Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney makes the case for impeachment

http://www.freepress.org/departments...y/20/2007/2329

(Gold9472: Definitely worth the read.)

by David Swanson, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
January 7, 2007

As some people learned from the minimal and abusive media coverage, on December 8, 2006, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney introduced Articles of Impeachment (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/ node/16230) against President George W. Bush, making him the 10th president of the United States to face such action. Of course, McKinney was on her way out of office and thus more willing to challenge the Democratic Party leadership by upholding basic Constitutional principles.

Fewer people are aware that Congresswoman McKinney on December 27, 2006, entered into the Congressional Record (pages E2253 - 2255) extended remarks on impeachment that merit our close attention. Why would she do such a thing on her way out the door with no chance of reintroducing her bill in the new Congress? For one thing, she clearly would agree with the response Congressman John Conyers gave to Lewis Lapham when asked what he thought the point was of publishing a lengthy report laying out evidence of Bush's impeachable offenses. Conyers' response was: "to take away the excuse that we didn't know."

Here is McKinney's case for impeachment and for the history books, a case that says to historians "Look, I knew what needed to be done, and I failed for years but I admitted it on my last day," but a case that says to us: "Here is your mission: awaken currently serving Congress Members to this case or kiss your democracy goodbye."

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On December 27, 2006
REMARKS ON H. RES. 1106 -- (Extensions of Remarks - December 27, 2006)

SPEECH OF HON. CYNTHIA McKINNEY OF GEORGIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2006

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I wish to enter the following into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD:

ADDENDA TO A RESOLUTION INTRODUCING ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE WALKER BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND OTHER OFFICIALS: FURTHER ACTIONS BY THE PRESIDENT THAT WARRANT FURTHER INVESTIGATION AS POSSIBLE GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT AS IDENTIFIED BY MANY SCHOLARS, LAWYERS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS

I. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED

(1) Self-Exemption from Laws upon Signing.

(2) Suspension of Basic Legal Proceedings.

(3) Promoting Illegal War.

(4) Promoting Torture.

(5) Promoting Kidnappings and Renditions for Torture.

(6) Use of Illegal Weapons.

II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

(1) Obstructing Inquiry and Detection.

(2) Replacing the Veto with Signing Statements.

III. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION

(1) Suspension of Due Process.

(2) Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.

(3) Non-Cooperation with Congress.

(4) Establishment of an Unconstitutional, Parallel Legal System.

I. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America, the President has a duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'' George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has repeatedly violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law, has contravened the laws governing agencies of the executive and the purposes of these agencies, and in conducting the foreign affairs of the United States of America has proceeded in flagrant violation of the core body of international laws, to which the United States of America is bound by treaty.

With respect to domestic law, this conduct has included one or more of the following:

(1) Self-Exemption from Laws upon Signing. Since assuming the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush has attached signing statements to more than one hundred bills before signing them, within which he has made over eight hundred challenges to provisions of laws passed by Congress, a figure that exceeds the total number of such challenges by all previous presidents combined, and has used this practice to exempt himself, as President of the United States, from enforcing or from being held accountable to provisions of the said laws.

(2) Suspension of Basic Legal Proceedings. In dereliction of his duty to uphold the law, George Walker Bush has systematically violated basic legal and criminal procedures that require any search, seizure, arrest or detention to be non-discriminatory, based on probable cause and sufficient evidence to warrant a stated charge, that provide access to legal counsel, arraignment and the option of bail within a period of days, and that require reasonable and non-coercive interrogations, rights of silence, as well as privy communications with counsel and with others, pending an outcome of either release or a speedy and public trial, conducted in accord with federal and state statutes on criminal and court process, the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applicable international law, or appeals to higher courts that apply. By ordering mass arrests and indefinite detentions based on indiscriminate profiling of specific populations, George Walker Bush has also systematically violated laws prohibiting harmful extraditions, secret arrest and custody, and denial of defined and legal periods of detention or incarceration.

With respect to international law, this conduct has included one or more of the following:

(3) Promoting Illegal War. Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1848, "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invaslon and you will allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you will allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us,' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' '' In direct violation of Articles 41 and 42 of the United Nations Charter, a treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1945 and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush has advanced and executed a policy based on so-called pre-emptive or preventive war, whereby the United States of America claims the right to unilaterally assault, invade or occupy other nations without first engaging in collective measures with other member states of the United Nations or first gaining the prior assent of the United Nations Security Council, and whereas George Walker Bush did apply this doctrine by launching a war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of United States military personnel, without United Nations Security Council authorization, whereby said George Walker Bush, as President of the United States, by advancing a doctrine of preventive war and initiating and continuing the invasion and occupation of Iraq by United States forces did commit and was guilty of precisely such abuses as Abraham Lincoln foresaw.

(4) Promoting Torture. In direct violation of, and as part of a pattern of consistent attempts through executive orders, legal memoranda and alterations to regulations such as the Army Field Manual, to undermine the Federal Torture Statute [18 USC Sec. 2340A]; the Third Geneva Convention banning torture and abuse of Prisoners of War, as well as non-combatants and unarmed (``enemy'') combatants held in detention; and Articles 4 and 32 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which expressly prohibit not merely torture but physical abuse of any kind being inflicted upon "persons protected by the Convention,'' defined as "those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals,'' this language being written as a precaution against and in anticipation of alternate definitions of torture, these declarations and treaties being ratified by the United States Senate and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has condoned and presided over a vast expansion of the use of torture against unarmed combatants and civilian non-combatants, both foreign and domestic, detained or kidnapped by forces or agents of the United States, leading to extreme pain, psychological trauma, disfigurement and in some cases, death. By signing a legal memorandum on February 7, 2002 (declassified on June 17, 2004), in which he wrote that "The war on terror ushers in a new paradigm,'' one which requires ``new thinking in the law of war,'' and decreeing that, contrary to all past military practices of an official nature, the United States would no longer be constrained by the laws of war presently in force in its treatment of those captured during its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and subsequently detained, a legal opinion which the Supreme Court struck down on June 29, 2006 (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) by its ruling that the Third Geneva Convention did apply to detainees in the custody of the United States, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, by his concerted efforts to undermine any legal limits on the use of torture by United States personnel, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.

(5) Promoting Kidnappings and Renditions for Illegal Torture. In direct violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, Article 3, which states that "No State party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture,'' and the Fourth Geneva Convention, Articles 31 and 45, the said conventions having been ratified by the United States Senate and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, did sign, on September 17, 2001, an executive order (still classified) granting unilateral authority to the Central Intelligence Agency to render detainees to countries where torture is routinely practiced for the express purpose of interrogation, thereby subverting an established program of rendering detainees to justice by bringing them to the United States or to a country in which they were wanted to face criminal charges in a court of law. And whereas the Central Intelligence Agency did thereafter carry out this order not only by rendering hundreds of detainees to countries where they were subsequently tortured, but also in many cases first illegally kidnapping the detainees, and did subsequently establish secret detention centers, operating outside any known laws, for the express purpose of circumventing all legal protections to which the said detainees were entitled under international law.

(6) Use of lllegal Weapons. In violation of multiple and diverse tenets of international law, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States, has authorized or sanctioned the use of illegal weapons, including but not limited to the following:

End Part I