Sen. Candidate Novick Calls for Impeachment Investigation Of Bush Admin Wiretapping, Misuse Of Intel

[Hissyspit]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/27127

US Senate Candidate Steve Novick Calls for Impeachment Investigation of Bush Administration Wiretapping & Misuse of Intelligence
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2007-09-25 14:24.

Statement By Steve Novick

Last week, John Frohnmayer entered this race for U.S. Senate, offering a strong statement on an important issue of the day: whether the conduct of this President constitutes grounds for impeachment.

At the time, I gave an incomplete response and I wanted to provide voters with my full views on the issue.

As a candidate for Senate, I am hesitant to call for impeachment, because the Senate sits in judgment in an impeachment proceeding, and obviously, I believe the President and members of his Cabinet are entitled to present a defense before judgment is rendered.

I do, however, believe that an impeachment investigation by the House of Representatives is strongly warranted by the facts, on at least two grounds: the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and the false – and possibly deliberately misleading – statements made by the President and others to justify the invasion of Iraq, including perhaps most famously the 2003 State of the Union speech alleging that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa as part of a nuclear weapons program.

I am fully aware of the political calculations that have brought many Washington DC Democrats to put impeachment proceedings off the table. It would be divisive. It would distract Congress and the country from other business. Both true. But I believe that it would set a very dangerous precedent to say that we will simply overlook the possibility that a President violated the Constitution, or misled a nation into war, because we are concerned about division and distraction. Regardless of the outcome, if we are ever to expect honesty and accountability from another American president, we cannot ignore evidence of dishonesty and illegal activity in the current Administration.

The President has admitted that he authorized the wiretapping of U.S. citizens outside of the legal oversight set forth in FISA. The ad hoc and continually shifting justifications for these violations set out by the President and his administration have been generally derided by legal scholars. Again, if I were in the Senate it would be my obligation to listen to and carefully consider those arguments before rendering judgment. But if the President’s arguments are not legally valid, I believe it is the obligation of the House to impeach the President for violating the Constitution and the law, and that it would be the Senate’s obligation to convict. No President should be allowed to violate the Fourth Amendment and engage in illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

As to the ‘sixteen words’ about an attempt to obtain uranium from Africa, it is clear that senior Administration officials were well aware that there was not credible intelligence to support that statement. Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has refused to respond to Congressional subpoenas to answer the question of whether she knew that the President’s statement was based on discredited information. Rice should be required to answer that question, in light of the clear evidence that her deputy, Stephen Hadley, was directly warned by CIA director George Tenet that the ‘intelligence’ about Africa was not credible when similar language was removed from an October 2002 presidential speech in Cincinnati. It still is unclear how and why that language found its way back into the President’s 2003 address.

If Condoleezza Rice knew that those words would appear in the State of the Union, and was aware that those words were not based on credible intelligence, I believe that she committed an impeachable offense. If the President knew that those words were not based on credible intelligence, I believe that he committed an impeachable offense.

There is historical precedent for impeaching a President on both of these grounds: illegal electronic surveillance and misleading the American people. The precedent is Watergate. The Articled of Impeachment in Watergate included the following:

Article 2, item 2

He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office

If the law was violated in this case, I do not believe that a claim of ‘national security’ makes an otherwise impeachable offense unimpeachable.

With regard to misleading the American people, the Watergate articles included the following:

Article I, item 8:

making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct

I believe that if misleading the American people about the investigation of a burglary is an impeachable offense, misleading the American people about justifications for a war must be an impeachable offense.

Finally, I would like to thank John Frohnmayer for raising this issue in this campaign. If an underdog Democratic candidate had been the first to raise the issue, I have no doubt that I would have been accused of partisanship and recklessness. Perhaps I should have done so in spite of that. But independent John Frohnmayer’s courageous statement put the issue squarely on the table, and made it impossible for any candidate, myself included, to sweep it under the rug.

[gateley]

1. You know, I'm generally against impeachment soley for the reason of the

time and energy it would command. But I have to admit, I'd really like it if it happened! Especially after reading this -- and there would be so many more impeachable offenses that could be added.

Would we be able to impeach both Bush and Cheney in one fell swoop to avoid the nightmare of Cheney taking the reins if Bush were to be ousted?

And...has this been introduced before and if so, how was it received?

Any predictions how this will fare?

[fenriswolf]

2. do something.......anything!