Finally, The "I" Word…
H.RES.635: Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. (MI-14) (introduced 12/18/2005) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Rules
Latest Major Action: 12/18/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Rules.
H.RES.636 : Censuring President George W. Bush for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of his Administration, for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. (MI-14) (introduced 12/18/2005) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 12/18/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
H.RES.637: Censuring Vice President Richard B. Cheney for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in the Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of the Administration and for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. (MI-14) (introduced 12/18/2005) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 12/18/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
“If you listen carefully, you can hear the word impeachment. Two congressional Democrats are using it, and they’re not the only ones. Senator Barbara Boxer sent a letter to legal exerts yesterday asking if they think the President’s wiretapping of phone calls without a warrant is a quote, ‘impeachable offense,’ unquote. Boxer was on a radio show over the weekend with Nixon’s former White House counsel John Dean. According to her, Dean said that Mr. Bush is the first president to admit to an impeachable offense. A Democratic representative from Georgia, John Lewis said in a radio interview, the President should be impeached if he broke the law. And Jonathan Alter points out in a piece in Newsweek magazine that if the Democrats get control of the House and Senate next year, impeachment is a possibility. He says that similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974. But according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, top Senate Republicans consider even the talk of impeachment to be irresponsible and Democrats like Joe Lieberman and John Kerry say it’s not time to talk about impeachment yet. So here’s the question: ‘Do you think it’s an impeachable offense for the President to authorize domestic spying without a warrant?’ You can e-mail us at Caffertyfile@cnn.com or you can go to CNN.com/cafferty file.”
- Jack Cafferty, The Situation Room, CNN, December 21, 2005
AMY GOODMAN: We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Congressmember Conyers.
REP. JOHN CONYERS: Good morning, and it’s always good to be with you, Amy. It’s a wonderful program that you have. Your earlier segment ties almost into this, with the groups being harassed, and tried to be connected to political — to al-Qaeda when it’s pretty clear that that’s not the case. Now, what we’re doing is trying to put this into a outline of moving forward, and so, on the closing hours of the session over the weekend, I introduced House Resolution 635, which creates a select committee to investigate the administration’s intent to go to war before they received congressional authorization and manipulation of pre-war intelligence and encouraging and countenancing torture of detainees and retaliating against critics and to make recommendations regarding possible grounds for impeachment.
Now this [inaudible] to the Ervin Select Committee during the Watergate days and allows us to create a committee that’s, first of all, an even number of Republicans and Democrats with the vice chairman being a Democrat who has a co-equal subpoena power. The reason we’re doing that is that there’s a lot more information that we need to be considering how far forward we move. We do have, although we don’t think there’s any need to wait for what can be done, and that’s immediate resolution censuring President George W. Bush for failing to respond to the continued request for information and the other allegations of misleading and countenancing torture. And then we have 637, which is for the Vice President, who has done a number of things, not only in connection with the President, but on his own, that we think merit both of these two people being censured in House Resolution 636 for Bush and 637 for Vice President Cheney.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Conyers, I wanted to play for you a moment a clip of Illinois Republican Congressman, Henry Hyde, not today, but in 1998. He headed the House Judiciary Committee, which decided whether President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, in his efforts to keep it hidden, should be referred to the House of Representatives for impeachment proceedings. This is Congressman Hyde speaking on the floor of the House, December 18, 1998, referencing Clinton’s presidential oath of office.
REP. HENRY HYDE: That oath constituted a compact between the President and the American people. That compact has been broken. The people’s trust has been betrayed. The nation’s chief executive has shown himself unwilling or incapable of enforcing its laws, for he has corrupted the rule of law.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Henry Hyde in 1998. Compare what you see today with the current President in his second term, Congressmember Conyers.
REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, that was one of the sorriest episodes in the history of American impeachment, because they were referring to personal conduct. That president had not tried to start a war secretly, was not trying to undo conventions against torture, was not misstating or manipulating intelligence or information to justify a war. He wasn’t taking retaliatory measures against critics of his administration, including people who were in the Central Intelligence Agency. So the high-flown statements had no bearing to the facts. As a matter of fact, what we’re doing –
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds.
REP. JOHN CONYERS: We’re moving with a great caution toward what a number of people are realizing should be appropriately done.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Conyers, I want to thank you very much for being with us. And we’ll link your proposal for censure on our website at DemocracyNow.org, and people can email us at mail@democracynow.org with your response.
- Democracy Now!, Wednesday, December 21, 2005
