Hawkins Says He Would Vote for Impeachment of Bush as House Judiciary Committee Holds Hearings
Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org
Media Release
For Immediate Release: Saturday, July 26, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, said today that it was critical that Congress take up the issue of impeaching President Bush and other administration officials even though their term of office will end next year.
"The real test of moral leadership on the impeachment issue is not the fate of President Bush but whether Congress, particularly the Democrats, are will to stand up for the rule of law. Congress has allowed the President to lie to the country and the world about the reasons why we invaded a foreign country. It appears that our country has been guilty of war crimes with respect to the torture and treatment of prisoners. The White House distorted public information with respect to climate change. The administration engaged in massive warrantless wiretapping of Americans in violation of our constitutional rights. It is critical that Congress uphold the Constitution and the laws," said Hawkins.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday on a resolution that has been introduced by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to impeach President Bush. Impeachment is a multi-step process. The first step is for the House to determine that there is enough evidence of possible wrongdoing to warrant a trial. Once the House agrees, the matter is sent to the Senate to hold a hearing and to provide the accused an opportunity to explain their actions. Only after the trial would the Senate vote on the question of guilt.
"If the House thought that President Clinton's perjury for an evasive definition of what constitutes sex was worthy of impeachment, certainly the felonies committed by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials, including illegal wiretapping and domestic spying, torture, exposing a covert CIA agent, and lying to Congress to launch a war are impeachable offenses," noted Hawkins. "As tragic as 9/11 was, it will become an even greater tragedy if we allow the Bush administration and Congress to succeed in using it as an excuse to bury the Constitution."
Since the Democrats resumed control of Congress last year, the Democratic leadership has argued that impeaching Bush and Cheney would increase the partisan warfare in Congress, possibly leading to voter backlash that somehow might jeopardize their election chances this year.
Hawkins said, "The Democratic leadership's excuse of partisan politics to take ‘impeachment off the table," as Speaker Pelosi puts it, does not pass smell test. Members of Congress take an oath upon taking office to uphold the Constitution. Putting partisan political calculations above their most fundamental responsibility as Representatives in Congress is itself a crime."
"But I'm afraid Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have another political calculation in mind," Hawkins added. "They do not want to impeach Bush and other administration officials guilty of serious felonies because Pelosi and the Democratic leadership signed off on several of those crimes. A Senate trial following impeachment would inevitably highlight their complicity."
Hawkins said that "two of the most abhorrent impeachable offenses were disclosed to Nancy Pelosi by the Bush administration several years before they were revealed by the media .In September 2002, Pelosi along with three other members of Congress were briefed on overseas black sites were US prisoners were sent for interrogation using torture, including waterboarding. Pelosi and other congressional leaders were also briefed on the Bush administration's plans for electronic phone and email surveillance of Americans." According to the former head of Qwest Communications, the NSA sought assistance with this surveillance in February 2001, more than six months before the events of 9/11.
Representative Kucinich has stated that without re-establishing the rule of law, we "would let the next president know that he could go ahead and wage war without congressional approval. That he could approve of wiretapping, rendition, spying, torture or anything because Congress wouldn't act. We need to take a stand now not just for justice for what's happened over the last six, seven years but also to restrain any abuse of power in the next administration." The impeachment resolution also addresses Bush's suppression of the scientific evidence of climate change and gross negligence in the response to Hurricane Katrina.
The Green Party of the United States called for Congress to commence impeachment of President Bush in July 2003, after he ordered the invasion of Iraq. The resolution accused the President of numerous deceptions to justify the invasion, as well as violations of the U.S. Constitution (restriction in Article II on the deployment of Armed Forces to defense of U.S. borders; required adherence to international treaties in Article VI) and of international law (U.N. Charter; Geneva conventions). The Greens also noted that the Bush Administration used the false statements about Iraq to block an independent probe into 9/11 and has admitted that it spies on American citizens in disregard of legal limits.
Hawkins also noted that the Democratic leadership has attacked members of their own party and other progressives for raising the impeachment issue. The first member of Congress to introduce an impeachment resolution against Bush and other administration officials was the outspoken congressional opponent of the Iraq war, Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia), in December 2006. McKinney had lost hear seat in 2002 when the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) colluded with Republicans in Georgia's open primary system to run a Republican as a Democrat and beat McKinney in the Democratic primary with a massive Republican cross over vote. McKinney won her seat back in 2004, but, contrary to tradition, had her 10 previous years of seniority stripped by Pelosi. In 2006, the same conservative coalition of Democrats and Republicans beat McKinney with another conservative Democrat. McKinney subsequently joined the Green Party and is now campaigning for impeachment as the Green presidential nominee.
Ralph Nader, the independent presidential candidate who has been a prominent proponent of impeaching Bush administration officials, offered to testify at Friday's hearing. The Judiciary Committee's Democrats rejected Nader's offer. They did allow testimony by Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr.
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