by Larry Beinhart
Published on Friday, December 23, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Yes, George Bush has committed impeachable offenses.
If there were an impeachment, even if the president were found not guilty, there would be subpoenas and people would be forced to testify under oath and a great deal of truth would be revealed. It would be covered, constantly, by the media. They love trials because they offer predictability – they’re scheduled so the crews know when to show up and where to place the cameras – and guaranteed daily surprises.
But no, there will not be an impeachment.
Impeachment has to be voted on in the House of Representatives. The House has a Republican majority. There will be no impeachment.
Yes, John Conyers has introduced a resolution to create a select committee to investigate charges that may rise to the level of impeachable offenses. Not sexual misconduct, but genuine political offenses: lying to the legislative branch, misrepresenting intelligence, and ordering illegal wiretaps.
No, there will not be any such committee.
What Conyers has done has been mentioned on left wing blogs and liberal websites and Democracy Now and right wing websites will sneer at him. But if it’s in the New York Times, it will be buried inside. It won’t top they cycle at CNN or be the lead on NBC. It won’t make much news because they know he can’t issue subpoenas.
Yes, as Congressman Maurice Hinchey says, this is the most corrupt administration in history.
An innovative feature of this majority has been to demand that lobbyists and anyone else who wants to put the fix in with the federal government give only to the majority and not at all to the minority. So as long as the Republicans retain control, there will be no House or Senate committees looking into how our legislators were bought.
Corruption. Abuse of power. Impeachable offenses. Indictable crimes. Technical violations. Lies. Deception. All those things are merely subject matter. They are not actionable. Only power creates action. Power, in this context, comes from the ability to issue that simple piece of paper that compels testimony.
There are, mind you, small pockets of independent power. Somehow, the administration slipped and allowed a federal prosecutor, with subpoena power, to investigate the Plame leak. A local DA in Texas took a look at how Tom DeLay accepted campaign contributions from corporations – which could not be spent on political campaigns in Texas - then sent them to another organization in Washington, then got the same amount back and spent it on campaign contributions. And indicted him. A Federal prosecutor in California picked up on a newspaper story about Congressman Cunningham selling his house for a $700,000 instant profit to a defense contractor and got a guilty plea to bribery. Jack Abramoff, lobbyist and fixer to the Republican stars, has been indicted for a $60 million fraud in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a deal to buy a fleet of gambling ships. His associate, Michael Scanlon, has been indicted by a Federal prosecutor on conspiracy to commit bribery and has agreed to testify.
Subpoena power. Keith’s Barbeque Central