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Efforts to impeach George W. Bush

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President George W. Bush has seen calls for his impeachment.

The phrase "Movement to impeach George W. Bush" is used in two ways. It is used to describe actions by individuals and groups within the public and private spheres intended to support an impeachment of US President George W. Bush. The phrase is also used in a more broad sense to refer to a social movement, related to public opinion polls, including both Democrats and Republicans, which indicate a degree of public support for a Presidential impeachment.

Reasons given for impeachment include: the Plame affair, unresolved questions surrounding the reasons for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the global war on terror, the Downing Street documents, the yellowcake forgery, the 2001 terrorist incidents known as "9/11" for September 11, 2001, the mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the authorization to conduct domestic wiretaps without a warrant controversy, and the president's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees. These reasons have been championed by activists on the political left and groups affiliated or supportive of anti-war causes. Some conservatives also have called for Bush's ouster on many of the same grounds. If a President is impeached, his immediate successor is the Vice President, in this case Dick Cheney.


There are no impeachment hearings nor is an impeachment vote scheduled.

Background

There have been nine formal attempts to impeach a sitting U.S. President. Four of these resulted in articles being referred to the floor: John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. In addition there have been numerous impeachment movements of various sizes directed at visible members of the government, most notably the movement to impeach Earl Warren.

In the case of George Bush, recent events have indicated that there is public sentiment supporting impeachment in public opinion polls. Some members of Congress have issued press releases and introduced resolutions. The investigation into Valerie Plame by federal special prosecutor Fitzgerald has led to the indictment of one member of the Bush Administration, Lewis Libby.

Critics of the movement, both on the left and on the right, state that a sitting chief executive has never been removed by conviction in the Senate and only one resigned under threat of impeachment. They also point out that getting a Congressional investigation while the Republican Party is in control of the House of Representatives is improbable. Many critics on the right dispute the allegations made in their entirety, or they deny that the actions of the Bush administration officials currently under investigation constitute anything more than normal handling of politics and national security matters, or are, at worst, legal technicalities.

Congressional activities

Representative Conyers

According to Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois School of Law , on March 11, 2003, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) convened "an emergency meeting of forty or more of his top advisors, most of whom were lawyers, to discuss and debate immediately putting into the House of Representatives Bills of Impeachment against President Bush Jr., Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft in order to head off the impending war." Conyers is the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over any Bill of Impeachment.

In May, 2005, Conyers began collecting signatures on a letter to President Bush requesting answers to the questions raised by the Downing Street Memo. Conyers delivered a letter with over 540,000 signatures to the President on June 16, 2005.

Also on June 16, 2005, Conyers convened a Democratic hearing to receive evidence related to the Downing Street Memo and to consider grounds for impeachment. Dozens of Members of Congress attended. Witnesses included Ambassador Wilson, constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, and CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

In July, Conyers along with Representative Frank (see below) asked for research into the impeachability of Karl Rove with regard to the disclosure of CIA Operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

On December 20, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, at Conyers' request, filed its 273-page report, The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War. The report included copies of house resolutions to to establish a bi-partisan Select Committee in the House - H.Res. 635; to censure the President - H.Res.636; and to censure the Vice President - H.Res. 637.

In comments on the report, Conyers said:

The report finds there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice-President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration.

The Report concludes that a number of these actions amount to prima facie evidence (evidence sufficiently strong to presume the allegations are true) that federal criminal laws have been violated. Legal violations span from false statements to Congress to whistleblower laws.

The Report also concludes that these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable conduct. However, because the Administration has failed to respond to requests for information about these charges, it is not yet possible to conclude that an impeachment inquiry or articles of impeachment are warranted.

Conyers wrote a letter to President Bush advising him of his intent and invited citizens to join him in signing it .

Senator Boxer

On December 19, 2005 Senator Barbara Boxer(D-CA) issued a press release , saying that she had written four undisclosed legal scholars, asking if there were grounds for impeachment, citing the December 16, 2005 New York Times disclosure of Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor Americans without warrants and Nixon counsel John Dean's comments on December 18, 2005 that this constituted an impeachable offense.


Representative Lewis

An Associated Press report on December 20, 2005, said that Representative John Lewis told an interviewer at WAOK-AM News radio that the President should be impeached for authorizing the NSA's actions. A news release dated December 19, 2005 posted on John Lewis' official United States House of Representatives website says, "In my opinion, the President has violated the law, and the House and Senate must pursue their inquiries into this illegal program. The President must stop using the threat of terrorism and the tactics of fear to invade the privacy of American citizens. George W. Bush is the president. He is not a king. He is not above the law," and concludes, "There is no question that the U.S. Congress has impeached presidents for lesser offenses."

Public opinion

Polling results

Poll results show that many Americans support the hypothetical impeachment of Bush. These polls show greater support for the possibility of impeaching Bush than ever seen for the 1998 impeachment of Clinton, though the numbers are comparable to the early Clinton polls that used similar hypothetical wording as in the Bush polls.

A June of 2005 Zogby International poll showed that 42% of all Americans, and 25% of Republicans, would agree that Congress should "hold him accountable through impeachment" if it were found that Bush "did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq".

In October of 2005, After Downing Street commissioned a poll by the independent Ipsos Public Affairs Research , which found that by a margin of 50% to 44% Americans say that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. 39% strongly agreed and 30% strongly disagreed with the statement, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him." 72% of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 56% of Independents and 20% of Republicans.

A Zogby International poll from October 29 to November 2, 2005 found that by a margin of 53% to 42% (+/-2.9%) Americans say 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." This was supported by 76% of Democrats, 50% of Independents, and 29% of Republicans. Americans also support the premise of the second Zogby poll mentioned above that Bush did not tell the truth. A November 2, 2005 Washington Post-ABC News poll found 55% of Americans believe the Bush administration "intentionally misled the public" in making its case for war.

December 15, 2005, Rasmussen Reports released a poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org that showed that 32% of the 1,000 Americans polled would support an impeachment of Bush and 35% would support an impeachment of Cheney.

Comparison to Clinton polls

By comparison, prior to the impeachment of President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky scandal, 9 organizations conducted polls during in August and September 1998. Support for impeaching Clinton ranged from 12 to 32%.

Media response to polls

The major media have largely ignored these opinion polls and protests. Several columnists have endorsed impeachment. Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group predicted on 6 November 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."

When the Washington Post's chief pollster Richard Morin was asked by readers why the Post has not polled on impeachment he responded with "This question makes me angry". Acording to Media Matters, 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.

Public demonstrations

Rallies and marches

The rally held in Crawford, Texas by Cindy Sheehan and her supporters in late summer of 2005 featured frequent calls for impeachment.

A march in Washington, DC on 24 September 2005 attracted over 100,000 people. The march 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 ouster of Bush. News reports cited thousands of protesters in each of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco and 500 in each of Washington, DC, Chicago, Atlanta and Seattle.

Rep. Maxine Waters founded the Out of Iraq Caucus in the House of Representatives. It has 66 members (as of August 31, 2005). An Out of Iraq event hosted by Rep. Waters in Inglewood, California, attracted 1200 supporters who loudly chanted "Impeach Bush" in response to a speaker explaining high crimes and misdemeanors.

On-line polls

On December 25, 2005, results were posted from a MSNBC.com live vote asking "Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?", revealing that 86% of the 190,705 respondents believed he should be impeached. While not a scientifically valid poll as the polled population is not controlled, that nevertheless translates to over 160,000 respondents supporting impeachment.

On January 9, 2006, results posted from a John Birch Society poll asking "Should George Bush be impeached and removed from office?" showed 69% voted in favor of the statement, "Yes, because he lied us into war, has used the NSA to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans without a court order, and has violated the Constitution in other ways." 14% voted in favor of the statement, "No, because George W. Bush was justified in going to war and continues to do a good job." 15% voted in favor of the statement, "No, because even though he has made mistakes those mistakes do not rise to the level of impeachment." 3% voted for "I don't know." No numbers for the number voting was given.

Response to groups formed to support impeachment

Numerous groups have been created to support impeachment. The VoteToImpeach.org website claims to have collected half a million signatures on a petition to impeach Bush. None are known to have been created to oppose it (as MoveOn had been created to oppose the impeachment of Clinton).

See also PledgeBank's webpage on impeaching President Bush.

On December 20, 2005, The AfterDowningStreet.org website mounted an effort to support Representative Conyers' legislation to censure Bush and Cheney and to investigate the administration's lead-up to the Iraq war, in possible preparation to impeachment. Within the first three days, the site reported that over 17,000 people had used the site to write to their congressional representatives requesting that they support Conyers' measures.

Endorsements of impeachment

Politicians and government officials

John Conyers has advocated for the impeachment of Karl Rove and has been contacted by Americans desiring an impeachment of George W. Bush.
  • Congressman Frank advocates investigation, but feels that calls for impeachment are premature.
  • Ralph Nader's 2004 presidential campaign also promoted the cause of a Bush impeachment by raising public awareness of the numerous alleged crimes of the Bush Administration. Nader also wrote an op-ed, (along with Kevin Zeese, director of DemocracyRising.US) favoring impeachment in the May 31, 2005 Boston Globe.
  • Patrick Buchanan called for a bill of impeachment 'charging George W. Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against "invasion"' in regards to issues with illegal immigration.
  • Dennis Morrisseau, a Republican candidate for the Vermont House of Representatives seat has said he will campaign for impeachment against George W. Bush.
  • At the most recent state convention, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin cited the Downing Street Memo in calling for the Impeachment of both George Bush and Richard Cheney.
  • Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration stated "The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon."
  • Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury J. Bradford Delong has called for Bush's impeachment.

Legal experts and scholars

  • John Dean, former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon and an early advocate of a Bush impeachment, believes that President Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to get the United States into a war with Iraq. Dean believes this is an impeachable crime. In a talk before Writers Bloc in Beverly Hills, CA on December 18, 2005, Dean "remarked that Bush is the first President to ever willingly admit to an impeachable offense." This led Boxer to write legal scholars asking for confirmation. See above section on Boxer.
  • Elizabeth Holtzman, who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate period, called for impeachment proceedings against the President in the January 30, 2005 issue of the Nation ]; the article was posted on the Internet on January 11.
  • Constitutional Law Professor Francis Boyle has written six draft articles of impeachment against Bush.
  • 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.
  • Conservative 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, should Bush remain defiant in defending his constitutionally-abusive wire-tapping of Americans (as he has indicated he will), Congress should consider impeaching him. Said Fein, "On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want – I don’t need to consult any other branches – that is an impeachable offense. It’s more dangerous than Clinton’s lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant. " Said Ornstein, "I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed."

Authors

  • Robert Scheer, columnist and contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times and The Nation, has repeatedly called for impeachment.
  • A rundown of authors talking about impeachment was published in Editor and Publisher on December 21, 2005.
  • Columnist James Ridgeway, writing in the Villiage Voice, called Bush's post 9-11 activities a "coup against the constitution, saying, "Revelations of the domestic spy operation, with its secret wiretaps, ought to supply sufficient evidence to impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and launch criminal prosecutions of the top federal officials involved in carrying out the program. After all, these people are directly engaged in overthrowing constitutional government."
  • Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., former aerospace defense industry professional and a teacher in the California community college system, editorialize for OpEdNews.com, that "something must be done to reign in a rogue president and to avoid changing the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches that would have serious long range consequences for the United States and the world."

Organizations

  • BuzzFlash.com a Chicago based news service, in a call for impeachment on April 4, 2004, editorialized that the administration had “deliberately ignored impending 9/11 hijacking attacks and led us into a disastrous war that has created more terrorism and united feuding religious sects in Iraq against us, that piles lies upon lies in an effort to prolong its stolen reign of power”
  • AfterDowningStreet, an organization begun by liberal activists Bob Fertik and David Swanson and constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, advocates a congressional Resolution of Inquiry into evidence related to what has become known as the Downing Street memo, involving the Bush administration's military operations in Iraq. Such a resolution would be the first step toward a possible impeachment.
  • Impeach Central is dedicated to the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for violating the laws of the United States. While the group says the Bush administration has violated the Constitution on numerous occasions, the group is focusing on what it sees as the lies they told the American people and Congress which led the country into the Iraq War.
  • On December 21, 2005, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote Attorney General Gonzales "requesting the appointment of outside special counsel for the investigation and prosecution of violations, or conspiracy to violate, criminal laws against warrantless wiretapping of american persons" .
  • On January 3, 2006, the Green Party called on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney as soon as possible, calling evidence that Bush has abused power "so overwhelming that failure to undertake impeachment would make Congress even more complicit in this administration's lawlessness."

The Party had first passed a resolution calling for impeachment of Bush and Cheney at its national meeting on July 21, 2003, citing a "pattern of making false statements to Congress, the American people, and the world to win support for actions by the American government and military forces", "quandering the resources of the American people to serve the interests of transnational corporations"; and war crimes, including the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs in the preemptive invasion of Iraq."

Media Editorials and Opinion Pieces

  • Barron's, the conservative business journal published by the Wall Street Journal, editorialized in favor of impeachment on December 26, 2005, "Unwarranted Executive Power: The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws" or , "Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. ...The most important presidential responsibility...is that he must 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The editorial further stated, "Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment."
It adds, "It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law."
  • The Capital Times, the progressive Madison Wisconsin newspaper founded in 1917, editorialized on December 30, 2005, in an editorial entitled "Talking About Impeachment" noted “The dwindling circle of right-wing defenders of the Bush-Cheney presidency would have Americans believe that only the most reckless partisans would even consider the prospect of censuring or perhaps even impeaching the president and vice president. But the prospect of officially sanctioning Bush and Cheney, as has now been proposed by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is gaining ground in unexpected quarters."
"The evidence shows that serious wrongdoing has occurred. And those responsible need to be held to account not just by academics, former White House aides and national publications but by the citizens who can persuade members of Congress to become the watchdogs on executive wrongdoing that the founders intended." display editorial via first Forum item's Full Text link
  • The ultra-conservative John Birch Society magazine, The New American, published an opinion piece on January 9, 2006 in favor of impeachment, “It's Not Just a Piece of Paper”. Talking in the voice of Thomas Jefferson, were he alive today, it stated “'When in the course of U.S. events it becomes necessary for Americans to demand that their duly elected representatives impeach and remove from office a president, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to such a course of action.’” The piece enumerates the reasons for impeachment, with links to news articles, and concludes, again in Jefferson’s voice, “’A president, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be a leader of a free people.’" Then resuming its own voice, the it states, states, “Mr. President, when you placed your hand over the Bible, raised your arm, and swore an oath before God to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" (Article II, Section I), that wasn't ‘just a book’ you put your hand on. And it certainly wasn't a mealy-mouthed ‘agreement’ you made before your Maker -- whose name you have no compunction about taking in vain. And Mr. President, the Constitution is not just a piece of paper.”

Entertainers

  • Barbra Streisand states, "If there was ever a time in history to impeach a President of the United States, it would be now."

Claims

An explanation of the grounds for impeachment was given in a recent memo to Rep. Conyers from attorney Bonifaz.

Among the charges proposed by Ramsey Clark against the Bush administration are the following:

Many activists charge that Bush committed obstruction of Congress, a felony under 18 U.S.C. 1001, by withholding information and by supplying information Bush should have known to be incorrect in his States of the Union speeches. This law is comparable to perjury, but it does not require that the statements be made under oath. Martha Stewart recently went to prison for violating this law by making false statements to investigators. Caspar Weinberger was indicted under this law in relation to his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, but he escaped prosecution by being pardoned by Bush's father.

A number of legislators, journalists, bloggers and citizen activist groups see the heretofore secret Downing Street memo as proof that Bush was willingly and knowingly untruthful about Iraq's possession of WMDs, and had lied in the year (2002) leading up to the Iraqi Invasion of 2003, and that the president intentionally planned to invade Iraq regardless of the whether or not Iraq has any such weapons. Congressional democrats sponsored both a request for documents and a resolution of inquiry. The minority party does not have subpoenas power, and therefore cannot force the production of documents.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special prosecutor investigating the Plame affair has subpoenaed phone records made from Air Force One, and the court filings in support of these subpoena's have alleged "serious breaches of security." The closeness of Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby to the president and vice-president respectively has led Frank Rich to draw comparisons to Watergate in recent columns.

Official Democratic Party organizations, including the DCCC and the DSCC have used phrases such as "worse than Watergate" and accusing Bush and the Republicans of "abuse of power". The latter phrase is significant because "abuse of power" was the meaning attached to the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the Constitution's impeachment standard by the Congress in the Impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. To date, neither organization has endorsed impeachment explicitly.

See also

External links

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