Kucinich will move to refer in his quest to get hearing before Committee on the Judiciary
A single Article of Impeachment of President Bush, which alleges that Mr. Bush sent the nation to war under the false pretenses, will be brought to the floor of the House this afternoon. Its sponsor, U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), will rise to refer the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary. Kucinich has long been pressing for Impeachment hearings. He previously introduced 35 articles relating to President Bush and three articles relating to the Vice President.
Kucinich, under the rules of the House governing questions of privilege, read the Impeachment resolution before the House last week. Today the Clerk will officially read it into the record as a bill, it will be given a number and then will be subject to parliamentary motions. If Kucinich is successful, the bill will be referred to committee rather than tabled. Last week Speaker Pelosi, for the first time, indicated an interest in committee hearings on President Bush's abuse of executive power, including the issues that Kucinich raised.
"If it is tabled, I will bring another Impeachment resolution back this week," said Kucinich. "Our Constitution is being destroyed. We are losing our nation to a war based on lies. I am determined to get this bill to committee for a hearing," he said. "The President has conducted the affairs of the nation in a manner which cries out for justice and it is the Constitutional obligation of Congress to check his wanton abuses of U.S. and international law. We have troops whose lives were put on the line because the President told them Iraq was a threat to the United States and it was not. The loss of lives of our troops and of innocent Iraqi civilians is a direct result of the lies this president told to Congress. He must be held accountable."
The Article of Impeachment alleges that President Bush falsely told the nation that it had no other choice to go to war because Iraq was an imminent threat in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and that the President had repeatedly implied that Iraq had abetted al Qaeda in its devastating attack of 9/11. Kucinich, in his Article, cited documents which assert the White House knew the statements were false at the time they were made.
