Is there any way to expedite the impeachment process? Yes!
OK, so you’re fed up. You’ve contacted your representatives in support of House Resolution 635 (Conyers). You’ve attended demonstrations. You’ve written letters to the editors. You’ve passed around and signed petitions. You’ve joined political action committees. You have even attended public town hall forums on impeachment and joined local efforts to pass state resolutions for impeachment. You’ve lent your support for Democratic candidates for Congress in November. You’ve donated to candidates. You bought Center for Constitutional Rights, “Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush.” You even read it.
Every time the subject of impeachment rolls around in your brain, some voice in there is yelling, “Impeach the MF Already!!” We want impeachment, and we want it now!! Did you read Congressman Conyers op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday, “No Rush To Impeachment” Well, here’s the bad news… wanting impeachment now is like wanting to lose thirty pounds by next week. It’s just not going to happen that way…..
Is there any way to expedite the impeachment process? Yes!
And it’s one button away. You can, within the next five minutes, report directly to the House Judiciary Committee to report fraud and abuse by the government. Fraud Is An Impeachable Offense. This button is your Unique Opportunity To Report Directly To Government on Impeachable Offenses by the Bush Administration.
If you have information with respect to waste, fraud or abuse by the government or private business conduct that you want the House Committee of the Judiciary to be aware of, please submit the information in the space below:
REPORT FRAUD AND ABUSE IN GOVERNMENT BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
What is conspiracy to defraud the United States?
What offenses qualify as impeachable fraud?
The Supreme Court has defined the phrase “conspiracy to defraud the United States” as “to interfere with, impede or obstruct a lawful government function by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.” In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement “between two or more persons” to follow a course of conduct that, if completed, would constitute a crime. The agreement doesn’t have to be express; most conspiracies are proved through evidence of concerted action. But government officials are expected to act in concert. So proof that they were conspiring requires a comparison of their public conduct and statements with their conduct and statements behind the scenes. A pattern of double-dealing proves a criminal conspiracy.
The concept of interfering with a lawful government function is best explained by reference to two well-known cases where courts found that executive branch officials had defrauded the United States by abusing their power for personal or political reasons.
One is the Watergate case, where a federal district court held that Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, and his crew had interfered with the lawful government functions of the CIA and the FBI by causing the CIA to intervene in the FBI’s investigation into the burglary of Democratic Party headquarters. The other is U.S. v. North, where the court found that Reagan administration National Security Adviser John Poindexter, Poindexter’s aide Oliver North, and others had interfered with Congress’s lawful power to oversee foreign affairs by lying about secret arms deals during Congressional hearings into the Iran/contra scandal.
Finally, “fraud” is broadly defined to include half-truths, omissions or misrepresentation; in other words, statements that are intentionally misleading, even if literally true. Fraud also includes making statements with “reckless indifference” to their truth.
The White House Criminal Conspiracy
By Elizabeth de la Vega
The Nation, October 31, 2005
REPORT FRAUD AND ABUSE IN GOVERNMENT BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Categories of Impeachable Offenses:
From “The Constitution In Crisis”
In brief, we have found that 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 with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration.
There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated a number of federal laws, including:
(1) Committing a Fraud against the United States;
(2) Making False Statements to Congress;
(3) The War Powers Resolution;
(4) Misuse of Government Funds;
(5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment;
(6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and
(7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence.
…These charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct.
REPORT FRAUD AND ABUSE IN GOVERNMENT BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
IMPEACHMENT BY INTERNET
1. Come up with an instance of fraud by the Bush administration. Describe the facts briefly, referring to quotes and corroborations.
2. Report instances of fraud by the Bush administration directly to the House Judiciary Committee. ONE INSTANCE AT A TIME. DON’T REPEAT YOURSELF.
3. Report as often as you like.
4. Try to keep a log of your reports, and at the end of the day/week/month, send a copy of your files to your state representatives.
REPORT FRAUD AND ABUSE IN GOVERNMENT BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
That’s all there is to it. Keep filing. It feels better than writing an original “Bush Is A Criminal” diary on Daily Kos. OK, right, we all know he’s a criminal, but just what kind of criminal is he? (Don’t forget Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld et al) File your little heart out. Every day come up with a new criminal charge…. impress the House Judiciary with your constitutional prowess. Delight in the picture of your charges piling up before the Committee members, knowing that soon, maybe even today the charges you have filed will reach critical mass….. Become a legal nuisance… but while you’re doing it remember:
KEEP IT CLEAN. KEEP IT BRIEF. KEEP IT ACCURATE. KEEP IT POLITE… AND KEEP IT LEGAL
Now go ahead and try it. File a charge. Keep it under 200 words. Press the button. Smile. File another. Want to have more fun? Put IMPEACHMENT BY INTERNET in your signature and go hop around the web. Have a great day!!
Bush’s abuse of presidential signing statements…. all Seven Hundred and Fifty of them…. and counting.
See Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe:
President Bush doesn’t bother with vetoes; he simply declares his intention not to enforce anything he dislikes. Charlie Savage at The Globe reported recently that Mr. Bush had issued more than 750 “presidential signing statements” declaring he wouldn’t do what the laws required. Perhaps the most infamous was the one in which he stated that he did not really feel bound by the Congressional ban on the torture of prisoners.
In this area, as in so many others, Mr. Bush has decided not to take the open, forthright constitutional path. He signed some of the laws in question with great fanfare, then quietly registered his intention to ignore them. He placed his imperial vision of the presidency over the will of America’s elected lawmakers. And as usual, the Republican majority in Congress simply looked the other way.
NYT Editorial; Veto? Who Needs a Veto?
May 5, 2006
Charlie Savage:
Examples of the president’s signing statements
April 30, 2006
Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation. The federal government is instructed to follow the statements when it enforces the laws.
John Dean:
The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration
By JOHN W. DEAN
—-
Friday, Jan. 13, 2006
Presidential signing statements are old news to anyone who has served in the White House counsel’s office. Presidents have long used them to add their two cents when a law passed by Congress has provisions they do not like, yet they are not inclined to veto it. Nixon’s statements, for example, often related to spending authorization laws which he felt were excessive and contrary to his fiscal policies.
In this column, I’ll take a close look at President Bush’s use of signing statements. I find these signing statements are to Bush and Cheney’s presidency what steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body building. Like Schwarzenegger with his steroids, Bush does not deny using his signing statements; does not like talking about using them; and believes that they add muscle.
I told you this over at the orange site (where you’ve acquired an amazing number of recommendations), but I’ll repeat it here: This is a fantastic idea so simple, yet so powerful.
I’m glad you posted it here.
Thanks a million, kb!! You know I haven’t posted much recently.
My diary crashed over on DK….. dunno how, but I can’t comment, reply or recommend…. so I came over here, and I went to My Left Wing, and then, for dessert (ha ha) I started a website http://www.impeachmentbyinternet.org
It’s under construction, so if you are or know any web wizards I need help…. can’t seem to configure the scrolling function….. hmmm……
That happened to me last night with my diary there. But after closing down the browser and going back in, I could do all that again.
Have you tried that?
and comments were not allowed, nor recommends nor replies… and two other people were having the same problem…. so i contacted the tech problems admin, but not in time, and it’s sunk off the recommendeds…. because it crashed, i think… as it was very popular….
however, tomorrow i’ll post it again…. version 2, and tell site admin why i am doing it…. well, maybe…. hmmm……
Thanks Suskind. Once again I am reading a brilliant piece written by a powerless human and fantasizing about the results of millions upon millions of people all responding at once to this great inspiration.
I know we all share the same fantasy and the same bafflement that nothing seems to come of it. To an impatient American, it all seems to be happening at the speed of a glacier.
I promise I will do my part.
self around here. Are you feeling a bit better?
collecting feedback from folks as to what they’ve submitted? It’d be great to hear a report on this in a month or so, just in time for Liberty Day 🙂