Kucinich: Articles of Impeachment 19.

[L. Coyote]

Run time: 09:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovGNh7kapSo   Posted on YouTube: June 11, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 12, 2008 By DU Member: L. Coyote Views on DU: 304

 

[jgraz]

1. K&R

[L. Coyote]

2. MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS FROM IRAN,

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.

[L. Coyote]

3. CREATING SECRET LAWS

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 '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.

[L. Coyote]

4. Kick. Putting these ducks in row.