Talk:Efforts to impeach George W. Bush/Archive 5

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

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

Over the years, several incidents of prisoner abuse have been made public and a UN report denounced the abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture. 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 Marjorie Cohn and Elizabeth Holtzman, 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, Common Article 3 of 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 US administration including President Bush, 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 USA should stop what it concludes is "ill-treatment" of detainees, since such treatment, according to the UN-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

Further information: Yellowcake forgery, CIA leak scandal, and CIA leak grand jury investigation

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush cited British government sources in saying that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium. After Ambassador 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 as a CIA employee 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 Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald during his sentencing hearing revealed that Plame was indeed a covert agent.

Declassifying for political purposes

Further information: Invasion of Iraq, Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, Downing Street memo, Bush-Blair memo, Yellowcake forgery, Plame affair, and CIA leak grand jury investigation

On April 6 2006, court papers were filed in the CIA leak grand jury investigation, stating that Libby had testified that President 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 Presidentally 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.

Politicization of the United States attorney offices

Main articles: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Bush White House e-mail controversy, Executive privilege, and Saturday Night Massacre

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 hinder 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.

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

Further information: Hurricane Katrina, Criticism of government response to Hurricane Katrina, and Political effects of 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. Therefore, according to the President's supporters, any accusation of inadequate handling of the disaster should be addressed to Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

Movement in the 110th Congress

The decision of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) the House Judiciary Chair to hold hearings on Bush’s use of “signing statements”, has been hailed by the President’s critics as a step towards impeachment.

— All preceding unsigned comments added directly to this archive page by FreedomAintFree (talk • contribs) 21:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)