[Congressional Record: June 10, 2008 (House)]
[Page H5192-H5211]
RESOLUTION RAISING A QUESTION OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges
of the House and offer the impeachment resolution noticed last evening.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Richardson). The Clerk will report the
resolution.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 1258
Resolved, That President George W. Bush be impeached for
high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles
of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the name
of itself and of the people of the United States of America,
in maintenance and support of its impeachment against
President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the
laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following
abuses of power.
ARTICLE I.--CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A
FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution
[[Page H5193]]
of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution ``to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed'', has both
personally and acting through his agents and subordinates,
together with the Vice President, illegally spent public
dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false
cause for war against Iraq.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long
secret domestic propaganda campaign to promote the invasion
and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by
the White House Press Secretary following its exposure. This
program follows the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I,
II, IV and VIII.. The mission of this program placed it
within the field controlled by the White House Iraq Group
(WHIG), a White House task-force formed in August 2002 to
market an invasion of Iraq to the American people. The group
included Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen
Hughes, Mary Matalin, Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and
James R. Wilkinson.
The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called
intelligence of Iraq's nuclear threat that later proved to be
false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that
Iraq had sought uranium from Niger as well as the claim that
the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China
were to be used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges
to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence Estimate
of 2002, the WHIG's white papers provided ``gripping images
and stories'' and used ``literary license'' with
intelligence. The WHIG's white papers were written at the
same time and by the same people as speeches and talking
points prepared for President Bush and some of his top
officials.
The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between
September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and his top advisers
appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly
gripping images about the possibility of nuclear attack by
Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained
in an interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to
try to sell the American people on military action against
Iraq, ``From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce
new products in August.''
September 7-8, 2002:
NBC's ``Meet the Press: Vice President Cheney accused
Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over
the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and
biological arms.
CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding
the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear weapon, ``We don't
want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.''
CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was ``six months
away from developing a weapon,'' and cited satellite photos
of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited
as evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was
revealed in an April 20, 2002, New York Times article. The
program illegally involved ``covert attempts to mold opinion
through the undisclosed use of third parties.'' Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military
officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN,
ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and according to the New York Times
report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the
White House, ``Participants were instructed not to quote
their briefers directly or otherwise describe their
contacts with the Pentagon.''
According to the Pentagon's own internal documents, the
military analysts were considered ``message force
multipliers'' or ``surrogates'' who would deliver
administration ``themes and messages'' to millions of
Americans ``in the form of their own opinions.'' In fact,
they did deliver the themes and the messages but did not
reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking
points. Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox
News military analyst described this as follows: ``It was
them saying, `We need to stick our hands up your back and
move your mouth for you.'''
Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since
1951 with this language: ``No part of any appropriation
contained in this or any other Act shall be used for
publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not
heretofore authorized by the Congress.''
A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research
Service states that ``publicity or propaganda'' is defined by
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean
either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2)
purely partisan activity, or (3) ``covert propaganda.''
These concerns about ``covert propaganda'' were also the
basis for the GAO's standard for determining when government-
funded video news releases are illegal:
``The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source
of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by
encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the
broadcasting news organization developed the information. The
prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be
indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public.
When the television viewing public does not know that the
stories they watched on television news programs about the
government were in fact prepared by the government, the
stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual--the
essential fact of attribution is missing.''
The White House's own Office of Legal Council stated in a
memorandum written in 2005 following the controversy over the
Armstrong Williams scandal:
``Over the years, GAO has interpreted `publicity or
propaganda' restrictions to preclude use of appropriated
funds for, among other things, so-called `covert propaganda.'
. . . Consistent with that view, the OLC determined in 1988
that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for
`publicity or propaganda' precluded undisclosed agency
funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that
`covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use
of third parties' would run afoul of restrictions on using
appropriated funds for `propaganda.' ''
Asked about the Pentagon's propaganda program at White
House press briefing in April 2008, White House Press
Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was
legal but by suggesting that it ``should'' be: ``Look, I
didn't know look, I think that you guys should take a step
back and look at this look, DOD has made a decision, they've
decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the
things that we try to do in the administration is get
information out to a variety of people so that everybody else
can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I
don't think that that should be against the law. And I think
that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to
people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their
opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those
military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I
think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their
analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't
mean that we shouldn't talk to people.''
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article II.--FALSELY, SYSTEMATICALLY, AND WITH CRIMINAL INTENT
CONFLATING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 WITH MISREPRESENTATION OF
IRAQ AS AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT AS PART OF A FRAUDULENT
JUSTIFICATION FOR A WAR OF AGGRESSION.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to
deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into
believing that there was and is a connection between Iraq and
Saddam Hussein on the one hand, and the attacks of September
11, 2001 and al Qaeda, on the other hand, so as to falsely
justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the
nation of Iraq in a manner that is damaging to the national
security interests of the United States, as well as to
fraudulently obtain and maintain congressional authorization
and funding for the use of such military force against Iraq,
thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful
functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
The means used to implement this deception were and
continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning
the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his
direction and control, including the Vice President and the
Vice President's agents, and second, personally making, or
causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-
placed subordinates, including the President's Chief of
Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House
spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the
National Security Advisor, and their deputies and
spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the
citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an
alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq, on the
one hand, and the September 11th attacks and al Qaeda, on the
other hand, that were half-true, literally true but
misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with
reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to
state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the
truth as follows:
(A) On or about September 12, 2001, former terrorism
advisor Richard Clarke personally informed the President that
neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was responsible for the
September 11th attacks. On September 18, Clarke submitted to
the President's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a
memo he had written in response to George W. Bush's specific
request that stated: (1) the case for linking Hussein to the
September 11th attacks was weak; (2) only anecdotal evidence
linked Hussein to al Qaeda; (3) Osama Bin Laden resented the
secularism of Saddam Hussein; and (4) there was no confirmed
reporting of Saddam Hussein cooperating with Bin Laden on
unconventional weapons.
(B) Ten days after the September 11th attacks the President
received a President's
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Daily Briefing which indicated that the U.S. intelligence
community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the
September 11th attacks and that there was ``scant credible
evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties
with Al Qaeda.''
(C) In Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02,
issued in February 2002, the United States Defense
Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility
of a Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda conspiracy: ``Saddam's regime is
intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary
movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide
assistance to a group it cannot control.''
(D) The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate gave a
``Low Confidence'' rating to the notion of whether ``in
desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons
with Al Qaeda.'' The CIA never informed the President that
there was an operational relationship between Al Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein; on the contrary, its most ``aggressive''
analysis contained in Iraq and al-Qaeda-Interpreting a
``Murky Relationship'' dated June 21, 2002 was that Iraq had
had ``sporadic, wary contacts with al Qaeda since the mid-
1990s rather than a relationship with al Qaeda that has
developed over time.''
(E) Notwithstanding his knowledge that neither Saddam
Hussein nor Iraq was in any way connected to the September
11th attacks, the President allowed and authorized those
acting under his direction and control, including Vice
President Richard B. Cheney and Lewis Libby, who reported
directly to both the President and the Vice President, and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others, to
pressure intelligence analysts to alter their assessments and
to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the
intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable
information, to manufacture intelligence or reinterpret raw
data in ways that would further the Bush administration's
goal of fraudulently establishing a relationship not only
between Iraq and al Qaeda, but between Iraq and the attacks
of September 11th.
(F) Further, despite his full awareness that Iraq and
Saddam Hussein had no relationship to the September 11th
attacks, the President, and those acting under his direction
and control have, since at least 2002 and continuing to the
present, repeatedly issued public statements deliberately
worded to mislead, words calculated in their implication to
bring unrelated actors and circumstances into an artificially
contrived reality thereby facilitating the systematic
deception of Congress and the American people. Thus the
public and some members of Congress, came to believe,
falsely, that there was a connection between Iraq and the
attacks of 9/11. This was accomplished through well-
publicized statements by the Bush Administration which
contrived to continually tie Iraq and 9/11 in the same
statements of grave concern without making an explicit
charge:
(1) ``[If] Iraq regimes [sic] continues to defy us, and the
world, we will move deliberately, yet decisively, to hold
Iraq to account . . . It's a new world we're in. We used to
think two oceans could separate us from an enemy. On that
tragic day, September the 11th, 2001, we found out that's not
the case. We found out this great land of liberty and of
freedom and of justice is vulnerable. And therefore we must
do everything we can--everything we can--to secure the
homeland, to make us safe.'' Speech of President Bush in Iowa
on September 16, 2002.
(2) ``With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining
and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to
confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime
were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the
attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater
horrors.'' March 6, 2003, Statement of President Bush in
National Press Conference.
(3) ``The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror
that began on September the 11, 2001--and still goes on. That
terrible morning, 19 evil men--the shock troops of a hateful
ideology--gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of
their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one
terrorist, that September the 11th would be the `beginning of
the end of America.' By seeking to turn our cities into
killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that
they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our
retreat from the world. They have failed.'' May 1, 2003,
Speech of President Bush on U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
(4) ``Now we're in a new and unprecedented war against
violent Islamic extremists. This is an ideological conflict
we face against murderers and killers who try to impose their
will. These are the people that attacked us on September
the 11th and killed nearly 3,000 people. The stakes are
high, and once again, we have had to change our strategic
thinking. The major battleground in this war is Iraq.''
June 28, 2007, Speech of President Bush at the Naval War
College in Newport, Rhode Island.
(G) Notwithstanding his knowledge that there was no
credible evidence of a working relationship between Saddam
Hussein and Al Qaeda and that the intelligence community had
specifically assessed that there was no such operational
relationship, the President, both personally and through his
subordinates and agents, has repeatedly falsely represented,
both explicitly and implicitly, and through the misleading
use of selectively-chosen facts, to the citizens of the
United States and to the Congress that there was and is such
an ongoing operational relationship, to wit:
(1) ``We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level
contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who
fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior
al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad
this year, and who has been associated with planning for
chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has
trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and
deadly gases.'' September 28, 2002, Weekly Radio Address of
President Bush to the Nation.
(2) ``[W]e we need to think about Saddam Hussein using al
Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints
behind.'' October 14, 2002, Remarks by President Bush in
Michigan.
(3) ``We know he's got ties with al Qaeda.'' November 1,
2002, Speech of President Bush in New Hampshire.
(4) ``Evidence from intelligence sources, secret
communications, and statements by people now in custody
reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists,
including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without
fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to
terrorists, or help them develop their own.'' January 28,
2003, President Bush's State of the Union Address.
(5) ``[W]hat I want to bring to your attention today is the
potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al
Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic
terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq
today harbors a deadly terrorist network . . .'' February 5,
2003, Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the
United Nations.
(6) ``The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror
that began on September the 11, 2001--and still goes on. . .
. [T]he liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al
Qaeda.'' May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on U.S.S.
Abraham Lincoln.
(H) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on
Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government
Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information,
which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
(1) ``Statements and implications by the President and
Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a
partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with weapons
training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.''
(2) ``The Intelligence Community did not confirm that
Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in
2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.''
Through his participation and instance in the breathtaking
scope of this deception, the President has used the highest
office of trust to wage of campaign of deception of such
sophistication as to deliberately subvert the national
security interests of the United States. His dishonesty set
the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States
service members; injuries to tens of thousands of soldiers,
the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since
the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527
billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and
the ultimate expenditure of three to five trillion dollars
for all costs covering the war; the loss of military
readiness within the United States Armed Services due to
overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment;
the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and
the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of
Iraq.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article III.--MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO
BELIEVE IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO
MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, executed instead a calculated and wide-ranging
strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United
States into believing that the nation of Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the use of
the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in
a manner damaging to our national security interests,
thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful
functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
The means used to implement this deception were and
continue to be personally making, or causing, authorizing and
allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates,
including the President's Chief of Staff, the White House
Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the
Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security
Advisor, and their deputies and
[[Page H5195]]
spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the
citizens of the United States and Congress regarding Iraq's
alleged possession of biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons that were half-true, literally true but misleading,
and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless
indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state
facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth
as follows:
(A) Long before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, a
wealth of intelligence informed the President and those under
his direction and control that Iraq's stockpiles of chemical
and biological weapons had been destroyed well before 1998
and that there was little, if any, credible intelligence that
showed otherwise. As reported in the Washington Post in March
of 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel
had informed U.S. and British intelligence officers that
``all weapons--biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were
destroyed.'' In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence
Agency issued a report that concluded: ``A substantial amount
of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and
production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as
a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM actions . . .
[T]here is no reliable information on whether Iraq is
producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq
has--or will--establish its chemical warfare agent production
facilities.'' Notwithstanding the absence of evidence proving
that such stockpiles existed and in direct contradiction to
substantial evidence that showed they did not exist, the
President and his subordinates and agents made numerous false
representations claiming with certainty that Iraq possessed
chemical and biological weapons that it was developing to use
to attack the United States, to wit:
(1) ``[T]he notion of a Saddam Hussein with his great oil
wealth, with his inventory that he already has of biological
and chemical weapons . . . is, I think, a frightening
proposition for anybody who thinks about it.'' Statement of
Vice President Cheney on CBS's Face the Nation, March 24,
2002.
(2) ``In defiance of the United Nations, Iraq has
stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding
the facilities used to make more of those weapons.'' Speech
of President Bush, October 5, 2002.
(3) ``All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi
Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological
agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that
could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far
beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV
launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach
hundreds of miles inland.'' Statement by President Bush from
the White House, February 6, 2003.
(B) Despite overwhelming intelligence in the form of
statements and reports filed by and on behalf of the CIA, the
State Department and the IAEA, among others, which indicated
that the claim was untrue, the President, and those under his
direction and control, made numerous representations claiming
and implying through misleading language that Iraq was
attempting to purchase uranium from Niger in order to falsely
buttress its argument that Iraq was reconstituting its
nuclear weapons program, including:
(1) ``The regime has the scientists and facilities to build
nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials needed to do
so.'' Statement of President Bush from White House, October
2, 2002.
(2) ``The [Iraqi] report also failed to deal with issues
which have arisen since 1998, including: . . . attempts to
acquire uranium and the means to enrich it.'' Letter from
President Bush to Vice President Cheney and the Senate,
January 20, 2003.
(3) ``The British Government has learned that Saddam
Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium
from Africa.'' President Bush Delivers State of the Union
Address, January 28, 2003.
(C) Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of reports by
nuclear weapons experts from the Energy, the Defense and
State Departments, as well from outside and international
agencies which assessed that aluminum tubes the Iraqis were
purchasing were not suitable for nuclear centrifuge use and
were, on the contrary, identical to ones used in rockets
already being manufactured by the Iraqis, the President, and
those under his direction and control, persisted in making
numerous false and fraudulent representations implying and
stating explicitly that the Iraqis were purchasing the tubes
for use in a nuclear weapons program, to wit:
(1) ``We do know that there have been shipments going . . .
into Iraq . . . of aluminum tubes that really are only suited
to--high-quality aluminum tools [sic] that are only really
suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.''
Statement of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2002.
(2) ``Our intelligence sources tell us that he has
attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable
for nuclear weapons production.'' President Bush's State of
the Union Address, January 28, 2003.
(3) ``[H]e has made repeated covert attempts to acquire
high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different
countries, even after inspections resumed. . . . By now, just
about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that
there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about
what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts think they are
intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich
uranium.'' Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin
Powell to the United Nations, February 5, 2003.
(D) The President, both personally and acting through those
under his direction and control, suppressed material
information, selectively declassified information for the
improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and
presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from
Iraq, facilitated the exposure of the identity of a covert
CIA operative and thereafter not only failed to investigate
the improper leaks of classified information from within his
administration, but also failed to cooperate with an
investigation into possible federal violations resulting from
this activity and, finally, entirely undermined the
prosecution by commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing
false and insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent
Congress and the citizens of the United States from
discovering the fraudulent nature of the President's claimed
justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
(E) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on
Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government
Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information,
which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
(1) ``Statements by the President and Vice President prior
to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding
Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities
did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as
to whether such production was ongoing.''
(2) ``The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi
government operated underground WMD facilities that were not
vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were
underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by
available intelligence information.''
(3) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay
Rockefeller concluded: ``In making the case for war, the
Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when
in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-
existent. As a result, the American people were led to
believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than
actually existed.''
The President has subverted the national security interests
of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of
more than 4000 United States service members and the injury
to tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers; the loss of more than
1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States
invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs
which has increased our Federal debt with a long term
financial cost of between three and five trillion dollars;
the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed
Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack
of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world
affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the
invasion of Iraq.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article IV.--MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO
BELIEVE IRAQ POSED AN IMMINENT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to
deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into
believing that the nation of Iraq posed an imminent threat to
the United States in order to justify the use of the United
States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner
damaging to our national security interests, thereby
interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful functions
of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
The means used to implement this deception were and
continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning
the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his
direction and control, including the Vice President and the
Vice President's agents, and second, personally making, or
causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-
placed subordinates, including the President's Chief of
Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House
spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the
National Security Advisor, and their deputies and
spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the
citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an
alleged urgent threat posed by Iraq, statements that were
half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without
a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their
truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to
present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:
[[Page H5196]]
(A) Notwithstanding the complete absence of intelligence
analysis to support a claim that Iraq posed an imminent or
urgent threat to the United States and the intelligence
community's assessment that Iraq was in fact not likely to
attack the United States unless it was itself attacked,
President Bush, both personally and through his agents and
subordinates, made, allowed and caused to be made repeated
false representations to the citizens and Congress of the
United States implying and explicitly stating that such a
dire threat existed, including the following:
(1) ``States such as these [Iraq, Iran and North Korea] and
their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to
threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass
destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.
They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the
means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or
attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these
cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.''
President Bush's State of the Union Address, January 29,
2002.
(2) ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein
has weapons of mass destruction. He is amassing them to use
against our friends, our enemies and against us.'' Speech of
Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention,
August 26, 2002.
(3) ``The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one
conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering
danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence.
To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of
millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And
this is a risk we must not take.'' Address of President Bush
to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.
(4) ``[N]o terrorist state poses a greater or more
immediate threat to the security of our people than the
regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.'' Statement of Former
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress, September 19,
2002.
(5) ``On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat
of unique urgency . . . it has developed weapons of mass
death.'' Statement of President Bush at White House, October
2, 2002.
(6) ``But the President also believes that this problem has
to be dealt with, and if the United Nations won't deal with
it, then the United States, with other likeminded nations,
may have to deal with it. We would prefer not to go that
route, but the danger is so great, with respect to Saddam
Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps even
terrorists getting hold of such weapons, that it is time for
the international community to act, and if it doesn't act,
the President is prepared to act with likeminded nations.''
Statement of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell in
interview with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News, October 30,
2002.
(7) ``Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique
and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used
weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be
allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not
permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations
which love freedom.'' Speech by President Bush to Prague
Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002.
(8) ``But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the
security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a
madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risk
of any action we may be forced to take.'' President Bush
Meets with National Economic Council at White House, February
25, 2003.
(B) In furtherance of his fraudulent effort to deceive
Congress and the citizens of the United States into believing
that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the
United States, the President allowed and authorized those
acting under his direction and control, including Vice
President Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, and Lewis Libby, who reported directly to
both the President and the Vice President, among others, to
pressure intelligence analysts to tailor their assessments
and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the
intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable
information, to manufacture intelligence, or to reinterpret
raw data in ways that would support the Bush administration's
plan to invade Iraq based on a false claim of urgency despite
the lack of justification for such a preemptive action.
(C) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on
Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government
Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information,
which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
(1) ``Statements by the President and the Vice President
indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons
of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against
the United States were contradicted by available intelligence
information.''
Thus the President willfully and falsely misrepresented
Iraq as an urgent threat requiring immediate action thereby
subverting the national security interests of the United
States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4,000
United States service members; the injuries to tens of
thousands of U.S. soldiers; the deaths of more than 1,000,000
Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of
approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased
our Federal debt and the ultimate costs of the war between
three trillion and five trillion dollars; the loss of
military readiness within the United States Armed Services
due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of
equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world
affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the
invasion of Iraq.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article V.--ILLEGALLY MISSPENDING FUNDS TO SECRETLY BEGIN A WAR OF
AGGRESSION
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, illegally misspent funds to begin a war in secret
prior to any Congressional authorization.
The president used over $2 billion in the summer of 2002 to
prepare for the invasion of Iraq. First reported in Bob
Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, and later confirmed by the
Congressional Research Service, Bush took money appropriated
by Congress for Afghanistan and other programs and--with no
Congressional notification--used it to build airfields in
Qatar and to make other preparations for the invasion of
Iraq. This constituted a violation of Article I, Section 9 of
the U.S. Constitution, as well as a violation of the War
Powers Act of 1973.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article VI.--INVADING IRAQ IN VIOLATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF H.J.
Res. 114.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', exceeded his Constitutional authority
to wage war by invading Iraq in 2003 without meeting the
requirements of H.J. Res. 114, the ``Authorization for Use of
Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002'' to wit:
(1) H.J. Res. 114 contains several Whereas clauses
consistent with statements being made by the White House at
the time regarding the threat from Iraq as evidenced by the
following:
(A) H.J. Res. 114 states ``Whereas Iraq both poses a
continuing threat to the national security of the United
States and international peace and security in the Persian
Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach
of its international obligations by, among other things,
continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and
biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear
weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist
organizations;''; and
(B) H.J. Res. 114 states ``Whereas members of Al Qaeda, an
organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United
States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in
Iraq;''.
(2) H.J. Res. 114 states that the President must provide a
determination, the truthfulness of which is implied, that
military force is necessary in order to use the
authorization, as evidenced by the following:
(A) Section 3 of H.J. Res. 114 states:
``(b) Presidential Determination.--In connection with the
exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use
force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon
thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours
after exercising such authority, make available to the
Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro
tempore of the Senate his determination that--
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or
other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately
protect the national security of the United States
against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely
lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations
Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-
243 is consistent with the United States and other countries
continuing to take the necessary actions against
international terrorists and terrorist organizations,
including those nations, organizations, or persons who
planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
(4) President George Bush knew that these statements were
false as evidenced by:
[[Page H5197]]
(A) Information provided with Article I, II, III, IV and V.
(B) A statement by President George Bush in an interview
with Tony Blair on January 31st 2003: [WH]
Reporter: ``One question for you both. Do you believe that
there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and
the men who attacked on September the 11th?''
President Bush: ``I can't make that claim''
(C) An article on February 19th by Terrorism expert Rohan
Gunaratna states ``I could find no evidence of links between
Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and interviews indicated
that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a secular leader, as an
infidel.'' [InternationalHeraldTribune]
(D) According to a February 2nd, 2003 article in the New
York Times: [NYT]
At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some investigators
said they were baffled by the Bush administration's
insistence on a solid link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's
network. ``We've been looking at this hard for more than a
year and you know what, we just don't think it's there,'' a
government official said.
(5) Section 3C of HJRes 114 states that ``Nothing in this
joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers
Resolution.''
(6) The War Powers Resolution Section 9(d)(1) states:
(d) Nothing in this joint resolution--
(1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of
the Congress or of the President, or the provision of
existing treaties; or
(7) The United Nations Charter was an existing treaty and,
as shown in Article VIII, the invasion of Iraq violated that
treaty.
(8) President George Bush knowingly failed to meet the
requirements of HJRes 114 and violated the requirement of the
War Powers Resolution and, thereby, invaded Iraq without the
authority of Congress.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article VII.--INVADING IRAQ ABSENT A DECLARATION OF WAR
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has launched a war against Iraq absent
any congressional declaration of war or equivalent action.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 (the War Powers Clause)
makes clear that the United States Congress holds the
exclusive power to decide whether or not to send the nation
into war. ``The Congress,'' the War Powers Clause states,
``shall have power . . . To declare war . . .''
The October 2002 congressional resolution on Iraq did not
constitute a declaration of war or equivalent action. The
resolution stated: ``The President is authorized to use the
Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary and
appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security of
the United States against the continuing threat posed by
Iraq; and 2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security
Council resolutions regarding Iraq.'' The resolution
unlawfully sought to delegate to the President the decision
of whether or not to initiate a war against Iraq, based on
whether he deemed it ``necessary and appropriate.'' The
Constitution does not allow Congress to delegate this
exclusive power to the President, nor does it allow the
President to seize this power.
In March 2003, the President launched a war against Iraq
without any constitutional authority.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article VIII.--INVADING IRAQ, A SOVEREIGN NATION, IN VIOLATION OF THE
UN CHARTER AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', violated United States law by invading
the sovereign country of Iraq in violation of the United
Nations Charter to wit:
(1) International Laws ratified by Congress are part of
United States Law and must be followed as evidenced by the
following:
(A) Article VI of the United States Constitution, which
states ``This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;''
(2) The UN Charter, which entered into force following
ratification by the United States in 1945, requires Security
Council approval for the use of force except for self-defense
against an armed attack as evidenced by the following:
(A) Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter
states:
``3. All Members shall settle their international disputes
by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace
and security, and justice, are not endangered.
``4. All Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state,
or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the
United Nations.''
(B) Chapter 7, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter
states:
``51. Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the
inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an
armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,
until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to
maintain international peace and security.''
(3) There was no armed attack upon the United States by
Iraq.
(4) The Security Council did not vote to approve the use of
force against Iraq as evidenced by:
(A) A United Nation Press release which states that the
United States had failed to convince the Security Council to
approve the use of military force against Iraq. [UN]
(5) President Bush directed the United States military to
invade Iraq on March 19th, 2003 in violation of the UN
Charter and, therefore, in violation of United States Law as
evidenced by the following:
(A) A letter from President Bush to Congress dated March
21st, 2003 stating ``I directed U.S. Armed Forces, operating
with other coalition forces, to commence combat operations on
March 19, 2003, against Iraq.'' [WH]
(B) On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General
of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, ``I
have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter.
From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it
was illegal.'' [BBC]
(C) The consequence of the instant and direction of
President George W. Bush, in ordering an attack upon Iraq, a
sovereign nation is in direct violation of United States
Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118, Section 2441, governing
the offense of war crimes.
(6) In the course of invading and occupying Iraq, the
President, as Commander in Chief, has taken responsibility
for the targeting of civilians, journalists, hospitals, and
ambulances, use of antipersonnel weapons including cluster
bombs in densely settled urban areas, the use of white
phosphorous as a weapon, depleted uranium weapons, and the
use of a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs.
Under the direction of President George Bush the United
States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian
populations, including but not limited to blocking roads,
cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations,
planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and
plowing over orchards.
(A) Under the principle of ``command responsibility'',
i.e., that a de jure command can be civilian as well as
military, and can apply to the policy command of heads of
state, said command brings President George Bush within the
reach of international criminal law under the Additional
Protocol I of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of
August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of
International Armed Conflicts, Article 86(2). The United
States is a state signatory to Additional Protocol I, on
December 12, 1977.
(B) Furthermore, Article 85(3) of said Protocol I defines
as a grave breach making a civilian population or individual
civilians the object of attacks. This offense, together with
the principle of command responsibility, places President
George Bush's conduct under the reach of the same law and
principles described as the basis for war crimes prosecution
at Nuremburg, under Article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg
Tribunals: including crimes against peace, violations of the
laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity,
similarly codified in the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, Articles 5 through 8.
(C) The Lancet Report has established massive civilian
casualties in Iraq as a result of the United States' invasion
and occupation of that country.
(D) International laws governing wars of aggression are
completely prohibited under the legal principle of jus
cogens, whether or not a nation has signed or ratified a
particular international agreement.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office
Article IX.--FAILING TO PROVIDE TROOPS WITH BODY ARMOR AND VEHICLE
ARMOR
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
[[Page H5198]]
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, has been responsible for the deaths of members of
the U.S. military and serious injury and trauma to other
soldiers, by failing to provide available body armor and
vehicle armor.
While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice, not
fought in self-defense, and not launched in accordance with
any timetable other than the President's choosing, President
Bush sent U.S. troops into danger without providing them with
armor. This shortcoming has been known for years, during
which time, the President has chosen to allow soldiers and
marines to continue to face unnecessary risk to life and limb
rather then providing them with armor.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article X.--FALSIFYING ACCOUNTS OF U.S. TROOP DEATHS AND INJURIES FOR
POLITICAL PURPOSES
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, promoted false propaganda stories about members of
the United States military, including individuals both dead
and injured.
The White House and the Department of Defense (DOD) in 2004
promoted a false account of the death of Specialist Pat
Tillman, reporting that he had died in a hostile exchange,
delaying release of the information that he had died from
friendly fire, shot in the forehead three times in a manner
that led investigating doctors to believe he had been shot at
close range.
A 2005 report by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones reported that in
the days immediately following Specialist Tillman's death,
U.S. Army investigators were aware that Specialist Tillman
was killed by friendly fire, shot three times to the head,
and that senior Army commanders, including Gen. John Abizaid,
knew of this fact within days of the shooting but
nevertheless approved the awarding of the Silver Star, Purple
Heart, and a posthumous promotion.
On April 24, 2007, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last soldier to
see Specialist Pat Tillman alive, testified before the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he was warned
by superiors not to divulge information that a fellow soldier
killed Specialist Tillman, especially to the Tillman family.
The White House refused to provide requested documents to the
committee, citing ``executive branch confidentiality
interests.''
The White House and DOD in 2003 promoted a false account of
the injury of Jessica Dawn Lynch, reporting that she had been
captured in a hostile exchange and had been dramatically
rescued. On April 2, 2003, the DOD released a video of the
rescue and claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and
that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and
interrogated. Iraqi doctors and nurses later interviewed,
including Dr. Harith Al-Houssona, a doctor in the Nasirya
hospital, described Lynch's injuries as ``a broken arm, a
broken thigh, and a dislocated ankle.'' According to Al-
Houssona, there was no sign of gunshot or stab wounds, and
Lynch's injuries were consistent with those that would be
suffered in a car accident. Al-Houssona's claims were later
confirmed in a U.S. Army report leaked on July 10, 2003.
Lynch denied that she fought or was wounded fighting,
telling Diane Sawyer that the Pentagon ``used me to symbolize
all this stuff. It's wrong. I don't know why they filmed [my
rescue] or why they say these things. . . . I did not
shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees.
And that's the last I remember.'' She reported excellent
treatment in Iraq, and that one person in the hospital even
sang to her to help her feel at home.
On April 24, 2007 Lynch testified before the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
``[Right after my capture], tales of great heroism were
being told. My parent's home in Wirt County was under siege
of the media all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo
from the hills who went down fighting. It was not true. . . .
I am still confused as to why they chose to lie.''
The White House had heavily promoted the false story of
Lynch's rescue, including in a speech by President Bush on
April 28, 2003. After the fiction was exposed, the President
awarded Lynch the Bronze Star.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XI.--ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY BASES IN IRAQ
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has violated an act of Congress that
he himself signed into law by using public funds to construct
permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.
On January 28, 2008, President George W. Bush signed into
law the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year
2008 (H.R. 4986). Noting that the Act ``authorizes funding
for the defense of the United States and its interests
abroad, for military construction, and for national security-
related energy programs,'' the president added the following
``signing statement'':
``Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846, 1079,
and 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit
the President's ability to carry out his constitutional
obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, to protect national security, to supervise the
executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander
in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions
in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of
the President.''
Section 1222 clearly prohibits the expenditure of money for
the purpose of establishing permanent U.S. military bases in
Iraq. The construction of over $1 billion in U.S. military
bases in Iraq, including runways for aircraft, continues
despite congressional intent, as the Administration intends
to force upon the Iraqi government such terms which will
assure the bases remain in Iraq.
Iraqi officials have informed Members of Congress in May
2008 of the strong opposition within the Iraqi parliament and
throughout Iraq to the agreement that the administration is
trying to negotiate with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki. The agreement seeks to assure a long-term U.S.
presence in Iraq of which military bases are the most
obvious, sufficient and necessary construct, thus clearly
defying Congressional intent as to the matter and meaning of
``permanency.''
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XII.--INITIATING A WAR AGAINST IRAQ FOR CONTROL OF THAT
NATION'S NATURAL RESOURCES
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, invaded and occupied a foreign nation for the
purpose, among other purposes, of seizing control of that
nation's oil.
The White House and its representatives in Iraq have, since
the occupation of Baghdad began, attempted to gain control of
Iraqi oil. This effort has included pressuring the new Iraqi
government to pass a hydrocarbon law. Within weeks of the
fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAid) awarded a $240 million
contract to Bearing Point, a private U.S. company. A Bearing
Point employee, based in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, was
hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up the
new hydrocarbon law. The draft law places executives of
foreign oil companies on a council with the task of approving
their own contracts with Iraq; it denies the Iraqi National
Oil Company exclusive rights for the exploration,
development, production, transportation, and marketing of
Iraqi oil, and allows foreign companies to control Iraqi oil
fields containing 80 percent of Iraqi oil for up to 35 years
through contracts that can remain secret for up to 2 months.
The draft law itself contains secret appendices.
President Bush provided unrelated reasons for the invasion
of Iraq to the public and Congress, but those reasons have
been established to have been categorically fraudulent, as
evidenced by the herein mentioned Articles of Impeachment I,
II, III, IV, VI, and VII.
Parallel to the development of plans for war against Iraq,
the U.S. State Department's Future of Iraq project, begun as
early as April 2002, involved meetings in Washington and
London of 17 working groups, each composed of 10 to 20 Iraqi
exiles and international experts selected by the State
[[Page H5199]]
Department. The Oil and Energy working group met four times
between December 2002 and April 2003. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum,
later the Iraqi Oil Minister, was a member of the group,
which concluded that Iraq ``should be opened to international
oil companies as quickly as possible after the war,'' and
that, ``the country should establish a conducive business
environment to attract investment of oil and gas resources.''
The same group recommended production-sharing agreements with
foreign oil companies, the same approach found in the draft
hydrocarbon law, and control over Iraq's oil resources
remains a prime objective of the Bush Administration.
Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney, then-
CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of Petroleum
in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the sensitive
economic and geopolitical role of Middle East oil resources
saying: ``By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional
50 million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come
from? Governments and national oil companies are obviously
controlling about 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains
fundamentally a government business. While many regions of
the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East,
with two-thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still
where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are
anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be
slow.''
The Vice President led the work of a secret energy task
force, as described in Article XXXII below, a task force that
focused on, among other things, the acquisition of Iraqi oil
through developing a controlling private corporate interest
in said oil.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
ARTICLE XIII.--CREATING A SECRET TASK FORCE TO DEVELOP ENERGY AND
MILITARY POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO IRAQ AND OTHER COUNTRIES
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the
laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, created a secret task force to guide our nation's
energy policy and military policy, and undermined Congress'
ability to legislate by thwarting attempts to investigate the
nature of that policy.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on the
Cheney Energy Task Force, in August 2003, described the
creation of this task force as follows:
``In a January 29, 2001, memorandum, the President
established NEPDG [the National Energy Policy Development
Group]--comprised of the Vice President, nine cabinet-level
officials, and four other senior administration officials--to
gather information, deliberate, and make recommendations to
the President by the end of fiscal year 2001. The President
called on the Vice President to chair the group, direct its
work and, as necessary, establish subordinate working groups
to assist NEPDG.''
The four ``other senior administration officials were the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the
Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for
Policy, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy,
and the Deputy Assistant to the President for
Intergovernmental Affairs.
The GAO report found that: ``In developing the National
Energy Policy report, the NEPDG Principals, Support Group,
and participating agency officials and staff met with,
solicited input from, or received information and advice from
nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal,
nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry
representatives and lobbyists. The extent to which
submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited,
influenced policy deliberations, or were incorporated into
the final report cannot be determined based on the limited
information made available to GAO. NEPDG met and conducted
its work in two distinct phases: the first phase culminated
in a March 19, 2001, briefing to the President on challenges
relating to energy supply and the resulting economic impact;
the second phase ended with the May 16, 2001, presentation of
the final report to the President. The Office of the Vice
President's (OVP) unwillingness to provide the NEPDG records
or other related information precluded GAO from fully
achieving its objectives and substantially limited GAO's
ability to comprehensively analyze the NEPDG process.
associated with that process.
``None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG
effort provided GAO with a complete accounting of the costs
that they incurred during the development of the National
Energy Policy report. The two federal entities responsible
for funding the NEPDG effort--OVP and the Department of
Energy (DOE)--did not provide the comprehensive cost
information that GAO requested. OVP provided GAO with 77
pages of information, two-thirds of which contained no cost
information while the remaining one-third contained some
miscellaneous information of little to no usefulness. OVP
stated that it would not provide any additional information.
DOE, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) provided GAO with estimates of
certain costs and salaries associated with the NEPDG effort,
but these estimates, all calculated in different ways, were
not comprehensive.''
In 2003, the Commerce Department disclosed a partial
collection of materials from the NEPDG, including documents,
maps, and charts, dated March 2001, of Iraq's, Saudi Arabia's
and the United Arab Emirates' oil fields, pipelines,
refineries, tanker terminals, and development projects.
On November 16, 2005, the Washington Post reported on a
White House document showing that oil company executives had
met with the NEPDG, something that some of those same
executives had just that week denied in Congressional
testimony. The Bush Administration had not corrected the
inaccurate testimony.
On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post reported the full
list of names of those who had met with the NEPDG.
In 1998 Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told
a San Francisco audience, ``Iraq possesses huge reserves of
oil and gas, reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.''
According to the GAO report, Chevron provided detailed advice
to the NEPDG.
In March, 2001, the NEPDG recommended that the United
States Government support initiatives by Middle Eastern
countries ``to open up areas of their energy sectors to
foreign investment.'' Following the invasion of Iraq, the
United States has pressured the new Iraqi parliament to pass
a hydrocarbon law that would do exactly that. The draft law,
if passed, would take the majority of Iraq's oil out of the
exclusive hands of the Iraqi Government and open it to
international oil companies for a generation or more. The
Bush administration hired Bearing Point, a U.S. company, to
help write the law in 2004. It was submitted to the Iraqi
Council of Representatives in May 2007.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XIV.--MISPRISION OF A FELONY, MISUSE AND EXPOSURE OF CLASSIFIED
INFORMATION AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN THE MATTER OF VALERIE PLAME
WILSON, CLANDESTINE AGENT OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President,
(1) suppressed material information;
(2) selectively declassified information for the improper
purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and
presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from
Iraq;
(3) facilitated the exposure of the identity of Valerie
Plame Wilson who had theretofore been employed as a covert
CIA operative;
(4) failed to investigate the improper leaks of classified
information from within his administration;
(5) failed to cooperate with an investigation into possible
federal violations resulting from this activity; and
(6) finally, entirely undermined the prosecution by
commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and
insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress
and the citizens of the United States from discovering the
deceitful nature of the President's claimed justifications
for the invasion of Iraq.
In facilitating this exposure of classified information and
the subsequent cover-up, in all of these actions and
decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner
contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of
constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of
law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of
the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by
such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting
removal from office.
Article XV.--PROVIDING IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR CRIMINAL
CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, established policies granting United States
government contractors and their employees in Iraq immunity
from Iraqi law, U.S. law, and international law.
[[Page H5200]]
Lewis Paul Bremer III, then-Director of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, on June 27, 2004,
issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17, which
granted members of the U.S. military, U.S. mercenaries, and
other U.S. contractor employees immunity from Iraqi law.
The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform
Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries
and other contractors employed by the United States
government in Iraq.
Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have
killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have
described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S.
contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims
of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow
contract employees in Iraq. These charges have not been
brought to trial, and in several cases the contracting
companies and the U.S. State Department have worked together
in attempting to cover them up.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United
States is party, and which under Article VI of the U.S.
Constitution is therefore the supreme law of the United
States, it is the responsibility of an occupying force to
ensure the protection and human rights of the civilian
population. The efforts of President Bush and his
subordinates to attempt to establish a lawless zone in Iraq
are in violation of the law.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice
of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of
the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George
W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense
warranting removal from office.
Article XVI.--RECKLESS MISSPENDING AND WASTE OF U.S. TAX DOLLARS IN
CONNECTION WITH IRAQ CONTRACTORS
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, recklessly wasted public funds on contracts
awarded to close associates, including companies guilty of
defrauding the government in the past, contracts awarded
without competitive bidding, ``cost-plus'' contracts designed
to encourage cost overruns, and contracts not requiring
satisfactory completion of the work. These failures have been
the rule, not the exception, in the awarding of contracts for
work in the United States and abroad over the past seven
years. Repeated exposure of fraud and waste has not been met
by the president with correction of systemic problems, but
rather with retribution against whistleblowers.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
reported on Iraq reconstruction contracting:
``From the beginning, the Administration adopted a flawed
contracting approach in Iraq. Instead of maximizing
competition, the Administration opted to award no-bid, cost-
plus contracts to politically connected contractors.
Halliburton's secret $7 billion contract to restore Iraq's
oil infrastructure is the prime example. Under this no-bid,
cost-plus contract, Halliburton was reimbursed for its costs
and then received an additional fee, which was a percentage
of its costs. This created an incentive for Halliburton to
run up its costs in order to increase its potential profit.
``Even after the Administration claimed it was awarding
Iraq contracts competitively in early 2004, real price
competition was missing. Iraq was divided geographically and
by economic sector into a handful of fiefdoms. Individual
contractors were then awarded monopoly contracts for all of
the work within given fiefdoms. Because these monopoly
contracts were awarded before specific projects were
identified, there was no actual price competition for more
than 2,000 projects.
``In the absence of price competition, rigorous government
oversight becomes essential for accountability. Yet the
Administration turned much of the contract oversight work
over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest.
Oversight contractors oversaw their business partners and, in
some cases, were placed in a position to assist their own
construction work under separate monopoly construction
contracts. . . .
``Under Halliburton's two largest Iraq contracts, Pentagon
auditors found $1 billion in `questioned' costs and over $400
million in 'unsupported' costs. Former Halliburton employees
testified that the company charged $45 for cases of soda,
billed $100 to clean 15-pound bags of laundry, and insisted
on housing its staff at the five-star Kempinski hotel in
Kuwait. Halliburton truck drivers testified that the company
`torched' brand new $85,000 trucks rather than perform
relatively minor repairs and regular maintenance. Halliburton
procurement officials described the company's informal motto
in Iraq as 'Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus.' A
Halliburton manager was indicted for `major fraud against the
United States' for allegedly billing more than $5.5 billion
for work that should have cost only $685,000 in exchange for
a $1 million kickback from a Kuwaiti subcontractor. . . .
``The Air Force found that another U.S. government
contractor, Custer Battles, set up shell subcontractors to
inflate prices. Those overcharges were passed along to the
U.S. government under the company's cost-plus contract to
provide security for Baghdad International Airport. In one
case, the company allegedly took Iraqi-owned forklifts, re-
painted them, and leased them to the U.S. government.
``Despite the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars,
U.S. reconstruction efforts in keys sectors of the Iraqi
economy are failing. Over two years after the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq, oil and electricity production has fallen
below pre-war levels. The Administration has failed to even
measure how many Iraqis lack access to drinkable water.''
``Constitution in Crisis,'' a book by Congressman John
Conyers, details the Bush Administration's response when
contract abuse is made public:
``Bunnatine Greenhouse was the chief contracting officer at
the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much
of the reconstruction work in Iraq. In October 2004, Ms.
Greenhouse came forward and revealed that top Pentagon
officials showed improper favoritism to Halliburton when
awarding military contracts to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg
Brown & Root (KBR). Greenhouse stated that when the Pentagon
awarded Halliburton a five-year $7 billion contract, it
pressured her to withdraw her objections, actions which she
claimed were unprecedented in her experience.
``On June 27, 2005, Ms. Greenhouse testified before
Congress, detailing that the contract award process was
compromised by improper influence by political appointees,
participation by Halliburton officials in meetings where
bidding requirements were discussed, and a lack of
competition. She stated that the Halliburton contracts
represented ``the most blatant and improper contract abuse I
have witnessed during the course of my professional career.''
Days before the hearing, the acting general counsel of the
Army Corps of Engineers paid Ms. Greenhouse a visit and
reportedly let it be known that it would not be in her best
interest to appear voluntarily.
``On August 27, 2005, the Army demoted Ms. Greenhouse,
removing her from the elite Senior Executive Service and
transferring her to a lesser job in the corps' civil works
division. As Frank Rich of The New York Times described the
situation, '[H]er crime was not obstructing justice but
pursuing it by vehemently questioning irregularities in the
awarding of some $7 billion worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq
to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root.' The
demotion was in apparent retaliation for her speaking out
against the abuses, even though she previously had stellar
reviews and over 20 years of experience in military
procurement.''
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
reports on domestic contracting:
``The Administration's domestic contracting record is no
better than its record on Iraq. Waste, fraud, and abuse
appear to be the rule rather than the exception. . . .
``A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) cost-plus
contract with NCS Pearson, Inc., to hire federal airport
screeners was plagued by poor management and egregious waste.
Pentagon auditors challenged $303 million (over 40%) of the
$741 million spent by Pearson under the contract. The
auditors detailed numerous concerns with the charges of
Pearson and its subcontractors, such as `$20-an-hour
temporary workers billed to the government at $48 per hour,
subcontractors who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with
no supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated long
distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that flooded in
a rainstorm, [and] $4.4 million in ``no show'' fees for job
candidates who did not appear for tests.' A Pearson employee
who supervised Pearson's hiring efforts at 43 sites in the
U.S. described the contract as `a waste a taxpayer's money.'
The CEO of one Pearson subcontractor paid herself $5.4
million for nine months work and provided herself with a
$270,000 pension. . . .
``The Administration is spending $239 million on the
Integrated Surveillance and Intelligence System, a no-bid
contract to provide thousands of cameras and sensors to
monitor activity on the Mexican and Canadian borders.
Auditors found that the contractor, International Microwave
Corp., billed for work it never did and charged for equipment
it never provided, 'creat[ing] a potential for overpayments
of almost $13 million.' Moreover, the border monitoring
system reportedly does not work. . . .
``After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening
equipment for the nation's entry points, the Department of
Homeland Security is now `moving to replace or alter much of'
it because `it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to
operate.' For example, radiation monitors at ports and
borders reportedly could not `differentiate between radiation
emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation
from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.' . .
.
``The TSA awarded Boeing a cost-plus contract to install
over 1,000 explosive detection systems for airline passenger
luggage. After installation, the machines `began to register
false alarms' and `[s]creeners were forced to open and hand-
check bags.' To reduce the number of false alarms, the
sensitivity of the machines was lowered, which reduced the
effectiveness of the detectors. Despite these
[[Page H5201]]
serious problems, Boeing received an $82 million profit that
the Inspector General determined to be `excessive.' . . .
``The FBI spent $170 million on a `Virtual Case File'
system that does not operate as required. After three years
of work under a cost-plus contract failed to produce a
functional system, the FBI scrapped the program and began
work on the new `Sentinel' Case File System. . . .
``The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General
found that taxpayer dollars were being lavished on perks for
agency officials. One IG report found that TSA spent over
$400,000 on its first leader's executive office suite.
Another found that TSA spent $350,000 on a gold-plated gym. .
. .
``According to news reports, Pentagon auditors . . .
examined a contract between the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) and Unisys, a technology and consulting
company, for the upgrade of airport computer networks. Among
other irregularities, government auditors found that Unisys
may have overbilled for as much as 171,000 hours of labor and
overtime by charging for employees at up to twice their
actual rate of compensation. While the cost ceiling for the
contract was set at $1 billion, Unisys has reportedly billed
the government $940 million with more than half of the seven-
year contract remaining and more than half of the TSA-
monitored airports still lacking upgraded networks.''
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XVII.--ILLEGAL DETENTION: DETAINING INDEFINITELY AND WITHOUT
CHARGE PERSONS BOTH U.S. CITIZENS AND FOREIGN CAPTIVES
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, violated United States and International Law and
the U.S. Constitution by illegally detaining indefinitely and
without charge persons both U.S. citizens and foreign
captives.
In a statement on Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush declared
that in the U.S. fight against Al Qaeda, ``none of the
provisions of Geneva apply,'' thus rejecting the Geneva
Conventions that protect captives in wars and other
conflicts. By that time, the administration was already
transporting captives from the war in Afghanistan, both
alleged Al Qaeda members and supporters, and also Afghans
accused of being fighters in the army of the Taliban
government, to U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan and to the
detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The round-up and
detention without charge of Muslim non-citizens inside the
U.S. began almost immediately after the September 11, 2001
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with some
being held as long as nine months. The U.S., on orders of the
president, began capturing and detaining without charge
alleged terror suspects in other countries and detaining them
abroad and at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo.
Many of these detainees have been subjected to systematic
abuse, including beatings, which have been subsequently
documented by news reports, photographic evidence, testimony
in Congress, lawsuits, and in the case of detainees in the
U.S., by an investigation conducted by the Justice
Department's Office of the Inspector General.
In violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions, the
Bush Administration instructed the Department of Justice and
the U.S. Department of Defense to refuse to provide the
identities or locations of these detainees, despite requests
from Congress and from attorneys for the detainees. The
president even declared the right to detain U.S. citizens
indefinitely, without charge and without providing them
access to counsel or the courts, thus depriving them of their
constitutional and basic human rights. Several of those U.S.
citizens were held in military brigs in solitary confinement
for as long as three years before being either released or
transferred to civilian detention.
Detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in
violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from and
denied visits by the International Red Cross organization,
while thousands of others in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan,
ships in foreign off-shore sites, and an unknown number of
so-called ``black sites'' around the world have been denied
any opportunity to challenge their detentions. The president,
acting on his own claimed authority, has declared the
hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to be ``enemy
combatants'' not subject to U.S. law and not even subject to
military law, but nonetheless potentially liable to the death
penalty.
The detention of individuals without due process violates
the 5th Amendment. While the Bush administration has been
rebuked in several court cases, most recently that of Ali al-
Marri, it continues to attempt to exceed constitutional
limits.
In all of these actions violating U.S. and International
law, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary
to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and
subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of
the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of
the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George
W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense
warranting removal from office.
ARTICLE XVIII.--TORTURE: SECRETLY AUTHORIZING, AND ENCOURAGING THE USE
OF TORTURE AGAINST CAPTIVES IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND OTHER PLACES, AS
A MATTER OF OFFICIAL POLICY
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, violated United States and International Law and
the U.S. Constitution by secretly authorizing and encouraging
the use of torture against captives in Afghanistan, Iraq in
connection with the so-called ``war'' on terror.
In violation of the Constitution, U.S. law, the Geneva
Conventions (to which the U.S. is a signatory), and in
violation of basic human rights, torture has been authorized
by the President and his administration as official policy.
Water-boarding, beatings, faked executions, confinement in
extreme cold or extreme heat, prolonged enforcement of
painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual
humiliation, and the defiling of religious articles have been
practiced and exposed as routine at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib
Prison and other U.S. detention sites in Iraq, and at Bagram
Air Base in Afghanistan. The president, besides bearing
responsibility for authorizing the use of torture, also as
Commander in Chief, bears ultimate responsibility for the
failure to halt these practices and to punish those
responsible once they were exposed.
The administration has sought to claim the abuse of
captives is not torture, by redefining torture. An August 1,
2002 memorandum from the Administration's Office of Legal
Counsel Jay S. Bybee addressed to White House Counsel Alberto
R. Gonzales concluded that to constitute torture, any pain
inflicted must be akin to that accompanying ``serious
physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily
function, or even death.'' The memorandum went on to state
that even should an act constitute torture under that minimal
definition, it might still be permissible if applied to
``interrogations undertaken pursuant to the President's
Commander-in-Chief powers.'' The memorandum further asserted
that ``necessity or self-defense could provide justifications
that would eliminate any criminal liability.''
This effort to redefine torture by calling certain
practices simply ``enhanced interrogation techniques'' flies
in the face of the Third Geneva Convention Relating to the
Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states that ``No
physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion,
may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them
information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse
to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any
unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.''
Torture is further prohibited by the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the paramount international human rights
statement adopted unanimously by the United Nations General
Assembly, including the United States, in 1948. Torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is
also prohibited by international treaties ratified by the
United States: the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture
and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(CAT).
When the Congress, in the Defense Authorization Act of
2006, overwhelmingly passed a measure banning torture and
sent it to the President's desk for signature, the President,
who together with his vice president, had fought hard to
block passage of the amendment, signed it, but then quietly
appended a signing statement in which he pointedly asserted
that as Commander-in-Chief, he was not bound to obey its
strictures.
The administration's encouragement of and failure to
prevent torture of American captives in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and in the battle against terrorism, has
undermined the rule of law in the U.S. and in the US
military, and has seriously damaged both the effort to
combat global terrorism, and more broadly, America's image
abroad. In his effort to hide torture by U.S. military
forces and the CIA, the president has defied Congress and
has lied to the American people, repeatedly claiming that
the U.S. ``does not torture.''
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of U.S.
and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in
a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in
Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the
prejudice of the
[[Page H5202]]
cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the
people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W.
Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense
warranting removal from office.
ARTICLE XIX.--RENDITION: KIDNAPPING PEOPLE AND TAKING THEM AGAINST
THEIR WILL TO ``BLACK SITES'' LOCATED IN OTHER NATIONS, INCLUDING
NATIONS KNOWN TO PRACTICE TORTURE
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, violated United States and International Law and
the U.S. Constitution by kidnapping people and renditioning
them to ``black sites'' located in other nations, including
nations known to practice torture.
The president has publicly admitted that since the 9-11
attacks in 2001, the U.S. has been kidnapping and
transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning)
in its so-called ``war'' on terror--even people captured by
U.S. personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany,
Macedonia and Italy--and ferrying them to places like Bagram
Airbase in Afghanistan, and to prisons operated in Eastern
European countries, African Countries and Middle Eastern
countries where security forces are known to practice
torture.
These people are captured and held indefinitely, without
any charges being filed, and are held without being
identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many are
clearly innocent, and several cases, including one in Canada
and one in Germany, have demonstrably been shown subsequently
to have been in error, because of a similarity of names or
because of misinformation provided to U.S. authorities.
Such a policy is in clear violation of U.S. and
International Law, and has placed the United States in the
position of a pariah state. The CIA has no law enforcement
authority, and cannot legally arrest or detain anyone. The
program of ``extraordinary rendition'' authorized by the
president is the substantial equivalent of the policies of
``disappearing'' people, practices widely practiced and
universally condemned in the military dictatorships of Latin
America during the late 20th Century.
The administration has claimed that prior administrations
have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is
technically true, earlier renditions were used only to
capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or
convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to
stand trial or serve their sentences in the U.S. The
president has refused to divulge how many people have been
subject to extraordinary rendition since September, 2001. It
is possible that some have died in captivity. As one U.S.
official has stated off the record, regarding the program,
Some of those who were renditioned were later delivered to
Guantanamo, while others were sent there directly. An example
of this is the case of six Algerian Bosnians who, immediately
after being cleared by the Supreme Court of Bosnia
Herzegovina in January 2002 of allegedly plotting to attack
the U.S. and UK embassies, were captured, bound and gagged by
U.S. special forces and renditioned to Guantanamo.
In perhaps the most egregious proven case of rendition,
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was picked up
in September 2002 while transiting through New York's JFK
airport on his way home to Canada. Immigration and FBI
officials detained and interrogated him for nearly two weeks,
illegally denying him his rights to access counsel, the
Canadian consulate, and the courts. Executive branch
officials asked him if he would volunteer to go to Syria,
where he hadn't been in 15 years, and Maher refused
Maher was put on a private jet plane operated by the CIA
and sent to Jordan, where he was beaten for 8 hours, and then
delivered to Syria, where he was beaten and interrogated for
18 hours a day for a couple of weeks. He was whipped on his
back and hands with a 2 inch thick electric cable and asked
questions similar to those he had been asked in the United
States. For over ten months Maher was held in an underground
grave-like cell--3 6 7 feet--which was damp and cold, and in
which the only light came in through a hole in the ceiling.
After a year of this, Maher was released without any charges.
He is now back home in Canada with his family. Upon his
release, the Syrian Government announced he had no links to
Al Qaeda, and the Canadian Government has also said they've
found no links to Al Qaeda. The Canadian Government launched
a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian
Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, to investigate the role
of Canadian officials, but the Bush Administration has
refused to cooperate with the Inquiry.
Hundreds of flights of CIA-chartered planes have been
documented as having passed through European countries on
extraordinary rendition missions like that involving Maher
Arar, but the administration refuses to state how many people
have been subjects of this illegal program.
The same U.S. laws prohibiting aiding and abetting torture
also prohibit sending someone to a country where there is a
substantial likelihood they may be tortured. Article 3 of CAT
prohibits forced return where there is a ``substantial
likelihood'' that an individual ``may be in danger of''
torture, and has been implemented by federal statute. Article
7 of the ICCPR prohibits return to country of origin where
individuals may be ``at risk'' of either torture or cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment.
Under international Human Rights law, transferring a POW to
any nation where he or she is likely to be tortured or
inhumanely treated violates Article 12 of the Third Geneva
Convention, and transferring any civilian who is a protected
person under the Fourth Geneva Convention is a grave breach
and a criminal act.
In situations of armed conflict, both international human
rights law and humanitarian law apply. A person captured in
the zone of military hostilities ``must have some status
under international law; he is either a prisoner of war and,
as such, covered by the Third Convention, [or] a civilian
covered by the Fourth Convention. . . . There is no
intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the
law.'' Although the state is obligated to repatriate
Prisoners of War as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC's
commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners
should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for
fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to
general principles of established international law for the
protection of human beings Thus, all of the Guantanamo
detainees as well as renditioned captives are protected by
international human rights protections and humanitarian law.
By his actions as outlined above, the President has abused
his power, broken the law, deceived the American people, and
placed American military personnel, and indeed all
Americans--especially those who may travel or live abroad--at
risk of similar treatment. Furthermore, in the eyes of the
rest of the world, the President has made the U.S., once a
model of respect for Human Rights and respect for the rule of
law, into a state where international law is neither
respected nor upheld.
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of
United States and International law, President George W. Bush
has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and
Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XX.--IMPRISONING CHILDREN
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, authorized or permitted the
arrest and detention of at least 2500 children under the age
of 18 as ``enemy combatants'' in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of ``protected
persons'' and the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention
on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in
Armed Conflict, signed by the U.S. in 2002. To wit:
In May 2008, the U.S. government reported to the United
Nations that it has been holding upwards of 2,500 children
under the age of 18 as ``enemy combatants'' at detention
centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay (where
there was a special center, Camp Iguana, established just for
holding children). The length of these detentions has
frequently exceeded a year, and in some cases has stretched
to five years. Some of these detainees have reached adulthood
in detention and are now not being reported as child
detainees because they are no longer children.
In addition to detaining children as ``enemy combatants,''
it has been widely reported in media reports that the U.S.
military in Iraq has, based upon Pentagon rules of
engagement, been treating boys as young as 14 years of age as
``potential combatants,'' subject to arrest and even to being
killed. In Fallujah, in the days ahead of the November 2004
all-out assault, Marines ringing the city were reported to be
turning back into the city men and boys ``of combat age'' who
were trying to flee the impending scene of battle--an act
which in itself is a violation of the Geneva Conventions,
which require combatants to permit anyone, combatants as well
as civilians, to surrender, and to leave the scene of battle.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United
States has been a signatory since 1949, children under the
age of 15 captured in conflicts, even if they have been
fighting, are to be considered victims, not prisoners. In
2002, the United States signed the Optional Protocol to the
Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of children in Armed Conflict, which raised this
age for this category of ``protected person'' to under 18.
The continued detention of such children, some as young as
10, by the U.S. military is a violation of both convention
and protocol,
[[Page H5203]]
and as such constitutes a war crime for which the president,
as commander in chief, bears full responsibility.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXI.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS
FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE
GOAL OF OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the
laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates misled the Congress and
the citizens of the United States about a threat of nuclear
attack from the nation of Iran.
The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress and
the public on December 4, 2007, which confirmed that the
government of the nation of Iran had ceased any efforts to
develop nuclear weapons, was completed in 2006. Yet, the
president and his aides continued to suggest during 2007 that
such a nuclear threat was developing and might already exist.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time
the National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was
released that the president had been briefed on its findings
``in the last few months.'' Hadley's statement establishes a
timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to deceive
Congress and the American people about a nuclear threat that
did not exist.
Hadley has stated that the president ``was basically told:
stand down'' and, yet, the president and his aides continued
to make false claims about the prospect that Iran was trying
to ``build a nuclear weapon'' that could lead to ``World War
III.''
This evidence establishes that the president actively
engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his
administration to make a false ``case'' for an attack on
Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a critical
juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and
unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation.
Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released
to Congress and the American people, the president stated
that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested
that he and members of his administration would continue to
argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the
United States. He did this despite the fact that United
States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially
stated that this was not the case.
Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration's attempts
to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy
toward Iran. On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of
overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq,
Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according
to a document quoted in then- Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy Douglas Feith's book, ``War and Decision.''
General Wesley Clark, reports in his book ``Winning Modern
Wars'' being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November
2001 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to overthrow
included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Clark
writes that the list also included Lebanon.
Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2008 asking Feith
at a public event which of the six regimes on the Clark list
were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which Feith replied
``All of them.''
Rumsfeld's aides also drafted a second version of the
paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the
development of ``campaign plans against terrorism''. The
paper called for military commanders to assist other
government agencies ``as directed'' to ``encourage
populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their
supporters to overthrow that domination.''
In January 2005, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker
Magazine that the Bush Administration had been conducting
secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since the
summer of 2004.
In June 2005 former United Nations weapons inspector Scott
Ritter reported that United States security forces had been
sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) into Iranian
territory. The MEK has been designated a terrorist
organization by the United States, the European Union,
Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported that the United
States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used the MEK to
carry out remote bombings in Iran.
In April 2006, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine
that U.S. combat troops had entered and were operating in
Iran, where they were working with minority groups including
the Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds.
Also in April 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw
Story that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was working
with and training the MEK, or former members of the MEK,
sending them to commit acts of violence in southern Iran in
areas where recent attacks had left many dead. Raw Story
reported that the Pentagon had adopted the policy of
supporting MEK shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and
in response to the influence of Vice President Richard B.
Cheney's office. Raw Story subsequently reported that no
Presidential finding, and no Congressional oversight, existed
on MEK operations.
In March 2007, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine
that the Bush administration was attempting to stem the
growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically
the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding
violent Sunni organizations, without any Congressional
authorization or oversight. Hersh said funds had been given
to ``three Sunni jihadist groups . . . connected to al
Qaeda'' that ``want to take on Hezbollah.''
In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that
conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders were
understood by the Iranian government as a proxy war with the
United States and were leading Iran to support its allies
against the United States' occupation force in Iraq. Among
the groups the U.S. DOD is supporting, according to this
report, is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its
Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. The United States has provided
``foodstuffs, economic assistance, medical supplies and
Russian military equipment, some of it funneled through
nonprofit groups.''
In May 2008, Andrew Cockburn reported on Counter Punch that
President Bush, six weeks earlier had signed a secret finding
authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime.
President Bush's secret directive covers actions across an
area stretching from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and purports to
sanction actions up to and including the funding of
organizations like the MEK and the assassination of public
officials.
All of these actions by the President and his agents and
subordinates exhibit a disregard for the truth and a
recklessness with regard to national security, nuclear
proliferation and the global role of the United States
military that is not merely unacceptable but dangerous in a
commander-in- chief.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXII--CREATING SECRET LAWS
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, established a body of secret laws through the
issuance of legal opinions by the Department of Justice's
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
The OLC's March 14, 2003, interrogation memorandum (``Yoo
Memorandum'') was declassified years after it served as law
for the executive branch. On April 29, 2008, House Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Chairman
Jerrold Nadler wrote in a letter to Attorney General Michael
Mukasey:
``It appears to us that there was never any legitimate
basis for the purely legal analysis contained in this
document to be classified in the first place. The Yoo
Memorandum does not describe sources and methods of
intelligence gathering, or any specific facts regarding any
interrogation activities. Instead, it consists almost
entirely of the Department's legal views, which are not
properly kept secret from Congress and the American people.
J. William Leonard, the Director of the National Archive's
Office of Information Security Oversight Office, and a top
expert in this field concurs, commenting that `[t]he document
in question is purely a legal analysis' that contains
`nothing which would justify classification.' In addition,
the Yoo Memorandum suggests an extraordinary breadth and
aggressiveness of OLC's secret legal opinion-making. Much
attention has rightly been given to the statement in footnote
10 in the March 14, 2003, memorandum that, in an October 23,
2001, opinion, OLC concluded `that the Fourth Amendment had
no application to domestic military operations.' As you know,
we have requested a copy of that memorandum on no less than
four prior occasions and we continue to demand access to this
important document.
``In addition to this opinion, however, the Yoo Memorandum
references at least 10 other OLC opinions on weighty matters
of great interest to the American people that also do not
appear to have been released. These appear to cover matters
such as the power of Congress to regulate the conduct of
military commissions, legal constraints on the `military
detention of United States citizens,' legal rules applicable
to the boarding and searching foreign ships, the President's
[[Page H5204]]
authority to render U.S. detainees to the custody of foreign
governments, and the President's authority to breach or
suspend U.S. treaty obligations. Furthermore, it has been
more than five years since the Yoo Memorandum was authored,
raising the question how many other such memoranda and
letters have been secretly authored and utilized by the
Administration.
``Indeed, a recent court filing by the Department in FOIA
litigation involving the Central Intelligence Agency
identifies 8 additional secret OLC opinions, dating from
August 6, 2004, to February 18, 2007. Given that these
reflect only OLC memoranda identified in the files of the
CIA, and based on the sampling procedures under which that
listing was generated, it appears that these represent only a
small portion of the secret OLC memoranda generated during
this time, with the true number almost certainly much
higher.''
Senator Russ Feingold, in a statement during an April 30,
2008, senate hearing stated:
``It is a basic tenet of democracy that the people have a
right to know the law. In keeping with this principle, the
laws passed by Congress and the case law of our courts have
historically been matters of public record. And when it
became apparent in the middle of the 20th century that
federal agencies were increasingly creating a body of non-
public administrative law, Congress passed several statutes
requiring this law to be made public, for the express purpose
of preventing a regime of `secret law.' That purpose today is
being thwarted. Congressional enactments and agency
regulations are for the most part still public. But the law
that applies in this country is determined not only by
statutes and regulations, but also by the controlling
interpretations of courts and, in some cases, the executive
branch. More and more, this body of executive and judicial
law is being kept secret from the public, and too often from
Congress as well. . . .
``A legal interpretation by the Justice Department's Office
of Legal Counsel . . . binds the entire executive branch,
just like a regulation or the ruling of a court. In the words
of former OLC head Jack Goldsmith, `These executive branch
precedents are ``law'' for the executive branch.' The Yoo
memorandum was, for a nine-month period in 2003 until it was
withdrawn by Mr. Goldsmith, the law that this Administration
followed when it came to matters of torture. And of course,
that law was essentially a declaration that few if any laws
applied . . .
``Another body of secret law is the controlling
interpretations of the Fo reign Intelligence Surveillance Act
that are issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court. FISA, of course, is the law that governs the
government's ability in intelligence investigations to
conduct wiretaps and search the homes of people in the United
States. Under that statute, the FISA Court is directed to
evaluate wiretap and search warrant applications and decide
whether the standard for issuing a warrant has been met--a
largely factual evaluation that is properly done behind
closed doors. But with the evolution of technology and with
this Administration's efforts to get the Court's blessing for
its illegal wiretapping activities, we now know that the
Court's role is broader, and that it is very much engaged in
substantive interpretations of the governing statute. These
interpretations are as much a part of this country's
surveillance law as the statute itself. Without access to
them, it is impossible for Congress or the public to have an
informed debate on matters that deeply affect the privacy and
civil liberties of all Americans . . .
``The Administration's shroud of secrecy extends to agency
rules and executive pronouncements, such as Executive Orders,
that carry the force of law. Through the diligent efforts of
my colleague Senator Whitehouse, we have learned that OLC has
taken the position that a President can `waive' or `modify' a
published Executive Order without any notice to the public or
Congress simply by not following it.''
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, and subversive of constitutional government, to
the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is
guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXIII--VIOLATION OF THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, repeatedly and illegally
established programs to appropriate the power of the military
for use in law enforcement. Specifically, he has contravened
U.S.C. Title 18, Section 1385, originally enacted in 1878,
subsequently amended as ``Use of Army and Air Force as Posse
Comitatus'' and commonly known as the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Act states:
``Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,
willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a
posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years,
or both.''
The Posse Comitatus Act is designed to prevent the military
from becoming a national police force.
The Declaration of Independence states as a specific
grievance against the British that the King had ``kept among
us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of
our legislatures,'' had ``affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the civil power,'' and had
``quarter[ed] large bodies of armed troops among us . . .
protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any
murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these
States''
Despite the Posse Comitatus Act's intent, and in
contravention of the law, President Bush:
(a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes
on U.S. border patrol;
(b) has established a program to use military personnel for
surveillance and information on criminal activities;
(c) is using military espionage equipment to collect
intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians
within the United States; and
(d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance
agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In June 2006, President Bush ordered National Guard troops
deployed to the border shared by Mexico with Arizona, Texas,
and California. This deployment, which by 2007 reached a
maximum of 6,000 troops, had orders to ``conduct surveillance
and operate detection equipment, work with border entry
identification teams, analyze information, assist with
communications and give administrative support to the Border
Patrol'' and concerned ``. . . providing intelligence,
inspecting cargo, and conducting surveillance.''
The Air Force's ``Eagle Eyes'' program encourages Air Force
military staff to gather evidence on American citizens. Eagle
Eyes instructs Air Force personnel to engage in surveillance
and then advises them to ``alert local authorities,'' asking
military staff to surveil and gather evidence on public
citizens. This contravenes DoD Directive 5525.5 ``SUBJECT:
DoD Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement'' which limits
such activities.
President Bush has implemented a program to use imagery
from military satellites for domestic law enforcement through
the National Applications Office.
President Bush has assigned numerous active duty military
personnel to civilian institutions such as the CIA and the
Department of Homeland Security, both of which have
responsibilities for law enforcement and intelligence.
In addition, on May 9, 2007, President Bush released
``National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51,'' which
effectively gives the president unchecked power to control
the entire government and to define that government in time
of an emergency, as well as the power to determine whether
there is an emergency. The document also contains
``classified Continuity Annexes.'' In July 2007 and again in
August 2007 Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior member of the House
Homeland Security Committee, sought access to the classified
annexes. DeFazio and other leaders of the Homeland Security
Committee, including Chairman Bennie Thompson, have been
denied a review of the Continuity of Government classified
annexes.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXIV.--SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS, WITHOUT A COURT-ORDERED
WARRANT, IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, knowingly violated the fourth
Amendment to the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence
Service Act of 1978 (FISA) by authorizing warrantless
electronic surveillance of American citizens to wit:
(1) The President was aware of the FISA Law requiring a
court order for any wiretap as evidenced by the following:
(A) ``Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States
government talking about wiretap, it requires--a wiretap
requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When
we're talking about chasing down
[[Page H5205]]
terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before
we do so.'' White House Press conference on April 20, 2004.
[White House Transcript]
(B) ``Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's
permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to
track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must
meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're talking
about.'' President Bush's speech in Baltimore Maryland on
July 20th 2005. [White House Transcript]
(2) The President repeatedly ordered the NSA to place
wiretaps on American citizens without requesting a warrant
from FISA as evidenced by the following:
(A) ``Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush
secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop
on Americans and others inside the United States to search
for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved
warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according
to government officials.'' New York Times article by James
Risen and Eric Lichtblau on December 12, 2005. [NYTimes]
(B) The President admits to authorizing the program by
stating ``I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times
since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so
for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al
Qaeda and related groups. The NSA's activities under this
authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice
Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's
general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress
have been briefed more than a dozen times on this
authorization and the activities conducted under it.'' Radio
Address from the White House on December 17, 2005. [White
House Transcript]
(C) In a December 19th 2005 press conference the President
publicly admitted to using a combination of surveillance
techniques including some with permission from the FISA
courts and some without permission from FISA.
Reporter: It was, why did you skip the basic safeguards of
asking courts for permission for the intercepts?
The President: . . . We use FISA still--you're referring to
the FISA court in your question--of course, we use FISAs. But
FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to
protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to
detect. Now, having suggested this idea, I then, obviously,
went to the question, is it legal to do so? I am--I swore to
uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this?
And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks,
the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well
as the authorization of force by the United States
Congress.'' [White House Transcript]
(D) Mike McConnel, the Director of National Intelligence,
in a letter to to Senator Arlen Specter, acknowledged that
Bush's Executive Order in 2001 authorized a series of secret
surveillance activities and included undisclosed activities
beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone
calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005. ``NSA Spying Part
of Broader Effort'' by Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 8/1/07.
(3) The President ordered the surveillance to be conducted
in a way that would spy upon private communications between
American citizens located within the United States borders as
evidenced by the following:
(A) Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician,
submitted an affidavit in support of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation's FF's lawsuit against AT&T. He testified that in
2003 he connected a ``splitter'' that sent a copy of Internet
traffic and phone calls to a secure room that was operated by
the NSA in the San Francisco office of AT&T. He heard from a
co-worker that similar rooms were being constructed in other
cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San
Diego. From ``Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room,'' Wired News,
4/7/06 [Wired] [EFF Case]
(4) The President asserted an inherent authority to conduct
electronic surveillance based on the Constitution and the
``Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq'' (AUMF) that
was not legally valid as evidenced by the following:
(A) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing General Alberto
Gonzales admitted that the surveillance authorized by the
President was not only done without FISA warrants, but that
the nature of the surveillance was so far removed from what
FISA can approve that FISA could not even be amended to allow
it. Gonzales stated ``We have had discussions with Congress
in the past--certain members of Congress--as to whether or
not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with
this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be
difficult, if not impossible.''.
(B) The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution
states ``The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants
shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.''
(C) ``The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
unambiguously limits warrantless domestic electronic
surveillance, even in a congressionally declared war, to the
first 15 days of that war; criminalizes any such electronic
surveillance not authorized by statute; and expressly
establishes FISA and two chapters of the federal criminal
code, governing wiretaps for intelligence purposes and for
criminal investigation, respectively, as the ``exclusive
means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the
interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic
communications may be conducted.'' 50 U.S.C. 1811, 1809, 18
U.S.C. 2511(2)(f).'' Letter from Harvard Law Professor
Lawrence Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06.
(D) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales stated ``Our position is, is that
the authorization to use force, which was passed by the
Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes
that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to
engage in this kind of signals intelligence.''
(E) The ``Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq''
does not give any explicit authorization related to
electronic surveillance. [HJRes114]
(F) ``From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that
a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly
authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here
under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the
extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of
``electronic surveillance'' within the meaning of FISA or any
activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to
cover the entire field with these statutes.'' From the
``Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic
Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information'' by
the Congressional Research Service on January 5, 2006.
(G) ``The inescapable conclusion is that the AUMF did not
implicitly authorize what the FISA expressly prohibited. It
follows that the presidential program of surveillance at
issue here is a violation of the separation of powers--as
grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever
having studied.'' Letter from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence
Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06.
(H) On August 17, 2006 Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the
United States District Court in Detroit, in ACLU v. NSA,
ruled that the ``NSA program to wiretap the international
communications of some Americans without a court warrant
violated the Constitution. . . . Judge Taylor ruled that the
program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a 1978 law
that requires warrants from a secret court for intelligence
wiretaps involving people in the United States. She rejected
the administration's repeated assertions that a 2001
Congressional authorization and the president's
constitutional authority allowed the program.'' From a New
York Times article ``Judge Finds Wiretap Actions Violate the
Law'' 8/18/06 and the Memorandum Opinion.
(I) In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs had no standing to
sue because, given the secretive nature of the surveillance,
they could not state with certainty that they have been
wiretapped by the NSA. This ruling did not address the
legality of the surveillance so Judge Taylor's decision is
the only ruling on that issue. [ACLU Legal Documents]
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
article xxv.--directing telecommunications companies to create an
illegal and unconstitutional database of the private telephone numbers
and emails of american citizens
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, violated the Stored
Communications Act of 1986 and the Telecommunications Act of
1996 by creating of a very large database containing
information related to the private telephone calls and emails
of American citizens, to wit:
The President requested that telecommunication companies
release customer phone records to the government illegally as
evidenced by the following:
``The Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA) prohibits the
knowing disclosure of customer telephone records to the
government unless pursuant to subpoena, warrant or a National
Security Letter (or other Administrative subpoena); with the
customers lawful consent; or there is a business necessity;
or an emergency involving the danger of death or serious
physical injury. None of these exceptions apply to the
circumstance described in the USA Today story.'' From page
169, ``George W Bush versus the U.S. Constitution.'' Compiled
at the direction of Representative John Conyers.
According to a May 11, 2006 article in USA Today by Lesley
Cauley ``The National Security Agency has been secretly
collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of
Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and
BellSouth.'' An unidentified
[[Page H5206]]
source said `The agency's goal is to create a database of
every call ever made within the nation's borders.''
In early 2001, Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio rejected a request
from the NSA to turn over customers records of phone calls,
emails and other Internet activity. Nacchio believed that
complying with the request would violate the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. From National Journal,
November 2, 2007.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
article xxvi.--announcing the intent to violate laws with signing
statements, and violating those laws
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has used signing statements to claim
the right to violate acts of Congress even as he signs them
into law.
In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported
that in a sample of Bush signing statements the office had
studied, for 30 percent of them the Bush administration had
already proceeded to violate the laws the statements claimed
the right to violate.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXVII.--FAILING TO COMPLY WITH CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS AND
INSTRUCTING FORMER EMPLOYEES NOT TO COMPLY
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, refused to comply with
Congressional subpoenas, and instructed former employees not
to comply with subpoenas.
Subpoenas not complied with include:
A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for Justice Department
papers and Emails, issued April 10, 2007;
A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena
for the testimony of the Secretary of State, issued April 25,
2007;
A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for the testimony of
former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and documents,
issued June 13, 2007;
A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and
testimony of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, issued
June 13, 2007;
A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and
testimony of White House Political Director Sara Taylor,
issued June 13, 2007 (Taylor appeared but refused to answer
questions);
A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and
testimony of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove,
issued June 26, 2007;
A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and
testimony of White House Deputy Political Director J. Scott
Jennings, issued June 26, 2007 (Jennings appeared but refused
to answer questions);
A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for legal analysis
and other documents concerning the NSA warrantless
wiretapping program from the White House, Vice President
Richard Cheney, The Department of Justice, and the National
Security Council. If the documents are not produced, the
subpoena requires the testimony of White House chief of staff
Josh Bolten, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney chief
of staff David Addington, National Security Council executive
director V. Philip Lago, issued June 27, 2007;
A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena
for Lt. General Kensinger.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXVIII.--TAMPERING WITH FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, CORRUPTION OF
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, conspired to undermine and
tamper with the conduct of free and fair elections, and to
corrupt the administration of justice by United States
Attorneys and other employees of the Department of Justice,
through abuse of the appointment power.
Toward this end, the President and Vice President, both
personally and through their agents, did:
Engage in a program of manufacturing false allegations of
voting fraud in targeted jurisdictions where the Democratic
Party enjoyed an advantage in electoral performance or
otherwise was problematic for the President's Republican
Party, in order that public confidence in election results
favorable to the Democratic Party be undermined;
Direct United States Attorneys to launch and announce
investigations of certain leaders, candidates and elected
officials affiliated with the Democratic Party at times
calculated to cause the most political damage and confusion,
most often in the weeks immediately preceding an election, in
order that public confidence in the suitability for office of
Democratic Party leaders, candidates and elected officials be
undermined;
Direct United States Attorneys to terminate or scale back
existing investigations of certain Republican Party leaders,
candidates and elected officials allied with the George W.
Bush administration, and to refuse to pursue new or proposed
investigations of certain Republican Party leaders,
candidates and elected officials allied with the George W.
Bush administration, in order that public confidence in the
suitability of such Republican Party leaders, candidates and
elected officials be bolstered or restored;
Threaten to terminate the employment of the following
United States Attorneys who refused to comply with such
directives and purposes;
David C. Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the District of New
Mexico;
Kevin V. Ryan as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of
California;
John L. McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of
Washington;
Paul K. Charlton as U.S. Attorney for the District of
Arizona;
Carol C. Lam as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
California;
Daniel G. Bogden as U.S. Attorney for the District of
Nevada;
Margaret M. Chiara as U.S. Attorney for the Western
District of Michigan;
Todd Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of
Missouri;
Harry E. ``Bud'' Cummins, III as U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of Arkansas;
Thomas M. DiBiagio as U.S. Attorney for the District of
Maryland, and;
Kasey Warner as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
West Virginia.
Further, George W. Bush has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President conspired to obstruct the lawful Congressional
investigation of these dismissals of United States Attorneys
and the related scheme to undermine and tamper with the
conduct of free and fair elections, and to corrupt the
administration of justice.
Contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of
President of the United States and, to the best of his
ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,
George W. Bush has without lawful cause or excuse directed
not to appear before the Committee on the Judiciary of the
House of Representatives certain witnesses summoned by duly
authorized subpoenas issued by that Committee on June 13,
2007.
In refusing to permit the testimony of these witnesses
George W. Bush, substituting his judgment as to what
testimony was necessary for the inquiry, interposed the
powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the
House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself
functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the
checking and balancing power of oversight vested in the House
of Representatives.
Further, the President has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President directed the United States Attorney for the
District of Columbia to decline to prosecute for contempt of
Congress the aforementioned witnesses, Joshua B. Bolten and
Harriet E. Miers, despite the obligation to do so as
established by statute (2 U.S.C. Sec. 194) and pursuant to
the direction of the United States House of Representatives
as embodied in its resolution (H. Res. 982) of February 14,
2008.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and
justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the
United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by
such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense
warranting removal from office.
Article XXIX.--CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation
[[Page H5207]]
of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office
of President of the United States and, to the best of his
ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution ``to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'' has both
personally and acting through his agents and subordinates,
has willfully corrupted and manipulated the electoral process
of the United States for his personal gain and the personal
gain of his co-conspirators and allies; has violated the
United States Constitution and law by failing to protect the
civil rights of African-American voters and others in the
2004 Election, and has impeded the right of the people to
vote and have their vote properly and accurately counted, in
that:
A. On November 5, 2002, and prior thereto, James Tobin,
while serving as the regional director of the National
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and as the New
England Chairman of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., did, at the
direction of the White House under the administration of
George W. Bush, along with other agents both known and
unknown, commit unlawful acts by aiding and abetting a scheme
to use computerized hang-up calls to jam phone lines set up
by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester
firefighters' union on Election Day;
B. An investigation by the Democratic staff of the House
Judiciary Committee into the voting procedures in Ohio during
the 2004 election found ``widespread instances of
intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting
Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection,
Due Process and the Ohio right to vote;''
C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees
that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment in a
federal, state, or local election in stating that: ``No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''
However, during and at various times of the year 2004, John
Kenneth Blackwell, then serving as the Secretary of State for
the State of Ohio and also serving simultaneously as Co-
Chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush in the
State of Ohio, did, at the direction of the White House under
the administration of George W. Bush, along with other agents
both known and unknown, commit unlawful acts in violation of
the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the
United States Constitution by failing to protect the voting
rights of African-American citizens in Ohio and further, John
Kenneth Blackwell did disenfranchise African-American voters
under color of law, by
(i) Willfully denying certain neighborhoods in the cities
of Cleveland, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, along with other urban
areas in the State of Ohio, an adequate number of electronic
voting machines and provisional paper ballots, thereby
unlawfully impeding duly registered voters from the act of
voting and thus violating the civil rights of an unknown
number of United States citizens.
a. In Franklin County, George W. Bush and his agent, Ohio
Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the
Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, failed to protect the
rights of African-American voters by not properly
investigating the withholding of 125 electronic voting
machines assigned to the city of Columbus.
b. Forty-two African-American precincts in Columbus were
each missing one voting machine that had been present in the
2004 primary.
c. African-American voters in the city of Columbus were
forced to wait three to seven hours to vote in the 2004
presidential election.
(ii) Willfully issuing unclear and conflicting rules
regarding the methods and manner of becoming a legally
registered voter in the State of Ohio, and willfully issuing
unclear and unnecessary edicts regarding the weight of paper
registration forms legally acceptable to the State of Ohio,
thereby creating confusion for both voters and voting
officials and thus impeding the right of an unknown number of
United States citizens to register and vote.
a. Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell directed
through Advisory 2004-31 that voter registration forms, which
were greatest in urban minority areas, should not be accepted
and should be returned unless submitted on 80 bond paper
weight. Blackwell's own office was found to be using 60 bond
paper weight.
(iii) Willfully permitted and encouraged election officials
in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive
partisan purge of registered voter rolls, eventually
expunging more than 300,000 voters, many of whom were duly
registered voters, and who were thus deprived of their
constitutional right to vote;
a. Between the 2000 and 2004 Ohio presidential elections,
24.93% of the voters in the city of Cleveland, a city with a
majority of African American citizens, were purged from the
voting rolls.
b. In that same period, the Ohio county of Miami, with
census data indicating a 98% Caucasian population, refused to
purge any voters from its rolls. Miami County ``merged''
voters from other surrounding counties into its voting rolls
and even allowed voters from other states to vote.
c. In Toledo, Ohio, an urban city with a high African-
American concentration, 28,000 voters were purged from the
voting rolls in August of 2004, just prior to the
presidential election. This purge was conducted under the
control and direction of George W. Bush's agent, Ohio
Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell outside of the
regularly established cycle of purging voters in odd-numbered
years.
(iv) Willfully allowing Ohio Secretary of State John
Kenneth Blackwell, acting under color of law and as an agent
of George W. Bush, to issue a directive that no votes would
be counted unless cast in the right precinct, reversing
Ohio's long-standing practice of counting votes for president
if cast in the right county.
(v) Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State
John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-
election Campaign, to do nothing to assure the voting rights
of 10,000 people in the city of Cleveland when a computer
error by the private vendor Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
incorrectly disenfranchised 10,000 voters
(vi) Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State
John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush- Cheney Re-
election Campaign, to ensure that uncounted and provisional
ballots in Ohio's 2004 presidential election would be
disproportionately concentrated in urban African-American
districts.
a. In Ohio's Lucas County, which includes Toledo, 3,122 or
41.13% of the provisional ballots went uncounted under the
direction of George W. Bush's agent, the Secretary of State
of Ohio, John Kenneth Blackwell, Co- Chair of the Committee
to Re-Elect Bush/Cheney in Ohio.
b. In Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland,
8,559 or 32.82% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.
c. In Ohio's Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati,
3,529 or 24.23% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.
d. Statewide, the provisional ballot rejection rate was 9%
as compared to the greater figures in the urban areas.
D. The Department of Justice, charged with enforcing the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th Amendment's Equal
Protection Clause, and other voting rights laws in the United
States of America, under the direction and Administration of
George W. Bush did willfully and purposely obstruct and
stonewall legitimate criminal investigations into myriad
cases of reported electoral fraud and suppression in the
state of Ohio. Such activities, carried out by the department
on behalf of George W. Bush in counties such as Franklin and
Knox by persons such as John K. Tanner and others, were meant
to confound and whitewash legitimate legal criminal
investigations into the suppression of massive numbers of
legally registered voters and the removal of their right to
cast a ballot fairly and freely in the state of Ohio, which
was crucial to the certified electoral victory of George W.
Bush in 2004.
E. On or about November 1, 2006, members of the United
States Department of Justice, under the control and direction
of the Administration of George W. Bush, brought indictments
for voter registration fraud within days of an election, in
order to directly effect the outcome of that election for
partisan purposes, and in doing so, thereby violated the
Justice Department's own rules against filing election-
related indictments close to an election;
F. Emails have been obtained showing that the Republican
National Committee and members of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., did,
at the direction of the White House under the administration
of George W. Bush, engage in voter suppression in five states
by a method know as ``vote caging,'' an illegal voter
suppression technique;
G. Agents of George W. Bush, including Mark F. ``Thor''
Hearne, the national general counsel of Bush/Cheney '04,
Inc., did, at the behest of George W. Bush, as members of a
criminal front group, distribute known false information and
propaganda in the hopes of forwarding legislation and other
actions that would result in the disenfranchisement of
Democratic voters for partisan purposes. The scheme, run
under the auspices of an organization known as ``The American
Center for Voting Rights'' (ACVR), was funded by agents of
George W. Bush in violation of laws governing tax exempt
501(c)3 organizations and in violation of federal laws
forbidding the distribution of such propaganda by the federal
government and agents working on its behalf.
H. Members of the United States Department of Justice,
under the control and direction of the Administration of
George W. Bush, did, for partisan reasons, illegally and with
malice aforethought block career attorneys and other
officials in the Department of Justice from filing three
lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating
the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities,
according to seven former senior United States Justice
Department employees.
I. Members of the United States Department of Justice,
under the control and direction of the Administration of
George W. Bush, did illegally and with malice aforethought
derail at least two investigations into possible voter
discrimination, according to a letter sent to the Senate
Rules and Administration Committee and written by former
employees of the United States Department of Justice, Voting
Rights Section.
J. Members of the United States Election Assistance
Commission (EAC), under the control and direction of the
Administration of George W. Bush, have purposefully and
[[Page H5208]]
willfully misled the public, in violation of several laws,
by;
(i) Withholding from the public and then altering a legally
mandated report on the true measure and threat of Voter
Fraud, as commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006,
prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but withheld from
release prior to that election when its information would
have been useful in the administration of elections across
the country, because the results of the statutorily required
and tax-payer funded report did not conform with the illegal,
partisan propaganda efforts and politicized agenda of the
Bush Administration;
(ii) Withholding from the public a legally mandated report
on the disenfranchising effect of Photo Identification laws
at the polling place, shown to disproportionately
disenfranchise voters not of George W. Bush's political
party. The report was commissioned by the EAC and completed
in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but
withheld from release prior to that election when its
information would have been useful in the administration of
elections across the country
(iii) Withholding from the public a legally mandated report
on the effectiveness of Provisional Voting as commissioned by
the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-
term election, but withheld from release prior to that
election when its information would have been useful in the
administration of elections across the country, and keeping
that report unreleased for more than a year until it was
revealed by independent media outlets.
For directly harming the rights and manner of suffrage, for
suffering to make them secret and unknowable, for overseeing
and participating in the disenfranchisement of legal voters,
for instituting debates and doubts about the true nature of
elections, all against the will and consent of local voters
affected, and forced through threats of litigation by agents
and agencies overseen by George W. Bush, the actions of Mr.
Bush to do the opposite of securing and guaranteeing the
right of the people to alter or abolish their government via
the electoral process, being a violation of an inalienable
right, and an immediate threat to Liberty.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
ARTICLE XXX.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN AN ATTEMPT
TO DESTROY MEDICARE
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, pursued policies which deliberately drained the
fiscal resources of Medicare by forcing it to compete with
subsidized private insurance plans which are allowed to
arbitrarily select or not select those they will cover;
failing to provide reasonable levels of reimbursements to
Medicare providers, thereby discouraging providers from
participating in the program, and designing a Medicare Part D
benefit without cost controls which allowed pharmaceutical
companies to gouge the American taxpayers for the price of
prescription drugs.
The President created, manipulated, and disseminated
information given to the citizens and Congress of the United
States in support of his prescription drug plan for Medicare
that enriched drug companies while failing to save
beneficiaries sufficient money on their prescription drugs.
He misled Congress and the American people into thinking the
cost of the benefit was $400 billion. It was widely
understood that if the cost exceeded that amount, the bill
would not pass due to concerns about fiscal irresponsibility.
A Medicare Actuary who possessed information regarding the
true cost of the plan, $539 billion, was instructed by the
Medicare Administrator to deny Congressional requests for it.
The Actuary was threatened with sanctions if the information
was disclosed to Congress, which, unaware of the information,
approved the bill. Despite the fact that official cost
estimates far exceeded $400 billion, President Bush offered
assurances to Congress that the cost was $400 billion, when
his office had information to the contrary. In the House of
Representatives, the bill passed by a single vote and the
Conference Report passed by only 5 votes. The White House
knew the actual cost of the drug benefit was high enough to
prevent its passage. Yet the White House concealed the truth
and impeded an investigation into its culpability.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article XXXI.--KATRINA: FAILURE TO PLAN FOR THE PREDICTED DISASTER OF
HURRICANE KATRINA, FAILURE TO RESPOND TO A CIVIL EMERGENCY
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, failed to take sufficient action
to protect life and property prior to and in the face of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, given decades of foreknowledge of
the dangers of storms to New Orleans and specific forewarning
in the days prior to the storm. The President failed to
prepare for predictable and predicted disasters, failed to
respond to an immediate need of which he was informed, and
has subsequently failed to rebuild the section of our nation
that was destroyed.
Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,282 people, with 2
million more displaced. 302,000 housing units were destroyed
or damaged by the hurricane, 71% of these were low-income
units. More than 500 sewage plants were destroyed, more than
170 point-source leakages of gasoline, oil, or natural gas,
more than 2000 gas stations submerged, several chemical
plants, 8 oil refineries, and a superfund site was submerged.
8 million gallons of oil were spilled. Toxic materials seeped
into floodwaters and spread through much of the city and
surrounding areas.
The predictable increased strength of hurricanes such as
Katrina has been identified by scientists for years, and yet
the Bush Administration has denied this science and
restricted such information from official reports,
publications, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Agency's website. Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science,
wrote in 2006 that ``hurricane intensity has increased with
oceanic surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The
physics of hurricane intensity growth . . . has clarified and
explained the thermodynamic basis for these observations.
[Kerry] Emanuel has tested this relationship and presented
convincing evidence.''
FEMA's 2001 list of the top three most likely and most
devastating disasters were a San Francisco earthquake, a
terrorist attack on New York, and a Category 4 hurricane
hitting New Orleans, with New Orleans being the number one
item on that list. FEMA conducted a five-day hurricane
simulation exercise in 2004, ``Hurricane Pam,'' mimicking a
Katrina-like event. This exercise combined the National
Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU
Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies,
resulting in the development of emergency response plans. The
exercise demonstrated, among other things, that thousands of
mainly indigent New Orleans residents would be unable to
evacuate on their own. They would need substantial government
assistance. These plans, however, were not implemented in
part due to the President's slashing of funds for protection.
In the year before Hurricane Katrina hit, the President
continued to cut budgets and deny grants to the Gulf Coast.
In June of 2004 the Army Corps of Engineers levee budget for
New Orleans was cut, and it was cut again in June of 2005,
this time by $71.2 million or a whopping 44% of the budget.
As a result, ACE was forced to suspend any repair work on the
levees. In 2004 FEMA denied a Louisiana disaster mitigation
grant request.
The President was given multiple warnings that Hurricane
Katrina had a high likelihood of causing serious damage to
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. At 10 AM on Sunday 28 August
2005, the day before the storm hit, the National Weather
Service published an alert titled ``DEVASTATING DAMAGE
EXPECTED.'' Printed in all capital letters, the alert stated
that ``MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS . . .
PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES
WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. . . . POWER OUTAGES WILL
LAST FOR WEEKS. . . . WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN
SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.''
The Homeland Security Department also briefed the President
on the scenario, warning of levee breaches and severe
flooding. According to the New York Times, ``a Homeland
Security Department report submitted to the White House at
1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, `Any
storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe
flooding and/or levee breaching.' '' These warnings clearly
contradict the statements made by President Bush immediately
after the storm that such devastation could not have been
predicted. On 1 September 2005 the President said ``I
don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.''
The President's response to Katrina via FEMA and DHS was
criminally delayed, indifferent, and inept. The only FEMA
employee posted in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, Marty Bahamonde, emailed head of FEMA
Michael Brown from his Blackberry device on August 31, 2005
regarding the conditions. The email was urgent and detailed
and indicated that ``The situation is past critical . . .
Estimates are many will die within hours.'' Brown's reply was
emblematic of the administration's entire response to the
catastrophe:
[[Page H5209]]
``Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or
tweak?'' The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael
Chertoff, did not declare an emergency, did not mobilize the
federal resources, and seemed to not even know what was
happening on the ground until reporters told him.
On Friday August 26, 2005, Governor Kathleen Blanco
declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana and Governor Haley
Barbour of Mississippi followed suit the next day. Also on
that Saturday, Governor Blanco asked the President to declare
a Federal State of Emergency, and on 28 August 2005, the
Sunday before the storm hit, Mayor Nagin declared a State of
Emergency in New Orleans. This shows that the local
authorities, responding to federal warnings, knew how bad the
destruction was going to be and anticipated being
overwhelmed. Failure to act under these circumstances
demonstrates gross negligence.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional
government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice
and to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct,
is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
ARTICLE XXXII.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,
SYSTEMATICALLY UNDERMINING EFFORTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, ignored the peril to life and property posed by
global climate change, manipulated scientific information and
mishandled protective policy, constituting nonfeasance and
malfeasance in office, abuse of power, dereliction of duty,
and deception of Congress and the American people.
President Bush knew the expected effects of climate change
and the role of human activities in driving climate change.
This knowledge preceded his first Presidential term.
1. During his 2000 Presidential campaign, he promised to
regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
2. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
a global body of hundreds of the world's foremost experts on
climate change, concluded that ``most of observed warming
over last 50 years (is) likely due to increases in greenhouse
gas concentrations due to human activities.'' The Third
Assessment Report projected several effects of climate change
such as continued ``widespread retreat'' of glaciers, an
``increase threats to human health, particularly in lower
income populations, predominantly within tropical/subtropical
countries,'' and ``water shortages.''
3. The grave danger to national security posed by global
climate change was recognized by the Pentagon's Defense
Advanced Planning Research Projects Agency in October of
2003. An agency-commissioned report ``explores how such an
abrupt climate change scenario could potentially de-stabilize
the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes,
battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as: 1)
Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural
production 2) Decreased availability and quality of fresh
water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters,
causing more frequent floods and droughts 3) Disrupted access
to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess.''
4. A December 2004 paper in Science reviewed 928 studies
published in peer reviewed journals to determine the number
providing evidence against the existence of a link between
anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and climate change.
``Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus
position.''
5. The November 2007 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report showed that global
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses have increased
70% between 1970 and 2004, and anthropogenic emissions are
very likely the cause of global climate change. The report
concluded that global climate change could cause the
extinction of 20 to 30 percent of species in unique
ecosystems such as the polar areas and biodiversity hotspots,
increase extreme weather events especially in the developing
world, and have adverse effects on food production and fresh
water availability.
The President has done little to address this most serious
of problems, thus constituting an abuse of power and criminal
neglect. He has also actively endeavored to undermine efforts
by the federal government, states, and other nations to take
action on their own.
1. In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S. would
not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an
international effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. The United
States is the only industrialized nation that has failed to
ratify the accord.
2. In March of 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson: ``In August 2003, the Bush
Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2
emissions from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2
was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. In April 2007,
the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that determination in
Massachusetts v. EPA. The Supreme Court wrote that `If EPA
makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires
the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant
from new motor vehicles.' The EPA then conducted an extensive
investigation involving 60-70 staff who concluded that
`CO2 emissions endanger both human health and
welfare.' These findings were submitted to the White House,
after which work on the findings and the required regulations
was halted.''
3. A Memo to Members of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform on May 19, 2008 stated ``The record before
the Committee shows: (1) the career staff at EPA unanimously
supported granting California's petition (to be allowed to
regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks,
consistent with California state law); (2) Stephen Johnson,
the Administrator of EPA, also supported granting
California's petition at least in part; and (3) Administrator
Johnson reversed his position after communications with
officials in the White House.''
The President has suppressed the release of scientific
information related to global climate change, an action which
undermines Congress' ability to legislate and provide
oversight, and which has thwarted efforts to prevent global
climate change despite the serious threat that it poses.
1. In February, 2001, ExxonMobil wrote a memo to the White
House outlining ways to influence the outcome of the Third
Assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. The memo opposed the reelection of Dr. Robert Watson
as the IPCC Chair. The White House then supported an
opposition candidate, who was subsequently elected to replace
Dr. Watson.
2. The New York Times on January 29, 2006, reported that
James Hansen, NASA's senior climate scientist was warned of
``dire consequences'' if he continued to speak out about
global climate change and the need for reducing emissions of
associated gasses. The Times also reported that: ``At climate
laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely
took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only
if the interview is approved by administration officials in
Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is
present or on the phone.''
3. In December of 2007, the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform issued a report based on 16 months of
investigation and 27,000 pages of documentation. According to
the summary: ``The evidence before the Committee leads to one
inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged
in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science
and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of
global warming.'' The report described how the White House
appointed former petroleum industry lobbyist Phil Cooney as
head of the Council on Environmental Quality. The report
states ``There was a systematic White House effort to
minimize the significance of climate change by editing
climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney and
other CEQ officials made at least 294 edits to the
Administration's Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science
Program to exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties
or to de-emphasize or diminish the importance of the human
role in global warming.''
4. On April 23, 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote a
letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L Johnson. In it he
reported: ``Almost 1,600 EPA scientists completed the Union
of Concerned Scientists survey questionnaire. Over 22 percent
of these scientists reported that `selective or incomplete
use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome'
occurred `frequently' or `occasionally' at EPA. Ninety-four
EPA scientists reported being frequently or occasionally
directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical
information from an EPA scientific document. Nearly 200 EPA
scientists said that they have frequently or occasionally
been in situations in which scientists have actively objected
to, resigned from or removed themselves from a project
because of pressure to change scientific findings.''
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President
and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice
of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of
the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George
W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense
warranting removal from office.
Article XXXIII.--REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL
INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE US, PRIOR TO
9/11
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and
[[Page H5210]]
subordinates, together with the Vice President, failed in his
Constitutional duties to take proper steps to protect the
nation prior to September 11, 2001.
The White House's top counter-terrorism adviser, Richard A.
Clarke, has testified that from the beginning of George W.
Bush's presidency until September 11, 2001, Clarke attempted
unsuccessfully to persuade President Bush to take steps to
protect the nation against terrorism. Clarke sent a
memorandum to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
on January 24, 2001, ``urgently'' but unsuccessfully
requesting ``a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the
impending al Qaeda attack.''
In April 2001, Clarke was finally granted a meeting, but
only with second-in-command department representatives,
including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who
made light of Clarke's concerns.
Clarke confirms that in June, July, and August 2001, the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned the president in
daily briefings of unprecedented indications that a major al
Qaeda attack was going to happen against the United States
somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. Yet,
Clarke was still unable to convene a cabinet-level meeting to
address the issue.
Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met with
the president 40 times to warn him that a major al-Qaeda
attack was going to take place, and that in response the
president did not convene any meetings of top officials. At
such meetings, the FBI could have shared information on
possible terrorists enrolled at flight schools. Among the
many preventive steps that could have been taken, the Federal
Aviation Administration, airlines, and airports might have
been put on full alert.
According to Condoleezza Rice, the first and only cabinet-
level meeting prior to 9/11 to discuss the threat of
terrorist attacks took place on September 4, 2001, one week
before the attacks in New York and Washington.
On August 6, 2001, President Bush was presented a
President's Daily Brief (PDB) article titled ``Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in U.S.'' The lead sentence of that PDB
article indicated that Bin Laden and his followers wanted to
``follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi
Yousef and `bring the fighting to America.' '' The article
warned: ``Al-Qa'ida members--including some who are U.S.
citizens--have resided in or traveled to the US for years,
and the group apparently maintains a support structure that
could aid attacks.''
The article cited a ``more sensational threat reporting
that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft,'' but
indicated that the CIA had not been able to corroborate such
reporting. The PDB item included information from the FBI
indicating ``patterns of suspicious activity in this country
consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of
attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings
in New York.'' The article also noted that the CIA and FBI
were investigating ``a call to our embassy in the UAE in May
saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US
planning attacks with explosives.''
The president spent the rest of August 6, and almost all
the rest of August 2001 on vacation. There is no evidence
that he called any meetings of his advisers to discuss this
alarming report. When the title and substance of this PDB
article were later reported in the press, then-National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice began a sustained campaign
to play down its significance, until the actual text was
eventually released by the White House.
New York Times writer Douglas Jehl, put it this way: ``In a
single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing
delivered to President Bush in August 2001 spells out the
who, hints at the what and points towards the where of the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36
days later.''
Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint congressional
committee investigating the performance of the U.S.
intelligence community before September 11, 2001, reported in
mid-September 2002 that intelligence reports a year earlier
``reiterated a consistent and constant theme: Osama bin
Laden's intent to launch terrorist attacks inside the United
States.''
That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before
September 11, an intelligence briefing for ``senior
government officials'' predicted a terrorist attack with
these words: ``The attack will be spectacular and designed to
inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests.
Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with
little or no warning.''
Given the White House's insistence on secrecy with regard
to what intelligence was given to President Bush, the joint-
inquiry report does not divulge whether he took part in that
briefing. Even if he did not, it strains credulity to suppose
that those ``senior government officials'' would have kept
its alarming substance from the president.
Again, there is no evidence that the president held any
meetings or took any action to deal with the threats of such
attacks.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, and subversive of constitutional government, to
the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is
guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
article xxxiv.--obstruction of investigation into the attacks of
september 11, 2001
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, obstructed investigations into the attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice
President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all
proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to renege on
his public promise on September 23 that a ``White Paper''
would be issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two
weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for his
``unfortunate choice of words,'' and explained that Americans
would have to rely on ``information coming out in the press
and in other ways.''
On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia,
stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and
said: ``My report to the nation is, we've got the best
intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women
of the C.I.A.'' George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed
not to have visited the president personally between the
start of Bush's long Crawford vacation and September 11,
2001.
Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004,
Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy
Roemer by referring to the president's vacation (July 29-
August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not see the
president at all in August 2001. ``You never talked with
him?'' Roemer asked. ``No,'' Tenet replied, explaining that
for much of August he too was ``on leave.'' An Agency
spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had
misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed Bush on August 17 and
31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took
place after the president had returned to Washington, and
played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.
In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet
refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit to
Crawford as a follow-up to the ``Bin Laden Determined to
Strike in the U.S.'' article in the CIA-prepared President's
Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a
Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB
open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is the
same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by
telling the CIA briefer, ``All right, you've covered your ass
now.'' (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006).
In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes: ``A few weeks
after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to
Crawford to make sure that the president stayed current on
events.''
A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a
week later, on August 24. According to the August 25, 2001,
release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to
Crawford on August 25, told them: ``George Tenet and I,
yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went
right up the canyon.''
In early February 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned
then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if Congress went
ahead with an investigation, administration officials might
not show up to testify. As pressure grew for an
investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the
establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a
``Joint Inquiry.'' Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the
Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry's final public hearing in
mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: ``I need to
report that, according to the White House and the Director of
Central Intelligence, the president's knowledge of
intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains
classified, even when the substance of the intelligence
information has been declassified.''
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as
the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27, 2002,
following the passage of congressional legislation signed
into law by President Bush. The President was asked to
testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except
for one hour in private with only two Commission members,
with no oath administered, with no recording or note taking,
and with the Vice President at his side. Commission Co-Chair
Lee Hamilton has written that he believes the commission was
set up to fail, was underfunded, was rushed, and did not
receive proper cooperation and access to information.
A December 2007 review of classified documents by former
members of the Commission found that the commission had made
repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004
for documents and other information about the interrogation
of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a top
C.I.A. official that the agency had ``produced or made
available for review'' everything that had been requested.
[[Page H5211]]
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, and subversive of constitutional government, to
the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is
guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
Article xxxv.--endangering the health of 9/11 first responders
In his conduct while President of the United States, George
W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in
violation of his constitutional duty under Article II,
Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through
his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice
President, recklessly endangered the health of first
responders, residents, and workers at and near the former
location of the World Trade Center in New York City.
The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) August 21, 2003, report numbered 2003-P-00012
and entitled ``EPA's Response to the World Trade Center
Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement,''
includes the following findings:
``[W] hen EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air
was `safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and
analyses to make such a blanket statement. At that time, air
monitoring data was lacking for several pollutants of
concern, including particulate matter and polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs). Furthermore, The White House Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) influenced, through the
collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated
to the public through its early press releases when it
convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete
cautionary ones.
``As a result of the White House CEQ's influence, guidance
for cleaning indoor spaces and information about the
potential health effects from WTC debris were not included
in EPA-issued press releases. In addition, based on CEQ's
influence, reassuring information was added to at least
one press release and cautionary information was deleted
from EPA's draft version of that press release . . . The
White House's role in EPA's public communications about
WTC environmental conditions was described in a September
12, 2001, e-mail from the EPA Deputy Administrator's Chief
of Staff to senior EPA officials:
`` `All statements to the media should be cleared through
the NSC [National Security Council] before they are
released.'
``According to the EPA Chief of Staff, one particular CEQ
official was designated to work with EPA to ensure that
clearance was obtained through NSC. The Associate
Administrator for the EPA Office of Communications,
Education, and Media Relations (OCEMR) said that no press
release could be issued for a 3- to 4-week period after
September 11 without approval from the CEQ contact.''
Acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko, who sat in on
EPA meetings with the White House, has said in an interview
that the White House played a coordinating role. The National
Security Council played the key role, filtering incoming data
on ground zero air and water, Horinko said: ``I think that
the thinking was, these are experts in WMD (weapons of mass
destruction), so they should have the coordinating role.''
In the cleanup of the Pentagon following September 11,
2001, Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws were
enforced, and no workers became ill. At the World Trade
Center site, the same laws were not enforced.
In the years since the release of the EPA Inspector
General's above-cited report, the Bush Administration has
still not effected a clean-up of the indoor air in apartments
and workspaces near the site.
Screenings conducted at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and
released in the September 10, 2004, Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report (MMWR) of the federal Centers For Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), produced the following results:
``Both upper and lower respiratory problems and mental
health difficulties are widespread among rescue and recovery
workers who dug through the ruins of the World Trade Center
in the days following its destruction in the attack of
September 11, 2001.
``An analysis of the screenings of 1,138 workers and
volunteers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster
found that nearly three-quarters of them experienced new or
worsened upper respiratory problems at some point while
working at Ground Zero. And half of those examined had upper
and/or lower respiratory symptoms that persisted up to the
time of their examinations, an average of eight months after
their WTC efforts ended.''
A larger study released in 2006 found that roughly 70
percent of nearly 10,000 workers tested at Mount Sinai from
2002 to 2004 reported that they had new or substantially
worsened respiratory problems while or after working at
ground zero. This study showed that many of the respiratory
ailments, including sinusitis and asthma, and
gastrointestinal problems related to them, initially reported
by ground zero workers persisted or grew worse over time.
Most of the ground zero workers in the study who reported
trouble breathing while working there were still having those
problems two and a half years later, an indication of chronic
illness unlikely to improve over time.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W.
Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, and subversive of constitutional government, to
the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is
guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from
office.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Sutton). The resolution qualifies.
Under the previous order of the House of June 10, the previous
question is ordered without intervening motion except one motion to
refer.
Motion to Refer Offered by Mr. Kucinich
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I move that the House refer the
impeachment resolution to the Committee on the Judiciary.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to refer.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, the noes have
it.
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that
a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is
not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the previous order of the House of
June 10, further proceedings on this question will be postponed as
though under clause 8(a)(1)(A) of rule XX.
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