July 12, 2007

Barbara Boxer says Impeachment should be on the table

BOXER: Yeah. I mean, you left out a bunch of things — spying on citizens without a warrant, going around FISA, on and on. Look, I have always said it should be on the table. Ed, I've always said it. I was on a book tour and I ran into John Dean of Watergate fame. He was on the book tour that I was on, for his book. And it was right after we discovered that the administration was spying on our people without a warrant. And he just said, he looked at me and basically just said, as far as he could see, unless there was some explanation for this, this was impeachable.

Bill Moyers Puts Impeachment On the Media Table

July 16, 2007
Bill Moyers Puts Impeachment On the Media Table

Fein for his part noted that most of Bush's and Cheney's abuses of power and violations of the Constitution and the rule of law have been done not openly and in consultation with Congress, but in secret and in the dark of night. His secret monitoring of American's communications-phones, mail and internet for example-went on for four years before it was exposed in an article in the New York Times. And the president has still not explained to anyone why he felt the need to break the law.

Fein and Nichols both blasted the current Democratic leadership of Congress for cowardice, lack of principle, and a basic failure to honor their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution, in refusing to impeach the president. Fein said that in earlier administrations, there were always at least a few members of Congress who were honorable enough to put country and the Constitution above party. "We don't have anyone like that in Congress now," he said.

A Widening Chasm Between Congressional Democrats and Voters on Impeachment

May 21, 2007
A Widening Chasm Between Congressional Democrats and Voters on Impeachment

So far, Democrats in Congress and at the top of the party hierarchy, out of
touch with public sentiment and worried that impeachment could hurt them with
"independents"--whom they mistakenly consider to stand somehow "in between"
Democrats and Republicans--have been following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's vow
that for the 110th Congress, "impeachment is off the table." They've been doing
more than that: they have been actively working to tamp down, and even to
crush, impeachment campaigns in the states. For example, in the state of
Washington, an effort to get the state to pass a joint legislative resolution
which would have compelled the Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings was
derailed after the Democratic leadership dispatched two of the state's leading
federal elected officials, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jay Inslee, to press
legislative leaders to block a floor vote. Similar pressure doomed efforts that
might have passed in the legislatures of New Mexico and Vermont (The Vermont
Senate did pass the resolution).

GOP lawmaker says impeachment an option for Bush

March 25, 2007
GOP lawmaker says impeachment an option for Bush

WASHINGTON — With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush's own party said today.

GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush's impeachment. But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

Sen. Chuck Hagel: before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment

March 12, 2007
Sen. Chuck Hagel: before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment

"I believed what the administration said, that war would be a last resort," Hagel told Esquire magazine in an interview. "And the second thing is, at a critical time like this, the president needs a strong hand, and to some extent, you've got to trust him, until he lies or screws up or something."

Hagel also told Esquire that Bush appears to believe he's no longer accountable. "You can impeach him, and before this is over, I don't know. It depends how this goes."

John Conyers Puts Presidential Abuse of Power Back 'On the Table'

January 25, 2007
John Conyers Puts Presidential Abuse of Power Back 'On the Table'

The congressman, a veteran of the Nixon impeachment hearings who recently published a book on Bush's crimes, today announced plans to have his Judiciary Committee hold hearings on Bush's rampant use of so-called "signing statements." These are the documents the president has claimed give him the power, as a commander-in-chief, to ignore laws duly passed by the Congress.

Bush has used this bogus claim to ignore all or parts of some 1200 laws passed by Congress. He has done it willfully, and he has done it deceptively, often adding the signing statement saying he will be ignoring a law after having first hosted a friendly photo-op signing session at which he offer no indication that he had any problem with a measure.