Chapter XI: Impeaching Other Bush Administration Officials
The president of the United States is the only person who is protected, while in office, from being indicted and arrested in a criminal case, so bringing a president to justice requires the arduous and politically challenging process of impeachment. Other officers, such as the vice president and members of the president's cabinet have no such protection and can simply be indicted for crimes while in office--as happened most recently to Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.
Nonetheless, the Constitution also pointedly extends the process of impeachment to "all civil officials," and over the course of history, the process has been used--primarily against federal judges. The reason to have impeachment available for government officials other than the president is that assaults on the Constitution are often not crimes as is commonly understood, and might never meet the standard for a criminal indictment. Many offenses are purely political, such as lying to the American people or abuse of power. For that reason, we need also to consider the impeachable acts of others in the Bush administration, notably Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and White House Counsel and subsequently Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Epilogue: The Case for Impeachment
The Bush administration, to a degree that is unprecedented and frightening, is asserting a right to unfettered presidential power. As we have seen, Bush is claiming the authority to decide upon setting the country at war...He is claiming the right to take the basic constitutional rights of citizenship away from an American on his own authority...He is claiming the right to ignore the laws passed by the Congress, the right to decide on his own what those laws mean and to act according to his own interpretation, and even the right to ignore court orders. He is claiming that as commander in chief he has powers that are outside the normal constraints of the Constitution: the power to spy on Americans without a court order, the power to ignore international law and treaties approved by Congress and signed by former presidents, the power to ignore requests from Congress for information about government activities.
The president makes these outrageous assertions based upon the self-serving argument that the nation is at war and that he is therefore not just president, but commander in chief...but this "war" he is referring to is not really a war. The so-called "War on Terror" is a police action against stateless terrorists--and as such it has no beginning and no end. If we were to accept the president's claim that it is a war, and that this justifies making him a de-facto dictator...we are permanently revoking the Constitution and all the rights and the checks and balances that the Founders so carefully put in place.
The president is dead wrong.
The Constitution was not conceived as a document for the good times. It was meant to guide the nation through times of conflict, trouble, and stress as well.
About the authors:
Dave Lindorff, an award-winning investigative journalist for more than three decades, has written for numerous publications, including BusinessWeek, Salon and The Nation. He is also author of three previous books, "This Can� �� � t Be Happening!," "Killing Time," and "Marketplace Medicine."
Barbara Olshansky is deputy director for the center for Constitutional Rights and is author of the book "Secret Trials and Executions." She is currently managing habeas litigation on behalf of 300 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sample Review Quotes:
� �� �The most important book of our time.� �� �
--Dennis Smithson, KPFA Radio
� �� �Lindorff and Olshansky, in 'The Case for Impeachment,' have restored this vital tool to the arsenal of democracy. Any American who wants to preserve what's left of our precious Bill of Rights from further encroachments, and to repair the Constitutional separation of powers vitiated by George Bush, should read this essential book -- which should also be force-fed to every single member of Congress.� �� �
--Doug Ireland, LA Weekly columnist
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