# IMPEACHMENT EMERGENCY:January 20, '05 will be too late.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2004, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961 "2004-05-31T21:28:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/41 "2004-06-02T19:06:31Z")
From John Dean at FindLaw: from [this](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html) > [@](#): > > To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be “a high crime” under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.” and I believe at least Cheney(or maybe only Libby) could be taken out on [the Plame affair](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20031010.html) if the investigation of this can ever be done seriously. > [@](#): > > It is entirely possible that no one at the Bush “White House” or on the President’s personal staff, was involved in the initial leak to Novak. It could have been someone at the National Security Council, which is related to the Bush White House but not part of it. > > In fact, Novak wrote in one of his later columns, that the leak came from a person who was “no partisan gunslinger.” That sounds like an NSC staffer to me. And as Newsweek also reported (you can count on Michael Isikoff to dig this stuff out), Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was likely known to senior intelligence people on the NSC staff, for apparently one of them had worked with Ms. Plame at the CIA. > > But even if the White House was not initially involved with the leak, it has exploited it. As a result, it may have opened itself to additional criminal charges under the federal conspiracy statute. or certainly if [this](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=1503&e=2&u=/afp/20040530/ts_afp/us_iraq_halliburton_040530173749) pans out > [@](#): > > The March 5, 2003 e-mail, from an Army Corps of Engineers official, said that top Pentagon official Douglas Feith got the job of shepherding the contract, according to the newsweekly Time that hits newsstands Monday. > > Feith had approved the multi-billion-dollar deal “contingent on informing WH (the White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w(ith) VP’s (vice president’s) office,” said the e-mail obtained by Time. and then there are war crimes charges that could be brought against numerous members of the administration. Some interesting points are brought up [here](http://www.tompaine.com/articles/code_red_states.php) > [@](#): > > Gonzales concluded that a determination by President Bush that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban “substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441).” > > “A reasonable basis in law?” “Substantially reduces” the threat of prosecution? If I were President Bush I would not find these phrases altogether reassuring. And neither, one would assume, does Attorney General Ashcroft. > > And if this were not worrisome enough, Gonzales adds an eerily prophetic statement in listing the “negatives:” > > “A determination that the Geneva Convention does not apply to Al Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.” Besides the frightening realization that Abu Graib was basically foretold in this legal opinion, it shows that Bush’s own counsel recognizes that the possibility exists for Bush to be charged under war crimes statutes. Not an unbiased source, but interesting nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/42 "2004-06-02T20:48:29Z")
> [@CTB](#): > > From John Dean at FindLaw: > and then there are war crimes charges that could be brought against numerous members of the administration. Some interesting points are brought up [here](http://www.tompaine.com/articles/code_red_states.php) > > . It is a frank war crime to invade a sovereign nation, and incinerate upwards of 20,000 of it’s people on a HUMBUG. Our cassus belli was just about on a par with the Sudetenland seizure of 1938. note to ctb: (thanks for doing more work on the catalog of horrors than I was willing to put in;the list never really ends…) ---
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/43 "2004-06-02T21:20:29Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > It is a frank war crime to invade a sovereign nation, and incinerate upwards of 20,000 of it’s people on a HUMBUG. > > Our cassus belli was just about on a par with the Sudetenland seizure of 1938. > > note to ctb: > (thanks for doing more work on the catalog of horrors than I was willing to put in;the list never really ends…) These are only the horrors that carry with them a potential criminal penalty. I find it somewhat ironic that there is a potential legal charge against what happened in Abu Graib, but I cannot find a single place discussing punishment of administration officials regarding Gitmo’s Camp X-Ray, and the stripping of constitutional rights of Padilla and Hamdi. These last two are particularly galling, and they represent what I would like to see the administration taken down on because it is an attack directly on the soul of America. If these guys are guilty, I will be first in line at their execution, but try them damnit. As on of my favorite (though obviously partisan and profane) [bloggers](http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/) says on the topic in today’s (6/2/04) entry, “Because we live in the United States. And that’s the way we do things here.” ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/44 "2004-06-02T22:30:23Z")
> [@CTB](#): > > These are only the horrors that carry with them a potential criminal penalty. I find it somewhat ironic that there is a potential legal charge against what happened in Abu Graib, but I cannot find a single place discussing punishment of administration officials regarding Gitmo’s Camp X-Ray, and the stripping of constitutional rights of Padilla and Hamngs here." It is odd that an administration with so much criminal exposure should draw specious defenses that purport to turn on quasi-criminal definitions of “high crimes and misdemeanors” HC&M is a “term of art” that has nothing to do with criminal law or procedure, and less still to do with misdemeanors and felonies. Impeachment is more like congressional recall–you can (and should) be impeached if you are too stupid to get out of your own way…- (Personally, I have always considered the inability to pronounce the word Nuclear to be grounds for impeachment, but that’s just me.) ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/45 "2004-06-02T22:44:57Z")
[/QUOTE] an attack directly on the soul of America. If these guys are guilty, I will be first in line at their execution, but try them damnit. As on of my favorite (though obviously partisan and profane) [bloggers](http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/) says on the topic in today’s (6/2/04) entry, “Because we live in the United States. And that’s the way we do things here.” [/QUOTE] thank you it is peculiar that so many of our fellow ‘mericuns don’t find the fiat imprisonment, incommunicado and WITHOUT EVEN THE POOR MOTHERFUCKER HIMSELF BEING TOLD WHAT HE’S CHARGED WITH, CAUSE WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ CHARGES, to be, without peradventure, as it were, a legitimate assertion of executive function and beyond the scrutiny of the impeachment process I’d have more vitriol on this subject, but I’m rushing to Safeway before all the Geritol is sold out… ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/46 "2004-06-02T23:45:25Z")
amendment: remove “dont” from “dont find” too many negatives and sub dependant clauses, ya feel me? ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/47 "2004-06-03T00:00:13Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > amendment: remove “dont” from “dont find” > > too many negatives and sub dependant clauses, ya feel me? Damn, all it took is that one change for the writing to be comprehensible! ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/48 "2004-06-03T00:16:47Z")
> [@SlyFrog](#): > > Damn, all it took is that one change for the writing to be comprehensible! clarity, as emerson said, is the hobgoblin of small minds (or was that Bob Dylan…) ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/49 "2004-06-03T01:35:59Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > clarity, as emerson said, is the hobgoblin of small minds > > (or was that Bob Dylan…) Heh, now that’s actually pretty funny. Nice. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/50 "2004-06-03T02:15:32Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > there is no mandatory period of investigation, debate, or what have you. Of course there isn’t. There is only the reality of the political process and how slowly the wheels of government grind. But I keep forgetting that you are not dealing with reality, only your fantasy world in which everyone thinks exactly like you do and therefore things happen instanteously. And for all your certainty about what “should” be done, you might take a look around you and notice that none of it is acutally being done. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/51 "2004-06-03T02:35:42Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Of course there isn’t. There is only the reality of the political process and how slowly the wheels of government grind. > > But I keep forgetting that you are not dealing with reality, only your fantasy world in which everyone thinks exactly like you do and therefore things happen instanteously. And for all your certainty about what “should” be done, you might take a look around you and notice that none of it is acutally being done. somewhere above, I’m sure that more than once I made it clear that the thrust of the op was optative, not prospective. that said, and granted tht you may disdain the formulation (but don’t blame me…)within the universe of discourse that I’m attempting to delimit, I am soliciting you to consider whether or not the progress of humanity towards that shining future promised by Dr. Asimov would not be furthered by shuffling this fool off to Crawford asap. Not to mention the bump we would garner in international standing. As for the elaboration of a chain of events wherein the manifest incompetence of the crawford cabal became such a stench in the nostrils of the nation that even the docile sheep who “present” when they hear Tom DeLay sneaking up behind them would say “Hold, enough.” I am a dreamer, it is true. It’s probably down to the dead girl/live boy, and therefor hopeless. ---
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/52 "2004-06-03T13:45:39Z")
😃 [Bush Consults Lawyer About CIA Name Leak](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11084-2004Jun2.html) > [@](#): > > President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer about representing him if he is questioned as part of the grand jury investigation into the leak of a CIA officer’s identity, administration officials said yesterday. I highly doubt that anythng about the Plame affair could stick to W, but as the article states: > [@](#): > > The White House counsel’s office advises the president in his official capacity, but presidents can retain outside lawyers to represent their personal interests. What “personal interests” are threatened by this questioning if not his possible implication in the event? I don’t mean that question snarkily, I genuinely cannot think of another explanation. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/53 "2004-06-03T13:55:59Z")
Before you start beating the impeachment drum, slow down. Sit down. Have a nice cold drink. And repeat after me: President Dick Cheney. President Dick Cheney. President Dick Cheney. Repeat until the urge to impeach Bush leaves your body. There is a means to remove Bush from office. It happens in November. Let’s not blow it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/54 "2004-06-03T14:08:27Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > It’s probably down to the dead girl/live boy, and therefor hopeless. The live boy wouldn’t do it anymore, not in these times. I wouldn’t be too sure about the dead girl, either. Bob, think “President Hastert”. Given that Cheney is at least as culpable, he’d have to be a subject of the same process at the same time, too. ---
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/55 "2004-06-03T14:21:04Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Before you start beating the impeachment drum, slow down. Sit down. Have a nice cold drink. And repeat after me: President Dick Cheney. President Dick Cheney. President Dick Cheney. Repeat until the urge to impeach Bush leaves your body. There is a means to remove Bush from office. It happens in November. Let’s not blow it. Cheney finishing out the presidential term could hardly be worse than the ventrilloquist dummy himself, and the idea that Cheney is electable in Nov. I find laughable. The man has the personality of testy badger with scabies and has a really hard time not letting that show (how many times have you seen Cheney preach to anyone but the choir?). ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/56 "2004-06-03T14:27:28Z")
> [@CTB](#): > > The man has the personality of testy badger with scabies and has a really hard time not letting that show (how many times have you seen Cheney preach to anyone but the choir?). On behalf of my neighbors in Wisconsin, please don’t demean badgers. ---
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/57 "2004-06-03T14:30:19Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > On behalf of my neighbors in Wisconsin, please don’t demean badgers. I meant no offense to the Badgers of the world. Only those with critters burrowing in their skin and unpleasant dispositions. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961/58 "2004-06-10T19:14:31Z")
Dopers will recognize the precatory charge laid upon the person occupying the ofice of president by the constitutional defninition of the job. We have elsewhere, (and at length), examined “sins of commission” that might be charged to GWB in a hypothetical (fantasy?) impeachment. Often the defense of otherwise indefensible conduct has been: “prove he did “x” intentionally.” Query:Is there a not level of stupidity, incompetence, inattention, CARElessness, pursuant to to which a lawless regimne is allowed to proliferate in the branches of government administered by or commanded by the president, so antagonistic to the concept of :“carefully” overseeing the administration of law as to be an “impeachable offense” in the minds of those who raise “feckless but not furtive, loopy but not lying” as a defense of GWB With that question in mind, I direct your attention to the recent arguments before the supreme court wherein the lawyer representing GWB made representations in open court that were, in fact, not true statements of the government’s explicit position. In fact, the president’s lawyer lied to the court. Of course, GWB was aware of what his lawyer said to the court. Of course, he knew what was being said was not true. He did not speak up and correct the court. He did not take CARE that the law was enforced,(and I submit that lying to the supreme court is about the worst threat to consititutional government imaginable, since they are the last and only real check on the executive…) Now, before you pick yourself up from the floor from laughing at the idea that GWB could follow a supreme court argument past “may it please the court…” remember that here we speak of “sins of ommission” It’s not good enough to be dumb but honest past a certain level of dumb. That, at least, is my positioni–I think the torture memos coupled with the supreme court arguments in Padilla and Hamdi make GWB a candidate for Leavenworth, let alone a ticket back to texas… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impeachment-emergency-january-20-05-will-be-too-late/247961.md?page=2)