From Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT. (my emphasis)
Article II Section 4: "The President, Vice President AND ALL CIVIL OFFICERS (my emphasis) of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Gonzales is indeed a "civil officer", who takes the oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
I know it's a longshot, but it might be the only shot at restoring the integrity and protecting the longevity of the Constitution and our form of government, and getting any kind of accountability for the crimes of the Bush administration:
If Alberto is impeached and cannot be pardoned, he will have to cut an immunity deal and sing his ass off to stay out of prison. And it's pretty clear, given his years of association with George, that he knows EVERYTHING, which is most likely the ONLY reason he still has his job in the face of the incredibly bad DOJ PR that Dubya and Uncle Dick strangely seem all too willing to endure.
Alberto first, then Cheney, then Bush. And let's get them all impeached and removed before any criminal charges are filed, so the next president will not be tempted (politically suicidal as it may be - just ask the late Gerald Ford, who pardoned Nixon) to pardon them.
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John Perry is a morning radio personality in his home state of Connecticut. He started paying closer attention to life inside the Beltway several years ago, when it became obvious to him that his "representatives" were not interested in helping independent webcasters, who to this day remain under attack and faced with extinction, thanks to the nefarious efforts of the RIAA to maximize consolidation of Internet music distribution. He had been attempting to launch his own Internet radio business at the time, and remains hopeful that someday it may still happen.He says the experience has made him a more responsible citizen, and for that, at least, he is grateful. "They pissed off the wrong guy," he likes to say. He promises to remain vigilant, holding accountable those who promise to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. "Far too many of the people we send to Washington don't take their oath seriously," he says. "It's our responsibility as citizens to let them know we're paying attention, and we're not going away."
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I disagree with this entirely. Impeachment should be focused entirely on Bush first and then Cheney second until they go down. Attacking Bush's underlings gives him more power and insulates him further. It also gives him confidence because it looks like everyone is afraid to attack him and is going after the little guys because they can't get the big guy. Bush is the leader and the decider. He decided. He decided wrong. He decided to overturn the Constitution and become a traitor. He needs to pay the price and all the energy and focus ought to be on him and his crimes. All the crimes committed were to forward his agenda and to protect him from accountability. But he is accountable and he's going to pay the price for his treason.
He can be impeached and removed (and disbarred) before the summer's out. It would liberate the U.S. Attorneys' offices, first step on the road to justice for Gonzales' bosses.
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Steve Fournier (32 articles, 17 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 43 comments)
on Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 1:50:47 PM
I am all for impeaching Gonzales, as well as Bush and Cheney. As far as who gets it first, I defer to what ever is workable.
As to impeachment, removal from office is the "only" penalty. If there were to be any jail terms, they would have to come from subsequent criminal proceedings, which, in the case of Cheney or Gonzales, Bush could pardon.
Nevertheless, I appreciate the spirit of your post. Nice try.
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B York (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 3:58:01 PM
You need to do things by the rules, and you need to determine what you have the votes for. Impeaching Gonzales may be the only recourse now that the Justice Dept. says it will not pursue contempt charges against him. The fact of the matter is, impeachment of any official is initiated in the House, and prosecuted in the Senate. There actually may be enough votes in the House to impeach Gonzales now, and his impeachment will bring out information that will aid in the impeachment of Cheney, and then Bush. You have to start somewhere, and you can’t do 3 impeachments simultaneously.
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John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 7:21:47 AM
...at the end of the piece that they should all be impeached and removed before any criminal charges are filed.
That said, it's not entirely clear that someone who is un-pardonable because of impeachment could indeed be pardoned after criminal conviction of the same crime(s) for which he was impeached.
Thanks for the condescending pat on the head. It's good for the humility.
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John Perry (31 articles, 33 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 8:45:20 AM
The U.S. Constitution grants the power to pardon to the President. In keeping with the feeling of the day, expressed in Hamilton's words, the power to pardon is virtually unqualified:
The President ... shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
.
.
.
There are, however, things that a pardon cannot cover. The first and most obvious is impeachment, since it is specifically excepted in the Constitution. Civil liability cannot be excused - a harm against another can still be considered a harm even if there is no longer any criminal liability. Contempts of court cannot be pardoned, as they are offenses against the dignity of the court, and not necessarily offenses against the law. In the Constitutional Convention, a proposal to except treason was popular, but was defeated when the talk turned to granting the Senate only the power to pardon treason.
Should the Constitution enable a President's "public men" to conspire to disregard the law, shield each other from justice, and rely on his last official act to absolve them of penalties? We think not, and we think the Framers said so -- emphatically. Publius SHOUTS, Part 1 advanced the following propositions:
That "all civil Officers" can be impeached, convicted, removed and barred from future service. Noncontroversial in principle, but with boundaries untested in practice.
That impeachment may proceed after the defendant has left office.Precedented, but reconsidered and susceptible to controversy.
That impeachment (and conviction) nullifies a presidential pardon. Our "radical originalist" reading is that conviction in the Senate exposes the defendant to the jaws of ordinary criminal justice in spite of a pardon. The standard reading is much narrower -- merely that the President may not use a pardon to derail an impeachment.
Now, therefore, under present circumstances, and with these tools in our kit, how might we proceed?
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Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 10:39:56 AM
I agree with you John. The public evidence against Gonzales is so overwhelming that Arlen Specter is livid. This is the low hanging fruit of impeachment.
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John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 10:20:53 AM
Today the NY Times calls for Gonzales' impeachment if Solicitor Paul Clement will not appoint a competent special prosecutor to investigate the politicization of the Justice (or "Just-us") Department and Gonzales' lying about the Bush/Cheney regime's massive surveillance and data mining program. No one from the regime would even go on Fox News to defend him.
So what now? Josh Marshall notes that while several federal judges have been impeached and removed, no cabinet secretary has ever been removed from office via impeachment, because before it came to that the President always fired or obtained the resignation of the malefactor. But here it isn't so easy, as Josh points out.
Of course, here, as we've noted before, there is an extra wrinkle. Gonzales isn't any cabinet secretary -- not the Secretary of State or Interior. He's the Attorney General, which means that he's the one that can and is bottling up numerous investigations into the president and his appointees. Because the senate will never give the president another Gonzales, the man is literally irreplaceable.
But if the demands for Gonzales' resignation do mount, Bush may finally take his only possible way out--fire Gonzales and recess appoint a compliant new Attorney General, maybe someone on whom they have sufficient goods to compel him or her to take the job and do it right.
If I were Harry Reid I wouldn't give him the opportunity. Keep a skeleton crew in DC and schedule a vote once a week. Unless the Congress is really ready to take Bush head on, they'd be fools to leave town
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Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 12:18:49 PM
This is my general review of the interim report on the USA Purge. If you haven't already done so, make sure you read the post on the Iglesias cover-up, which I believe to be the most important aspect of the report.
The report on the findings to date in the USA purge lists the following crimes and violations that may have been committed in the course of the USA firings:
Obstruction of justice, attempted obstruction of justice [18 USC 1503, 1505, 1512(c)(2)]
Criminal Hatch Act violations [18 USC 606]
Presidential failure to ensure that laws are faithfully executed [Constitution, Article II, Section 3]
Civil Hatch Act violations [5 USC 7323(a)(1)]
Federal Civil Rights laws [18 USC 242]
Conspiracy [18 USC 2, 371]
Perjury [18 USC 1621]
False Statements [18 USC 1001]
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Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 12:24:07 PM
Well, I'm all for it. Gonzales' weaselly face and sychophantic dissemilations are affecting my gastronomic health. I am grateful for the education in the legal possibility of success and I'm willing to be a ground troop in such a campaign. I just wonder, if Conyers is afraid to proceed with an impeachment against Cheney that a majority of Americans favor, why would he be willing to proceed against Gonzales?
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Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 133 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 11:35:59 AM
I want impeachment of President and Vice President, but know AG is a stumbling block. What kind of surprise this fall? Remember Archibald Cox and Elliott Richardson who crossed Nixon? What saved the inquiry was when John Dean, as White House counsel, decided to come clean. So now there's Harriet Miers, recently on that job, and Bush is helping her to stonewall. Conyers' committee is working on contempt citations against her and Chief of Staff Bolton.
John Dean didn't get off scottfree, but he did get less time. Harriet Miers surely has been advised by her attorney where the cards lay. Actually, we all wonder whether the office of the Council (if I have the name right) will also stonewall. In the Nixon case Cox's dismissal started a real public outcry, called the October Surprise. That's why I'm so glad there are people like you who are dramatizing our predicament. I hope this time we get an August Surprise. With the New York Times editorial coming out for impeaching Gonzales, we can take courage that the MSM is beginning to budge.
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Margaret Bassett (25 articles, 1669 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 1008 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 2:14:24 PM
I like the way you work, too. I have the impression of Harriet Miers that she is timid and a little too afraid of Bush. I hope I am wrong. That would be so great, if she were another Dean. I guess it depends of what she fears the most, Bush or congress' possible power to put her in prison garb.
There are so many people hanging out there with inside knowledge of the corrupt politics of this administration that one could hope that someone, somewhere that they haven't kept track of or threatened sufficiently enough will break it all open ala Dean. And I suppose it will just take consistent pressure from the public to produce that Dean moment.
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Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 133 comments)
on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 6:28:17 PM
any attempt to grant pardons prior to conviction, by those who would screen from punishment the most treasonable attempts on the liberties of the people,(Ford of Nixon or Bush of members of his administration).
Impeach and remove Gonzales when you can, but bring criminal proceedings only after Bush and Cheney have been replaced.
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Samuel Bryan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 120 comments)
on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 12:45:10 PM
I am ashamed of my lack of understanding of how extensive congressional aversion to Gonzo's pitiful dissimilations can/have become. Not one republican will come to his defense, even in the fawningly friendly face of a Fox News camera? The letter from the White House "explaining" the differences between his testimony and everyone else's is just plain laughable. How much longer can he last? At what point does his value to Bush as the creator and protector of the Justice Department subbranch of the Oval Office become less than the liability of the possibility of his bringing down the entire house of lies that is this administration? This has the feel of a John Dean moment.
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Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 133 comments)
on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 9:50:58 PM
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