OK, let’s assume that I am elected President in 2008. So we know we’re in blue-sky territory right? And suppose that shortly after taking office, I discover a trove or three of documents clearly showing that Bush Administration officials – Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, deliberately started the Iraq war even though they knew Iraq posed no military threat to us and in fact had no immediate plans to attack us. They just wanted a strategic base in the middle east. Suppose the documents also showed that Cheney and Rumsfeld and others had authorized torture and illegal detention in contravention of the Geneva Convention.
I, of course, being a decent human being, am morally appalled at these deeds and want the perps prosecuted.
Could I have the Attorney General prosecute Cheney and the Chumps for what they did? Could I have them extradited to the Hague for trial as war criminals at the World Court?
Please note, this is not about whether or not they’re guilty. Assume that they are for the sake of the argument. The question is, do I or anyone else in the US have a legal remedy here? (This is more a General Question than a Great Debate, but it’s political ramifications led me to place it here. If the Mods think it should be moved, I’m cool with it.)
IANAL, but I think extradition to a foreign court might run afoul of the principle of exclusivity of jurisdiction. I know of no reason why the Attorney General couldn’t haul their (hypothetically) criminal asses off to an American court, though.
Ah, but exclusivity of jurisdiction applies only to crimes of citizens of a country, in that country, by persons from that country. Cheney and Company’s crimes have been committed against citizens of foreign countries in a variety of places: Iraq, Guantanamo, Cuba, Afghanistan, various locations in the Soviet Union, etc. Surely here is a case where exclusivity of jurisdicition does not come into play.
Of course the Justice department can prosecute officials of previous administrations, why couldn’t they? A sitting president could pardon members of his administration to put them beyond reach of prosecution, but he’d have to do it before he left office.
There wouldn’t be any need to invoke the World Court, that’s only used in cases where a country is unable or unwilling to prosecute its own criminals.
Unlikely. Which law did they break by invading Iraq? Congress gave the president the authority to use military force. You’d have more luck impeaching him while he’s still in office, since he doesn’t have to actually break a law in order to be impeached.
I don’t know if you could do this legally, but if you could, you’d be impeached before you could say “nutty left-wing wet dream”.
Without the cooperation of the United Nations Security Council, you’re not going to be able to convene a tribunal to bring indictments and hear the case (such as what is currently happening in the Hague with Milosovic). IIRC, this is only the third such tribunal that has ever been convened (the first two were for the trials of Germany and Japanese war criminals after WWII).
Rick, let me bounce that question back to you. For the sake of argument in this thread, we are to presume that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove & Co. intentionally and willfully made false statements about what was known regarding the perceived threat of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in order to cause us to invade that country. Not that they were misled by interpretations of intelligence data, but that they intentionally misrepresented that data to create a war cementing support for them among most of the population.
Does the making of those false statements in order to incite support for a war they wanted constitute a crime (as distinguished from an impeachable offense) under current American law? Is there a statute we can point to that says so?
And, tough question: If not, should there not be such a law?
Note that this does not argue that they in fact committed such a (maybe) crime. It presumes it as a hypothetical scenario in order to pose the question.
There are two sets of crimes here. One is illegally invading Iraq, which involved lying to Congress with falsified data about Iraqi WMDs and attempts to get WMDs. The other involves authorizing the use of torture by American soldiers. According to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff, there’s a paper trial going from Dick Cheney and some of his aides that authorizes and encourages the use of torture to get info out of US prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those prisoners died while being interrogated so we have potential murder charges here for Cheney and some military officers in the chain of command.
That depends on who’s in charge of Congess, doesn’t it? If you’ve got the wrong guys in charge, you can be impeached for anything, even a consensual blowjob. With the right guys, you can get away with torture, murder and treason. As for “nutty left-wing wet dream” – Wilkerson says he saw documents about the torture and so forth with names attached and everything. So let’s assume I have that trail. Still nutty?
You still haven’t defined why it was illegal. Perhaps you meant it was illegal for Congress to authorize the use of force. If so, perhaps you’d have better luck indicting certain members of Congress. I can probably guess which ones you’d choose (the ones whose last names start with R-“STATE”).
Well, that does it. If Willkerson says so, it must be true! But seriously, which statute was broken? Which spefic law are you accusing the President or Cheney of violating.
You can’t indict someone for doing something you don’t like.
I indictated in my OP that I would be OK with moving it to GQ if the Mods thought it should be moved. I only placed it here because I was concerned that the political content would get it kicked into GD. It’s fine with me to have it in GQ.
Yeah, but did Cheney murder anyone or torture anyone? Maybe he wrote a memo that left a clear implication that the gloves were off, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” type stuff, but I’ll eat my hat if there’s anything in writing flatly stating that US soldiers were supposed to murder and torture.
Lying to congress? That is a crime. Probably a bit easier to prove too…but if you’re going to send the president to jail for lying to congress you’re gonna have to dig up the corpse of George Washington for your first indictment.
But let’s not talk about whether your hypotheticals actually occured or not, you’re distracting from your own OP by asserting that such things did in fact happen. Whether they happened or not, we’re not going to determine whether they did nor not here.
But the to your original question is simple. Being a member of a former administration doesn’t immunize you from criminal prosecution.
The legal things I was thinking about was bills of attainder, legal protection for a sitting President in the conduct of his duties. ISTM that if such protection doesn’t exist, every President would constantly be getting his ass sued off by everyone who was adversely affected by his decisions. But would such protections extend to something like torture and murder and lying to Congress?
The thing with this OP is that originally its asking a hypothetical (which is fairly easily answered AFAICT…no, former adminitrations aren’t immune if indeed a crime was committed) but really wants to talk about this in real terms…i.e. Bush et al DID commit a crime. Its just a poorly veiled attempt to attack Bush.
So, why not change the OP and ask the question you really want answered…assuming a new leftist dream team is elected in '08 can they infact prosecute Bush and his merry men? Can they ship them off to Europe, tarred and feathered to be hung on meat hooks (ok, the Euro’s don’t do that kind of thing anymore…so to be imprisoned in one of those lovely humane French prisons)?
First off, define what crime you think they committed. Lieing to Congress? What specific law is in play here (I don’t know obviously) and how would you go about proving your case? Don’t get into hypothetical wet dream boxes of documents clearly stating in plain language that Bush and his henchmen gleefully lied to congress while knowing full well Saddam didn’t have so much as a stinkbomb, or volumes detailing how they secretely ordered the torture of captives…even if we assume Bush et al is evil enough to do all these things they are THAT stupid that their finger prints would be on boxes and boxes of evidence when they leave. So…keep it realistic.
So…what crimes or laws are in play on the theoretical ‘Lied to Congress’ and about the ‘Torture’ thing? Does anyone know the relevant laws the President et al COULD be prosecuted under for these crimes?
