ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT OF
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Washington, Jun 10 - Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio
In the United States House of Representatives
Monday, June 9th, 2008
A Resolution
From the website of Rep. Dennis Kucinich:
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=93581
Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush
Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors....
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War
Against Iraq.
Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of
September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part
of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed
Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an
Imminent Threat to the United States.
Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of H. J. Res114.
Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor.
Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes.
Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq.
Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources.
Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With
Respect to Iraq and Other Countries.
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.
Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq.
Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and
US Contractors.
Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S.
Citizens and Foreign Captives.
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.
Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites"
Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.
Article XX
Imprisoning Children.
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.
Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws.
Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of
the Law and the Fourth Amendment.
Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional
Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.
Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements.
Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees
Not to Comply.
Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of
Justice.
Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare.
Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina,
Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency.
Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts
to Address Global Climate Change.
Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of
Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.
Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001.
Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.
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ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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.
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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 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.
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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 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 911. This was accomplished through
well-publicized statements by the Bush Administration which contrived to
continually tie Iraq and 911 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-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided
al-Qa'ida 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.
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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 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 US 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 US 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.
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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:
(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
reportedly 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 4000 United
States service members; the injuries to tens of thousands of US 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.
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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.
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ARTICLE VI
INVADING IRAQ IN VIOLATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF HJRes114.
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 HJRes 114, the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq
Resolution of 2002" to wit:
(1) HJRes 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) HJRes 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) HJRes 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) HJRes 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 HJRes 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 or (B) is not likely to lead
to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions
regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United
States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against
international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations,
organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the
terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
(3) On March 18, 2003, President George Bush sent a letter to Congress stating
that he had made that determination as evidenced by the following:
(A) March 18th, 2003 Letter to Congress stating:
Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force
Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information
available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means
alone will neither (A) 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:
(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." [International Herald Tribune]
(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.
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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.
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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
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 US 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 US 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 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.
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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.
"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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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ARTICLE XVI
RECKLESS MISSPENDING AND WASTE OF US 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 as 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 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 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.
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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 US Constitution by illegally
detaining indefinitely and without charge persons both US citizens and foreign
captives.
In a statement on Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush declared that in the US 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 US-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 US
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 US, on
orders of the president, began capturing and detaining without charge alleged
terror suspects in other countries and detaining them abroad and at the US 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
US, by an investigation conducted by the Justice Department's Office of the
Inspector General.
In violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions, the Bush Administration
instructed the Department of Justice and the US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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.
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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 US 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, US law, the Geneva Conventions (to which the
US 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 US 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 US 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 US military
forces and the CIA, the president has defied Congress and has lied to the
American people, repeatedly claiming that the US "does not torture."
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of US 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.
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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 US 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 US
has been kidnapping and transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning)
in its so-called "war" on terror—even people captured by US 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
US authorities.
Such a policy is in clear violation of US 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 US. 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 US 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 US and UK embassies, were captured, bound and gagged by US 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 x 6 x 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 Guantánamo 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 US, 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.
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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 US in 2002 . To wit:
In May 2008, the US 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 US 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 US
military is a violation of both convention and protocol, 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.
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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. 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.
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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
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 Foreign
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 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.
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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 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.
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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 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 McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, in a letter 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 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.
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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 US 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 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 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.
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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 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.
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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:
1. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for Justice Department papers and
Emails, issued April 10, 2007;
2. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for the
testimony of the Secretary of State, issued April 25, 2007;
3. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for the testimony of former White
House Counsel Harriet Miers and documents , issued June 13, 2007;
4. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White
House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, issued June 13, 2007;
5. 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);
6. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White
House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, issued June 26, 2007;
7. 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);
8. 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;
9. 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 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.
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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;
1. David C. Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico;
2. Kevin V. Ryan as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California;
3. John L. McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington;
4. Paul K. Charlton as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona;
5. Carol C. Lam as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California;
6. Daniel G. Bogden as U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada;
7. Margaret M. Chiara as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan;
8. Todd Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri;
9. Harry E. "Bud" Cummins, III as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of
Arkansas;
10. Thomas M. DiBiagio as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, and;
11. 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 USC § 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 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.
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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 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, 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; 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 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
D. 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.
E. 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.
F. Forty-two African-American precincts in Columbus were each missing one voting
machine that had been present in the 2004 primary.
G. African-American voters in the city of Columbus were forced to wait three to
seven hours to vote in the 2004 presidential election.
H. 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.
I. 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.
J. 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;
K. 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.
L. 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.
M. 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.
N. 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.
O. 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
P. 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.
Q. 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.
R. In Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, 8,559 or 32.82% of the
provisional ballots went uncounted.
S. In Ohio's Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, 3,529 or 24.23% of the
provisional ballots went uncounted.
T. Statewide, the provisional ballot rejection rate was 9% as compared to the
greater figures in the urban areas.
U. 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.
V. 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;
X. 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;
Y. 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.
Z. 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.
AA. 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.
BB. Members of the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC), under the
control and direction of the Administration of George W. Bush, have purposefully
and willfully misled the public, in violation of several laws, by;
CC. 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;
DD. 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
EE. 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 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.
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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 five 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 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.
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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: "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 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.
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ARTICLE XXXII
MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, SYTEMATICALLY 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 March0f 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.
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ARTICLE XXXIII
REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF
PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE US, PRIOR TO 911
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, 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 US
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 US 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.
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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 US" 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.
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.
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ARTICLE XXXV
ENDANGERING THE HEALTH OF 911 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 affected 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.
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