I believe so. I’m not 100% certain, but I don’t think a President can’t be prosecuted for an official act he performed while in office. IOW, he could be tried for sexually harassing an intern, but not for ordering the military to execute Saddam Hussein.
Gahhh. I don’t think a President can be prosecuted…
Mr. President, we do.
As to the first, it’s unclear to me whose death you’re talking about. The death of soldiers during war, even war under these circumstances, doesn’t constitute murder. Our laws against torture don’t extend overseas, and our Geneva convention agreement doesn’t extend to persons that were not prisoners of war. And lying to Congress in the context of a presidential communcation is not a violation of federal law.
Mr President, if you have uncovered documents that show someone was tortured within the reach of US law, we can convene a grand jury and ask for an indictment. If you have evidence that someone was murdered, within the meaning of the law, we can similarly present that to a grand jury - even if the guilty party is the former President.
Mmm… I take your point, and agree. But it would have to be an act within his powers as President. To (hypothetically) dismiss Congress indefinitely and rule by Executive Order would be ultra vires, and prosecutable if in fact a criminal act. (I suspect that U.S.C. section that makes it a crime to act contrary to the Constitution would apply.)
Right.
Note that I’m not alleging that anyone in the real Bush administration committed any crimes. But one can easily hypothesize that a hypothetical administration official could be guilty of any number of crimes.
There’s a couple of seperable questions raised by the OP. One question, asked and answered, could a new administration prosecute members of a former administration? Answer, of course. Another, could they do so in the world court or some other international tribunal? Answer, probably not, and there would be no need to do so given that any war crimes punishable under any international tribunal would also violate numerous US laws. If we take as given a willingness to prosecute under US law then any international tribunal is out of the question.
Next: given what is public knowledge today, how far could a 2009 Democratic president go in prosecuting Bush administration officials? Answer, not very far.
Another question: A Democratic president in 2009 is likely to have access to secret information that isn’t publicly known today, how far could they go if we hypothesize that some of that information is pretty damning. For this question, I’d say not very far again…simply because a Democratic president in 2009 would have better things to do, and probably wouldn’t see much gain in bringing it all up. It would be a pretty unusual step. I know that goverment officials do have some sort of immunity for offical actions they take…obviously this doesn’t apply to murder, accepting bribes, etc, but it would certainly apply to things like advocating invading Iraq.
No. Since the actions being discussed were part of Bush’s official duties, and within the bounds defined in Polycarp’s post, the answer is: Of course not.
Of course, even if you could bring it off, it would only work once. Next time, the President would simply resign six hours before the inauguration, have his Vice-President pardon him, and have blanket immunity. Having issued a pardon for the Vice-President first, of course.
You really want to live in a country where the first thing the President does is try to throw his predecessor into prison? A little Third-Worldish for my taste.
For heaven’s sake, even Bush didn’t try to get Clinton for the pardons or the White House vandalism. There is a time for vengeance, and a time to move on.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, obvoiously it depends though. Scooter Libby is accused of having commited a crime, perjury, and could face jail time. If one could prove that any member of the Bush administration commited perjury, they could face prosecution for that. Yes, Bush would be immune to wrongful death suits and such, he can’t be criminally prosecuted for murder because he ordered the invasion of Iraq knowing that people would be killed. But if we find that Bush ordered the CIA to have Chandra Levy murdered, then he could certainly be charged with murder (or would it be consipracy to commit murder? Or is there a difference?). Likewise, if it were discovered that Bush was driving drunk last month and ran over some homeless guy and fled the scene and the secret service hushed the whole thing up. And so on.
Being president gives you some immunity, but not blanket immunity. Richard Nixon would certainly have faced prosecution if he hadn’t been pardoned by Ford. Obviously none of Bush’s known public actions violate any specific law, he couldn’t be tried for lying about the war, he couldn’t be tried for loosening the rules on interrogations, he couldn’t be tried for appointing an incompetant crony to FEMA, and so on.
I thought that our laws against torture only apply overseas, not on US soil. And the Geneva Conventions certainly do apply to non-POWs.
Even if antitorture laws and GC didn’t apply, wouldn’t Bush’s (hypothetical) secret findings contravening the Convention Against Torture be illegal?
Yes, but the crime must have been commited by a citizen of a signatory country, or the victim must be a citizen of a signatory country, or the crime must have been commited in a signatory country. So, if war crime are commited by americans in Irak, the criminals and the victims being respectively Americans and Irakis, the court wouldn’t have juridiction, if none of these countries signed the treaty.
By the way, the ICC and the World Court aren’t the same thing. The world court has existed for a long time, is aknowledged by the USA (though it apparently doesn’t accept rulings against it, like in the Nicaragua case), and more importantly it doesn’t try individuals, but settles disputes between countries (like, say, fixing the border in a disputed territory).
Cite?
All bolding mine:
These and similar GC provisions supported the White House’s decision that the Taliban were covered by GC protection even though they weren’t POWs:
Also, the Fourth Geneva Convention, which we have not yet ratified, provides substantially more protection to otherwise unlawful combatants (cite upon request)