is odd, since only an obscure part of the NIE, which supports the claims advanced by the US government, has been released, while the rest of the report, in which the CIA in 2002 allegedly dismissed that claim as unlikely, is still classified. Bush's misrepresentations on this point and his allegedly declassifying of information for a political purpose, is seen by some as impeachable offense.

Alleged politicization of the United States attorney offices

In March 2007 it became known that eight United States Attorneys were dismissed. The Bush administration has issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings. Congressmen investigating these dismissals stated that sworn testimony from Department of Justice officials contradicts internal Department memos and e-mails.

Because of that, and the uncommon nature of these firings, critics suggest ulterior motives. Among them, Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper wrote that: "we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government." They allege that the attorneys were fired as retribution for prosecuting Republicans, or for failing to prosecute enough Democrats. for non-existent voter-fraud. This supposed fraud led The New York Times to the following response:

"Last week, we learned that the administration edited a government-ordered report on voter fraud to support its fantasy. The original version concluded that among experts "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud." But the publicly released version said, "There is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud." It's hard to see that as anything but a deliberate effort to mislead the public."

The article continues to suggest that emphasising voter-fraud facilitates regulations, such as voter ID laws, which discriminate against the "poor, the elderly, minorities and other disenfranchised groups that tend to support Democrats." Greg Gordon for McClatchy Newspapers concurs, commenting that it might be part of a scheme "to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates." The same is implied by Greg Palast in In These Times, where he reports that Timothy Griffin, Arkansas’ new attorney general, was involved in suppressing minority voters.

The investigation has drawn attention to the prosecution and subsequent conviction, during an election season, of Georgia Thompson for corruption, which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit immediately reversed because the prosecution's evidence was "beyond thin." Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Madison and the Senate Judiciary Committee are investigating this case.

Commentators have further observed the possible connection with the Jack Abramoff Guam investigation, which was discontinued after the chief prosecutor for Guam, and the instigator of the indictment, Frederick A. Black, was unexpectedly demoted and removed from office.

Schumer, other Democrats, Holtzman, Cooper, and Laurie Levenson — a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor — compared the firings -allegedly to influence investigations- to the Saturday Night Massacre, in which the Nixon administration fired Archibald Cox while he was investigating the alleged misconduct by the White House in the Watergate scandal.

For the involvement in these alleged wrongdoings and the subsequent cover-up Marjorie Cohn, Elizabeth Holtzman, Cynthia L. Cooper, and Thom Hartmann have suggested that impeachment proceedings are warranted.

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. And as such they hold that the allegations of incompetence amount to an impeachable offense.

The administration, and its supporters, contend that the principal responsibility lies with the local authorities. In a September 28, 2005 article in the Washington Times, then-FEMA head Michael Brown said accusations of inadequate handling of the disaster should be addressed to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

Expanded executive powers

Bush has asserted broad executive powers, attributing them to his position as Commander-in-Chief and to the war on terror. These have been used to justify policies connected with the war in Iraq. Constitutional law expert Glenn Greenwald attributes Bush's interpretation of the authority of the president to a series of legal memos by John Yoo, identifies this expansive interpretation as the common thread shared by the other Bush controversies, and indicates that this interpretation is based on combining the powers of all three branches of government in the single person of the President, and is therefore the diametric opposite of the text and the Founding Fathers' intended meaning of the Constitution.

Holtzman, Dean, 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. In the Draft Impeachment Resolution, Boyle advocates that this is an impeachable offense. John Nichols of The Nation has argued that "if Bush and Cheney are not held accountable, this administration will hand off to its successors a toolbox of powers greater than any executive has ever held -- more authority, concentrated in fewer hands, than the Founders could have conceived or would have allowed."

Criticism of the impeachment movement

Conservative columnist Byron York of The National Review has suggested that proponents of impeachment are almost entirely "left-wing bloggers", that Conyers had "already decided the conclusions he will reach" before the Judiciary Committee's investigation had even started, and that "interpretive structure of the report" indicates that it "is not the product of a real investigation."

In response to a headline "Impeach or else...", liberal journalist Michael Tomasky replied with a headline calling impeachment The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make. In his article, Tomasky claimed that while most liberals agree there is a substantial legal case for impeachment, the proceedings would be a politically unwise course of action, because it would: "convert Bush from the figure of contempt and mockery he is now into one of vague sympathy", "...alienate nonideological voters and, therefore, harm the Democrats' otherwise excellent chances for winning congressional seats and the White House in 2008", and thus harm "liberalism and the country".

See also

• ACLU President Strossen on religion, drugs, guns and impeaching George Bush
• Impeachment of Bill Clinton
• H. Res. 333 to Impeach Richard Cheney
• Impeachment in the United States

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108. http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000963.html
109. http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=11229
110. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06091/678696-84.stm
111. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html
112. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/18/21310/392
113. http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle01172003.html
114. http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/05/12/19.php
115. http://slate.com/id/2169292/
116. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/22/impeach/index.html
117. http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_2932.shtml
118. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/03/01/keillor/index.html
119. http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14873
120. http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15300
121. http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15346
122. http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16045
123. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3933-2004Oct27.html
124. http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2007/07/13/hillary-clinton-demand-immediate-cheney-impeachment-could-en.html
125. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/sheehan.impeachment.ap/
126. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2337983820070723
127. Impeachment: If not now, when?
128. ^ The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War Investigative Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff
129. Arguments in general.
     • The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office written by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky details the legal and Constitutional reasons for an impeachment.
     • Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment originally Web-posted by House Judiciary Committee member Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
     • The Impeachable Mr. Bush An Aggregation of High Crimes and Misdemeanors By Ralph Nader, CounterPunch, January 28-29, 2006
     • The I-Word is Gaining Ground by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation, December 27 2005
     • Bush's Last, Best Hope: the Democrats A Popular Groundswell for Impeachment By DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch, March 7 2006
     • Five Vermont Towns Vote to Impeach Bush Associated Press, March 7 2006
     • Plenty of opportunities to impeach Bush by Diane E. Dees, Mother Jones, April 5 2006
     • Raising the Issue of Impeachment by John Nichols, The Nation, December 20 2005
130. Impeaching George W. Bush By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet, March 6 2006.
131. Fourth Amendment
     • Bush Stomps on Fourth Amendment by Laurence H. Tribe, Boston Globe, May 16 2006
     • Stopping Hayden & the NSA By Ivan Eland, Consortiumnews.com, May 17 2006
132. Wiretapping possibly illegal
     • 'Specific' info on NSA eavesdropping? A new lawsuit may have what other cases don't: official records about those under surveillance By Brad Knickerbocker, The Christian Science Monitor, March 6 2006
     • What the President Ordered in This Case Was a Crime by John Nichols, The Nation, January 23 2006
     • Watching What You Say Tim Shorrock, The Nation, March 2 2006
133. LEGAL AUTHORITIES SUPPORTING THE ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY DESCRIBED BY THE PRESIDENT U.S. Department of Justice, January 19 2006
134. Congressional Research Service
     • Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information January 5 2006
     • Statutory Procedures Under Which Congress Is To Be Informed of U.S. Intelligence Activities, Including Covert Actions January 18 2006
135. American Bar Association
     • AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION ADOPTED BY THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES, February 13 2006
     • Lawyers Group Criticizes Surveillance Program Washington Post, February 14 2006
136. Legal Rationale for Spy Program Questioned By PETE YOST
137. Former FISA judges
     • Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program By ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times, March 29 2006
     • It’s Official… By Christy Hardin Smith, March 28 2006
138. No official inquiry into wiretapping
     • Senate Panel Blocks Eavesdropping Probe By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, March 8 2006
     • Senate Republicans Choose Bush Over Country on Domestic Spying
139. ^ The Impeachment of George W. Bush by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, January 11 2006
140. ^ Grounds for Impeachment by Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive,March 8 2006
141. Wiretapping probably impeachable offense
     • An Impeachable Offense? Bush Admits Authorizing NSA to Eavesdrop on Americans Without Court Approval Democracy Now, December 19 2005
     • George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachable; Both Claimed That a President May Violate Congress' Laws to Protect National Security By JOHN W. DEAN, FindLaw, December 30 2005
     • Is Clinton's history in Bush's future? by Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, December 30 2005
     • Time for a Special Prosecutor Bush's NSA Spying Program Violates the Law By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN, CounterPunch, March 4-5, 2006
     • Why Should Anyone Worry About Whose Communications Bush and Cheney Are Intercepting, If It Helps To Find Terrorists? By JOHN W. DEAN, FindLaw, February 24 2006
142. http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26489prs20060817.html
143. http://www.aclu.org/images/nsaspying/asset_upload_file689_26477.pdf
144. http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26802prs20060920.html
145. http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26802prs20060920.html
146. No evaluation allowed
     • Tapped OutWhy Congress won't get through to the NSA By Patrick Radden Keefe, Slate, February 2, 2006
     • Senators Want to Know Bush Wiretap Authority FOX News, December 20, 2005
147. John Doe I v. President Bush
148. Suit challenges Bush war authority CNN
149. Judge Dismisses HLS Alum’s Suit Against Bush By Kate A. Tiskus, The Harvard Crimson, February 25 2003
150. Opionion of First Circuit Court of Appeal in DOE v. Bush
151. ^ Draft Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush, 108nd Congress H.Res.XX, by Francis A. Boyle, professor of law, University of Illinois School of Law, January 17 2003
152. Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says by Andrea Lynn, the News Bureau of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
153. Weapons of Mass Destruction
     • Iraq's WMD Plans Were Preliminary CBS News, January 7 2004
     • Kay: No evidence Iraq stockpiled WMDs CNN, January 26 2004
     • See also Duelfer Report
     • WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications By Joseph Cirincione, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, George Perkovich, with Alexis Orton, Carnegie Endowment Report, January 2004
154. Link with Al Qaeda
     • Levin Releases Newly Declassified Intelligence Documents on Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship Documents show Administration claims were exaggerated, by Carl Levin, April 15 2005
     • Another Iraq story gets debunked By Dave Zweifel, The Capital Times
     • Bush Flatly Declares No Connection Between Saddam and al Qaeda The Memory Hole
155. Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted - Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited By R. Jeffrey Smith, W@ashington Post, April 6, 2007
156. ^ Blowing Cheney's Cover Ray McGovern, April 10 2006
157. The Intelligence Business editorial, The New York Times, May 7 2006
158. ^ Selectively disseminating information
     • Why 'leaker in chief' charge harms the president By Linda Feldmann, The Christian Science Monitor, April 10 2006
159. Misrepresenting the facts surrounding Iraq
     • The Impeachment of George W. Bush, by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, January 11 2006
     • A Firm Basis for Impeachment By Robert Scheer, AlterNet, July 18 2003
     • The Case for Impeachment By John Dean, FindLaw.com, June 11 2003
     • In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat Center for American Progress, January 29 2004]
     • Millions Protest Possible War with Iraq February 19 2003
160. Downing Street memo
     • Another Iraq Memo Revealed: Colin Powell Opposed War Without Second U.N. Resolution Posted by Think Progress March 28 2006
     • The secret Downing Street memo SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY DAVID MANNING, The Times, July 23 2002
161. FOIA request
     • Just hearsay, or the new Watergate tapes? By David Paul, Salon, June 6 2005
     • 52 House members file FOIA request seeking documents related to Downing Street minutes Raw Story, June 30 2005
162. "Biological laboratories"
     • Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War By Joby Warrick, The Washington Post, April 12 2006
163. War of aggression
     • War Crimes: Goose and Gander By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout, March 13 2006
     • Condi, War Crimes & the Press By Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, April 3 2006
     • Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes? By Jan Frel July 102006
164. Iraq impeachable offense?
     • Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense? by John W. Dean, CNN
     • George W. Bush: Legal Arguments for Impeachment by Marcus Raskin and Joseph A. Vuckovich, Institute for Policy Studies
165. Violating International Law
     • TASK FORCE ON TREATMENT OF ENEMY COMBATANTS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SECTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES REPORT TO THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES RECOMMENDATION by AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
     • U.S. Officials Misstate Geneva Convention Requirements by Human Rights Watch, January 28 2002
     • Findings Report: Enemy Combatants and the Geneva Conventions by the Council on Foreign Relations, December 12 2002
     • GUANTANAMERA: The Continuing Debate Over The Legal Status Of Guantanamo Detainees By JOANNE MARINER, FindLaw, March 11 2002
166. Torture by proxy
     • Pentagon Memo on Torture-Motivated Transfer Cited By Ken Silverstein, The Los Angeles Times, December 8 2005
     • Torture by Proxy The New Yorker, February 14 2005
167. Gonzales Defends Transfer of Detainees By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, March 8 2005
168. Legal position of rendition
     • U.N. Blasts Practice of Outsourcing Torture by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service
     • No Exceptions to the Ban on Torture By Louise Arbour, The San Diego Union Tribune, December 7 2005
169. ^ UN Committee against Torture report
     • US 'must end secret detentions' BBC, May 19 2006
     • U.N.: U.S. Should Close Gitmo Panel On Torture Also Says U.S. Should Avoid Using Secret Prisons CBS News, May 19 2006
170. The Interrogation Documents: Debating U.S. Policy and Methods the memos written as part of the war on terror
171. War crimes warning
     • Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings By Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, May 19 2004
     • Torture and Accountability by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, June 28 2005
     • US Lawyers Warn Bush on War Crimes By Grant McCool, Lawyers Against the War, Global Policy Forum, January 28 2003
172. US definition of torture
     • Judge's anger at US torture by Richard Norton-Taylor and Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, February 17 2006
     • Torture as National Policy By Dahr Jamail, Tomdispatch.com, March 9 2006
173. Torture as policy?
     • Memorandum for Inspector General, Department of the Navy July 7 2004
     • THE MEMO -How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted by JANE MAYER, The New Yorker, February 20 2006
     • How the Pentagon Came to Adopt Criminal Abuse as Official Policy by Marty Lederman, February 20 2006
174. We don't torture
     • The President says "We do not torture." We look at what has surfaced so far FactCheck, December 19 2005
     • The US has used torture for decades. All that's new is the openness about it Naomi Klein, The Guardian, December 10 2005
     • Fun Bits About American Torture In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well? By Mark Morford, SF Gate, December 16 2005
175. U.S. Cites Exception in Torture Ban McCain Law May Not Apply to Cuba Prison, By Josh White and Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post, March 3 2006
176. UN calls for Guantanamo closure BBC, Read the full UN report into Guantanamo Bay, February 16 2006
177. Impeachment for violating the Geneva Conventions
     • Is There a Case for Impeachment? Harper's Magazine, Edited selections from a forum moderated by Sam Seder and featuring Representative John Conyers Jr., John Dean, Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Lewis Lapham, and Michael Ratner, held March 2 2006 at Town Hall in New York City.
     • The Case for Impeachment - Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush by Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's Magazine, February 27 2006.
     • Rally to Support Rep. John Conyers and AfterDowningStreet.org by Mike Ferner, Veterans For Peace, June 16 2005
178. Accountability
     • Fmr. NY Congresswoman Holtzman Calls For President Bush and His Senior Staff To Be Held Accountable for Abu Ghraib Torture Democracy Now, June 30 2005
     • The Gonzales Indictment By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout, January 19 2005
     • november 19-04/quaint.htm The Quaint Mr. Gonzales By Marjorie Cohn, La Prensa San Diego Bilingual Newspaper, November 19 2004
     • The Impeachment of George W. Bush by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, January 11 2006
     • Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan Human Rights First
     • Who is accountable for Army's descent into torture? By David R. Irvine and Deborah Pearlstein, Salt Lake Tribune, March 4 2006
     • Dahr Jamail Follows the Trail of Torture
179. A Supreme Rebuke Bush Loses Guantanamo Case Marjorie Cohn -professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists- CounterPunch, June 30 2006
180. The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling Supreme Court: Bush Administration Has Committed War Crimes By Dave Lindorff, CounterPunch, July 3 2006
181. End of an Affair
182. Plame's identity not known
     • Office of Special Counsel all the material made public by Fitzgerald
     • October 28 2005 Indictment: US v Libby
183. Libby: 'Superiors' Approved Leak CBS/AP, 9 February 2006
184. Libby Says Bush, Cheney Didn't Authorize CIA Agent's Name Leak by Bloomberg, April 13 2006.
185. Valerie Plame was covert
     • Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak - Newly released unclassified document details CIA employment By Joel Seidman, NBC News, May 29, 2007
     • Fitzgerald Again Points to Cheney By Dan Froomkin, Wwashington Post, May 29, 2007
     • It’s Official: Plame was Covert - So Federal Law Was Broken, But ‘Rule of Law’ Only Applies to Dems by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review, May. 30, 2007
186. Neil A. Lewis and David Stout, "Judge Won't Delay Libby Prison Term", The New York Times, 14 June, 2007, accessed 16 June, 2007.
187. "Judge Orders Libby Jailed during Appeal", CNN News, 14 June, 2007, accessed 14 June, 2007.
188. Edwin Chen, "Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Term in CIA Leak Case (Update 2)", Bloomberg.com, 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007.
189. George W. Bush, "Grant of Executive Clemency: A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America", The White House, 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007.
190. ^ Neil Lewis and Jim Rutenberg, ""Libby Pays Fine; Judge Poses Probation Query", The New York Times, 6 July, 2007, accessed 6 July, 2007.
191. Qtd. by CNN, "Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Sentence", us.cnn.com, 2 July, 2007 (updated periodically), accessed 3 July, 2007.
192. Rita v. United States, online posting in Supreme Court Collection, Legal Resource Institute, Cornell University Law School, law.cornell.edu, accessed July 4 2007.
193. Harlan J. Protass, "The Quality of Mercy Is Strained: Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence, While His Lawyers Come Down Hard On Everyone Else", Slate, July 3 2007, accessed July 4 2007.
194. Anderson Cooper, "Breaking News", Anderson Cooper 360°, broadcast on CNN, 3 July, 2007, 10 p.m.-12 a.m. EDT, accessed July 3 2007; cf. "Political Bulletin: Bush Bashed Over Libby Commutation: Furious Democrats Will Hold Hearings", US News and World Reports, July 3 2007, accessed July 3 2007.
195. See also "President Commutes Libby's Sentence", Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 3 2007, accessed July 4 2007.
196. Censuring the President by Robert Wexler, Huffington Post, July 6, 2007
197. ^ The Opportunistic Commuter-in-Chief: The use and misuse of presidential clemency power by Marjorie Cohn, July 5, 2007
198. Bush's Real Fourth of July Message to Nation: Unprintable By Elizabeth de la Vega, t r u t h o u t, July 6, 2007
199. ^ Obstruction of Justice, Continued By Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, July 3, 2007
200. Jackson: Bush Actions 'Crime Against Constitution' - Congressman Calls For Impeachment Proceedings After President Commutes Libby Sentence CBS, July 2, 2007
201. Jackson: Impeachment Is the Right Response by John Nichols, The Nation, July 3, 2007
202. Was Commuting Libby an Impeachable Offense? By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t, July 3, 2007
203. Bush authorized disclosure
     • White House Declines to Counter Leak Claim By PETE YOST, Forbes, April 7 2006
     • Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks By Murray Waas, National Journal, April 6 2006
     • Bush: Hands Possibly as Dirty as Scooter Libby's Flashback: Bush Impeachment Not Out of the Question April 6 2006
     • Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak By Jason Leopold, Truthout, April 6 2006
     • The deception Bush can't spin Libby's testimony shows that Bush disclosed national secrets for political gain — and makes Bush's statements about finding the leaker ludicrous By Joe Conason, Salon, April 7 2006
     • Bush authorized leak of Iraq intelligence estimate, indicted ex-Cheney aide says RAW STORY, April 6 2006
204. Disclosure legal?
     • The Truth About Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Statements to the Grand Jury Claiming the President Authorized a Leak of Classified Information The President and Vice President Are Not In the Clear Yet by John Dean, FindLaw, April 7 2006
     • Poof! Presidential Magic Turns National Secrets Into Judy Miller "Exclusive" by Arianna Huffington, April 6 2006
205. Questions regarding statements
     • Did Bush Lie to Fitzgerald? By Robert Parry, Consortium News, April 7 2006
     • Memo to Sunday Talkers: Please Get the Answers the American People Cannot by Representative John Conyers, Jr., April 7 2006
     • Another White House is buying silence By Derrick Z. Jackson, The Boston Globe, April 8 2006
     • President Bush, 2003: 'Leaks of Classified Information Are a Bad Thing' By E&P Staff, Editor & Publisher April 6 2006
206. ^ Uncommon way of declassifying
     • The Latest Plame Smear: Does Fred Hiatt Even Read the Washington Post? by Jane Hamsher, Huffington Post, April 10 2006
     • 'The Washington Post': At War With Itself The newspaper's editorial page on Sunday declared Scooter Libby's notorious 2003 gift to reporters "The Good Leak." On the same paper's front page two reporters thoroughly debunked the notion by Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, April 10 2006
207. ^ Final Jeopardy By Elizabeth de la Vega, TomDispatch.com, April 9 2006
208. Lying impeachable
     • Leaking, Lying and Burning Covert Agents from the Oval Office - The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward By DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch, April 7—April 9 2006
     • The Leaker-in-Chief By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, April 7 2006
209. Sheryl Gay Stolberg (March 17, 2007). "With Shifting Explanations, White House Adds to Storm". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
210. Associated Press (March 17, 2007). "Republican Support for Gonzales Erodes". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
211. Dan Eggen (March 17, 2007). "Accounts of Prosecutors' Dismissals Keep Shifting". Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved 2007-03-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
212. Ron Hutcheson. "U.S. Attorneys: A look at what's behind the U.S. attorney flap". McClatchy Newspapers. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
213. Mike Allen (2007-03-20). "Dems' Strategy On Attorneys Takes Shape". CBS News. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
214. Dismissal attorneys uncommon
     • Republicans and U.S. attorneys -- then and now by Glenn Greenwald, Salon, March 19, 2007
     • Inserting Politics Into Justice By E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, March 24, 2007
     • Media repeat claim that Clinton's dismissal of George H.W. Bush U.S. attorneys was comparable to Bush's dismissal of own U.S. attorneys Media Matters, Mar ch 14, 2007
215. ^ Questions for Karl Rove – and President Bush By Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper, The San Diego Union-Tribune, March 29, 2007
216. Domenici Sought Iglesias Ouster By Mike Gallagher, Albuquerque Journal, April 15, 2007
217. The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud - The Bush administration purged U.S. attorneys for failing to prosecute crimes that didn’t occur By Joel Bleifuss, In These Times, April 18, 2007
218. The Fantasy Behind the Scandal The New York Times, April 2007
219. Campaign against alleged voter fraud fuels political tempest By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers, April 19, 2007
220. The Talented Mr. Griffin by Greg Palast, In These Times, April 16, 2007
221. Steven Walters and John Diedrich (April 5 2007). "Ex-state official freed: Judge calls evidence she steered travel contract 'beyond thin'". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 2007-04-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
222. Frederic J. Frommer (April 10 2007). "Baldwin: Was freed state worker a victim of politics?". Retrieved 2007-04-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
223. Jenn Rourke (April 10 2007). "U.S. Senators Review Georgia Thompson Case". WTMJ-TV. Retrieved 2007-04-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
224. Adam Cohen (April 16 2007). "A Woman Wrongly Convicted and a U.S. Attorney Who Kept His Job". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-04-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
225. Guam
     • Attorneygate in Guam by Ari Berman, The Nation, April 2, 2007
     • Abramoff Emails Raise New Questions in Attorney Firings By Matt Renner, Truthout, March 29, 2007
     • The Perfect Crime: Why The Firings Matter by Eric Malone, OpEdNews, April 8, 2007
226. Prosecutor fired so ex-Rove aide could get his job By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY, June 2 , 2007
227. Deconstructing the Dispute over the Politicization of U.S. Attorney Firings: The News Stories, the Testimony, and What Should Happen Next By CARL TOBIAS, FindLaw, March 12, 2007
228. Firings raise concern over Justice Dept. and politics - Gonzales admits mistakes were made, but he stands by dismissal of federal prosecutors by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2007
229. Bush, Gonzales Reportedly Discussed Fired Prosecutor By Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers, April 17, 2007
230. Attorneygate
     • The New Watergate? U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights by Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild, CounterPunch Newsletter, April 12, 2007
     • James Madison - “Impeach Bush Over Purgegate!” by Thom Hartmann, CommonDreams.org, March 27, 2007
     • Ah, Alberto Gonzales by Larry Beinhart, CommonDreams.org, April 3, 2007
231. Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed By John Solomon and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post, April 29, 2007
232. Hurricane Katrina
     • Ramsey Clark on Hurricane Katrina Ramsey Clarke, September 6 2005
     • POLITICS AND CULTURE/EAST AND WEST: Impeach George W. Bush by Robert R. Thompson, PopMatters, October 3 2005
     • Katrina, Bush and Cheney Grounds for Impeachment By FRANCIS BOYLE, September 16 2005
     • Greens Call for Impeachment of Bush and Accomplices for Crimes Against Humanity Due to the Preventable Deaths of Thousands in New Orleans Green Party of Humboldt County, August 1 2005
     • Hurricane Katrina Huffed and Puffed and Laid President Bush’s Incompetence Bare Sunday Independent, September 4 2005
     • Hurricane George
     • The Impeachment of George W. Bush The Nation, January 30 2006
233. Responsibility Katrina
     • The Miserable Response to Katrina - How Emergency Management Failed New Orleans By Farhad Manjoo, Der Spiegel, September 7 2005
     • Brown puts blame on Louisiana officials CNN, September 28 2005
     • Former FEMA Director Brown Blames 'Dysfunctional Louisiana' for Katrina Response; Lawmakers Mock Him by Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press Writer
     • Reporting on Bush pre-Katrina briefing, NY Times, Wash. Post, USA Today entirely forgot Bush claim that no one anticipated levee breaches Media Matters for America, March 2 2006
234. Brown blames Gov. Blanco By Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times, September 28 2005
235. Glenn Greenwald, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, Working Assets Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-9779440-0-X
236. Abuse of Power
     • The Impeachment of George W. Bush by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, January 11 2006
     • The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration By JOHN W. DEAN, FindLaw, January 13 2006
     • The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State? By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN, Findlaw, January 9 2006
     • How Much Authority Does the President Possess When He Is Acting as "Commander In Chief"? Evaluating President Bush's Claims Against a Key Supreme Court Executive Power Precedent By EDWARD LAZARUS, FindLaw, January 5 2006
     • The President Does Not Know Best By Elizabeth de la Vega, Tomdispatch.com. Posted January 19 2006
     • Impeaching George W. Bush Alternet, March 6 2006
     • If Judges Won't Stand Up to Bush, Who Will? Common Dreams, March 5 2006
     • IMPEACH BUSH: NO PRESIDENT IS ABOVE THE LAW, NOT IN CHILE, NOT IN THE U.S. The Santiago Times, 21 December 2005
237. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/325316_impeach29.html
238. The Democrats’ Impeachment Road Map by Bryon York. National Review, August 7, 2006.
239. Washington Post, Outlook, August 5, 2007, p2. "The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make", Michael Tomasky

Further reading

• John Nichols, The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism, (2006) ISBN 1-59558-140-5
• Center for Constitutional Rights, Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, (2006) ISBN 1-933633-08-5
• John Bonifaz, Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush, (2003) ISBN 1-56025-606-0
• John W. Dean, Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, (2004) ISBN 0-316-00023-X
• Charles Black, Impeachment: A Handbook (Yale Fastback Series), (1998 Reissue) ISBN 0-300-07950-8
• Glenn Greenwald, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, (2006) ISBN 0-9779440-0-X

External links

• Better World Links on the Impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
• Feingold to Introduce Resolutions Censuring President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Other Administration Officials (July 22, 2007)
• Bill Moyers Journal of July 13, 2007 "Tough Talk on Impeachment" focusing on the constitutional issues
• Rosa Brooks: Did Bush commit war crimes?, Los Angeles Times, June 30, 2006
• Bill Moyers interviews John Dean (video) (Transcript)
• Is Lying About War An Impeachable Offense? by John Dean
• Polling Report, which reports a Zogby Poll which shows 42% of Americans agree that "if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?"
• The Impeachment of George W. Bush an article in the January 30 2006 issue of The Nation magazine
• Salon.com on the mainstreaming of "The I-word"
• Group's web site where over 868,000 people have voted for the impeachment of the top characters of the Bush regime. Site includeds "Articles of Impeachment" and "Notes for the consideration of Impeachment" by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark
• Impeach Bush: When the emperor has no clothes by Garrison Keillor
• Concerning The Impeachment Of President Bush
• CNN - Is lying about 'the reason for a war' an impeachable offense?
• CNN - Gore: Resist Bush's 'excessive power grab'
• CBS - San Francisco's Impeachment of Bush Now Law
• MSNBC - Spying, the Constitution — and the ‘I-word’
• MSNBC - Live Vote: Should Bush be impeached?
• ABC - Feingold Calls for Bush's Censure; Library Of Congress link to Feingold's Senate resolution
• Harper's Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham discusses the case for impeachment (Real Media)
• The Sunday Times: "Impeach bush chorus grows"
• NY Times: In Court Filings, Cheney Aide Says Bush Approved Leak
• C-Span Book TV Program: Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky discuss their book The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office
• MSNBC - Countdown with Keith Obermann: "Beginning of the End of America
• "Impeachment of Bush is not an option for the Democratic Congress" argument diagram at HonestArgument.com
• "Top 10 reasons to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney"
• Impeach Bush Group News and Resources
• Impeachment Info, links and more information from the WikiYourRights.com wiki.
• A28, website showing examples of movements with pictures and support for impeachment process of the President and the Vice President
• Greens For Impeachment, website initiated by members of the Green Party of New York State to present information and facts on the impeachment process. Includes a downloadable petition for the impeachment of George W. Bush.

v t e George W. Bush
43rd President of the United States (2001–2009) 46th Governor of Texas (1995–2000)
Presidency	Transition 1st inauguration 2nd inauguration Timeline 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 January 2009 Domestic policy Legislation and programs Economic policy Foreign policy International trips Bush Doctrine Russia summits Slovenia Slovakia War in Afghanistan Status of Forces Agreement Patriot Act No Child Left Behind Act Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act USA Freedom Corps Department of Homeland Security Space policy Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty "War on Terror" President's Council on Service and Civic Participation award Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy Email controversy Judicial appointments Supreme Court candidates John Roberts Harriet Miers Samuel Alito controversies Cabinet Pardons Impeachment efforts Executive orders Presidential proclamations Obama transition
Life and legacy	Childhood home Early life and career Presidential library Presidential portrait Military service controversy Killian documents controversy authenticity issues Professional life Governorship of Texas Prairie Chapel Ranch Walker's Point Estate Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
Speeches	Joint session of Congress (Feb 2001) Remarks at the Islamic Center of Washington (2001) Joint session of Congress (September 11 attacks) (2001) Mission Accomplished (2003) State of the Union addresses 2002 ("Axis of evil") 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Elections	U.S. House 1978 Gubernatorial 1994 1998 Presidential 2000 campaign primaries running mate selection convention debates election Bush v. Gore 2004 campaign primaries convention debates election
Public image	Bushisms Nicknames As the subject of books and films Fictionalized portrayals Miss Me Yet? "Yo, Blair"
Books	A Charge to Keep (1999) Decision Points (2010) 41: A Portrait of My Father (2014) Portraits of Courage (2017) Out of Many, One (2021)
Popular culture	Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004 documentary) W. (2008 film)
Family	Laura Bush (wife) Barbara Pierce Bush (daughter) Jenna Bush Hager (daughter) George H. W. Bush (father presidency) Barbara Bush (mother) Robin Bush (sister) Jeb Bush (brother) Neil Bush (brother) Marvin Bush (brother) Dorothy Bush Koch (sister) Barney (dog) Miss Beazley (dog) India (cat) Spot Fetcher (dog)
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• Articles with dead external links from June 2007
• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from December 2007
• Impeachment in the United States
• George W. Bush administration controversies