This incident was mentioned in connection with the possibility that some of Bush’s minions might end up in the dock. Try to keep up with the class.
You’re right. Some of us keep forgetting that “BushCo” is a person. :rolleyes:
I don’t have time right now to do the necessary searches, but you might consider, as bob-loblaw pointed out, that Bush seems to feel there must be some evidence; otherwise, why is he seeking counsel?
If I were President of the United States, one of my first actions, even before taking office, would be to slap a retainer on some hot-shot lawyer. Just in case, y’know?
Mr. Bush may feel that unscrupulous persons may try to impute criminal liability to him where none exist. Mr. Bush may feel that malicious, confused, or downright moronic imbeciles may claim publicly that he’s a criminal without any actual facts to offer the world, and to guard against the political fallout from such ill-informed persons as may exist in the world, in an exercise of prudence hired an attorney to ensure that the damage wrought by such foolish person is kept to a minimum.
It was? I don’t see how you reach that conclusion. bob_loblaw was thanked for his mention of the incident, which, in total, was:
bob_loblaw is talking about Bush being required to testify in front of a grand jury, and he notes that he doesn’t know whether or not Bush could or should be prosecuted for the link. There is not the slightest mention of any person other than Bush.
Now, some others, notably Loopydude, have used the word “BushCo” rather than simply Bush. But while Loopydude used “BushCo,” bob_loblaw’s mention of the Plame incident was antecedent and did NOT mention anyone other than Bush. It’s hard to see how, as you claim, bob_loblaw’s comment “was mentioned in connection with the possibility that some of Bush’s minions might end up in the dock,” as you suggest.
Incidentally, it’s unclear to me who, precisely, comprises “BushCo.” If there was a criminal conspiracy - that is, an agreement among individuals to commit a crime, then each member of the conspiracy is generally liable for the criminal acts, even if not personally committing them. So if “BushCo” includes Mr. Bush, and you can identify a criminal act to which he agreed, then he is criminally liable, even if he did not actual commit the act.
Can you identify even a scintilla of evidence in this regard?
If “BushCo” does not include Mr. Bush… then I suppose my only criticism is that it’s rather ineptly named.
- Rick
If you are talking about prosecuting Bush under US law, then you (and the new head of Justice) will need to point to the specific US law violated. You and he will also have to come up with some explanation why the specific authorization of Congress does not constitute legal authority. (Here’s a hint - you can’t, because there isn’t one, and you can’t, because it does.)
If you are talking about international law, there isn’t much there to work with. The UN Security Council resolution warned of “serious consequences”, and their case for indicting Bush would have to consist of some variant on “we didn’t mean that serious”. Failing that, they could try to get a resolution thru the UN Security Council authorizing Bush’s indictment. (Here’s another hint - that won’t happen, because the US has a veto over such.)
The only chance of bringing this about is for Kerry to be elected, and some concerted effort in the UN is made to indict Bush, and Kerry decides not to use the US veto. (Here’s a final hint - allowing Bush to be indicted would get Kerry impeached and kicked out of office so fucking fast that his neatly coiffured head would never stop spinning. )
Do you seriously believe the US people would sit still for the windbags in the UN trying to exert retroactive control over US elected leaders? I doubt it.
Regards,
Shodan
[Princess Bride] I do not think that word means what you think it means.[/PB]
It means slander.
So, unless you’re arguing that Saddam should sue Bush for damaging his reputation, I think you might want to use a different word.
I assume you are referring to calumny, maliciously false statements. It could be called slander. Here’s an example: “Saddam Hussein is producing weapons of mass destruction, and through his contacts with al Qaeda, clearly intends to distribute them to terrorists.” That’s a pretty good paraphrasing of Bush’s position prior to Gulf War II. Those accusations were patently false, now, if not then. If you want to call it slander, then slander it is. It’s possible for anyone to falsely accused, no matter how bad they are, and it doesn’t make the false accusations any more acceptable, especially when those false accusations are used as justification for invading another country, and incurring the human and financial costs such actions entail.
GWB waited a while past “first thing.” IIRC, it was sometime earlier this year that he retained outside counsel.
A) Why do I have to keep repeating myself?
and
B) Let’s focus on this point for a moment: If the authorization of Congress were given based upon deliberate deception (which is more than plausible), would that not render the authorization null and void, and constitute a legal infraction of some sort? Surely there must be laws relevant to the abuse of intelligence and Executive authority to gain permission to engage in acts of aggression against foreign nation-states that would define actionable offenses under such circimstances?
Short of a written confession, this is impossible to prove. Hence the reason that many of us just don’t see what you’re talking about.
As SimonX mentioned, that’s not what happened. Also, if there were no evidence of any kind, then the issue would be dismissed out-of-hand, at least in a court of law. Bill Clinton had to secure counsel for the Whitewater investigation because there was a trail of evidence that incriminated him. If Clinton was not guilty, it’s clear now that many of his associates were. I can only guess that, if Bush is seeking counsel now (as opposed to having an attourney on deck at all times, “just in case”) he’s in a similar situation. It’s already a known fact that an act of treason was comitted, as Plame was outed as a spy, which was clearly illegal and dangerous to her person, as well as, purportedly, American security. If an evidence trail could implicate Bush, even if he were totally innocent of the leak itself, he would certainly be wise to exercise his right to an attourney. He might also be concerned if, at some time, before or after, he knew who was responsible (does he never communicate with, say, Lewis I. Libby?"). Is it implausible that he may know more than he says he does, at least now? Would he or others in his administration be accessory if they did not reveal the leaker?
Why would it be impossible to prove? Apparently there was at least some evidence shown to BushCo. casting doubt on presented evidence, or even indicating in a straightforward manner that Iraq was not an immediate threat; there were purportedly statements made by CIA operatives asserting as much; and none of these data were not made available to the members of Congress who were expected to vote on the matter. Did BushCo. not produce memos? Did they not discuss the pros and cons? Would there be no paper trail that could be subpoenaed and examined? Could they have done nothing, ever, to incriminate themselves during the time they sifted through the body of evidence supplied, and purportedly cherry-picked the bits of data that supported the WMD allegations?
I have no idea what “Bushco” is, and so I have no way of responding to your post.
How many criminal indictments do you suppose are presented to grand juries that read, “The accused must be guilty of a legal infraction of some sort?”
Hint: none.
AGAIN: if you have a specific law that you contend was violated, let’s hear it.
Your theory that deception to Congress renders a Congressional resolution “null and void” is pretty funny. It is utterly devoid of the slightest support in the law, in history, or in rules of either house.
If you have a SPECIFIC argument in support of that theory, grounded in law or precedent, let’s hear it. Stop mumbling “There must be something Evil BushCo has done!”
BushCo. is a shorthand for Bush and his administration.
Folks referring to Bush say “Bush”.
If I refer to Bush and other members of his administration collectively (the way some people say “The Bush Administration”), they sometimes say “BushCo.”.
I assume the term stems somehow from the fact that Bush is an MBA, and started out claiming to run his administration like a business. There are also claims that the Bush administration (with the possible exception of Colin Powell), acts as a very tight and cohesive unit, hence for some things one member is essentially interchangeable with another. The former stem is, IMO, the more plausible and easy to understand.
Think of it this way: BushCo. Easy to say. Easier to type than “The Bush Administration” or “Members of the Bush administration” (six letters as opposed to at least 14, and no spaces). If it continues to confuse, I could use Bush Admin. or something of that sort.
I’ll try to get to specifics later, when I have time to research the details and present them as correctly as I can. While I agree, no Congress has ever been in the position of impeaching a President for falsehood as a predicate for war (Gulf of Tonkin might have qualified, but nobody ever did anything about it), is it correct to say there is no way, legally, to prevent a President from lying to Congress about matters of war? That’s simply not an actionable offense? Maybe that’s true, but it’s a horrible thing if it is. I’ve been operating under the assumption that some law could be brought to bear on such an infraction, though admittedly I don’t know which one could, off the top of my head. It just seems implausible that a President can lie to precipitate a war with impunity.
You basically hit on the answer in that post. Yes, Bush could be impeached for his actions leading up to the Iraq war. Impeachment pretty much means anything the Congress wants it to mean. But impeachment isn’t criminal prosecution-- that has a specific meaning in the context of the legal code.
Congress can absolutely impeach the President for lying to them. Of course, Congress may impeach the President for lying to the American public, for lying to his wife, or for being a Red Sox fan. Impeachment is not a criminal matter: the penalty is limited to removal from office and disqualification from holding any office of trust or profit in the federal system.
So it’s not “impunity” - but it’s not criminal consequences, either.
But I’m not talking about impeachment, I’m talking about lying to congress to start a war being, quite simply, illegal. Again, I’ve assumed that must be the case, but if it isn’t, then perhaps all bets are off, on the only recourse the Congress of the public has is impeachment. It just seems unimaginable to me that a President could face criminal prosecution (if he were not subseqently pardoned by his successor) for authorizing a burglary of a D.C. office, but couldn’t if he deliberately distorted and/or lied about evidence that led us into a full-scale war.