House Members are backing
impeachment for a number of reasons, including anger with Cheney's
involvement with manipulations of intelligence regarding Iraq, illegal
spying on Americans, and the promotion of torture -- as well as his
recent attempt to avoid scrutiny by claiming that the Office of the
Vice President was not part of the executive branch. And then there was
President Bush's decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff and
co-conspirator in moves to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson for
exposing the deceptions that led to war.
The founders were
very clear about the fact that abuses of the presidential authority to
pardon or otherwise lift the burden of the law from subordinates was an
impeachable offense. And a number of House members who take
constitutional matters seriously have spoken up for impeachment since
the commutation of Libby's sentence.
As Illinois Congressman
Jesse Jackson Jr. said after Bush commuted the sentence of a former
aide who could connect the dots outlining presidential and vice
presidential wrongdoing, "In her first weeks as leader of the Congress,
Speaker Nancy Pelosi withdrew the notion of impeachment proceedings
against either President Bush or Vice President Cheney. With the
president's decision to once again subvert the legal process and the
will of the American people by commuting the sentence of convicted
felon Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, I call on House Democrats to reconsider
impeachment proceedings."
That's an increasingly popular
sentiment among Congressional Democrats, who are breaking with Pelosi
to speak the "i" word. It is an even more popular sentiment among the
American people.
According to recent polling by the American
Research Group, 54 percent of Americans want Cheney impeached. Among
Democrats, that number rises to 76 percent. A majority of
self-described independents back action to hold the vice president to
account, as do a striking 17 percent of Republicans. With conservatives
such as former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein coming out
strongly for Cheney's impeachment, the numbers of Republicans who are
pulling for accountability is likely to grow.
Local
pro-impeachment initiatives around the country -- coordinated at the
national level by the brilliant www.afterdowningstreet.org website and
its driving force, activist David Swanson -- have kept the pressure on
House members to sign on to Kucinich's resolution.
California's
Farr, for instance, felt the heat from constituents in the Santa Cruz
area. Last year, at the behest of the local Coalition for Impeachment
Now (COIN) group, the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously to
endorse impeachment -- as have close to 80 cities and towns nationwide.
In
Congress, impeachment of Cheney is now formally supported by the
co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, California Democrats
Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee, as well as the founder of the Out of Iraq
Caucus, California Democrat Maxine Waters.
Also on board are
three members of the House Judiciary Committee, California's Waters,
Georgia's Hank Johnson and Minnesota's Keith Ellison. It is the
Judiciary Committee that would take up the issue of impeachment, under
the chairmanship of Michigan Democrat John Conyers.
Conyers,
who has made little secret of his belief that the president and vice
president have taken actions that are in conflict with the
Constitution, has yet to endorse H. Res. 333. But he is feeling
pressure to do so. In May, the Detroit City Council voted to support
impeachment of Bush and Cheney for misleading Congress and the public
regarding the threat from Iraq, approving spying on the American
people, conspiring to encourage the use of torture and acting to strip
American citizens of their constitutional rights by ordering indefinite
detention without access to legal counsel.
The arguments for
impeachment are varied, to be sure. But at the heart of the growing
enthusiasm for putting the process in motion is a sense that Congress
can no longer neglect abuses of power by a lawless executive branch.
"The
Founders intended impeachment to be used when those running the
government forgot that they worked for the people, and the Founders
intended impeachment to be used when those running the government acted
as though they were above the law," explains Congressman McDermott, who
argues that, "The vice president holds himself above the law, and it is
time for the Congress to enforce the law."
John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
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Released: 14 July 2007
Word Count: 841
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Writings 
Four more members of the US House signed on this week as co-sponsors of H. Res. 333. The measure outlines articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney for actively and systematically seeking to deceive citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and for openly threatening aggression against Iran.
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