ImpeachSpace
Wexler: Impeachment Update / McClellan Revelations
Last night, significant news broke that directly impacts our push for Impeachment Hearings and a possible Inherent Contempt charge for Bush Administration officials such as Karl Rove:
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has revealed in his upcoming book that:
• Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Vice President Cheney lied about their role in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson – actions easily amounting to obstruction of Justice.
McClellan also admitted that:
• There was a coordinated effort within the Bush Administration to use propaganda to pump up the case for the Iraq war and hide the projected costs of the war from the public.
Scott McClellan must be called to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee to tell Congress and the American people everything he knows about this massive effort by the White House to deceive this nation into war.
Last week, a subpoena was issued for Karl Rove to testify before the Judiciary Committee. It appears he will take every legal action to block this subpoena. The truth is that Congress has the right – and obligation – to hold him accountable now - not months or years from now. It is long past time to pass Inherent Contempt and bring Rove, Libby and others before Congress.
We simply cannot ignore these recent developments, nor should we postpone serious inquiry until after the next election.
Your commitment to accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration, and the support of 230,000 other Americans who signed up at wexlerwantshearings.com, has inspired and motivated me in my effort to hold impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney and Inherent Contempt for Rove and others. During the past months I have been a tireless and dogged advocate of this vitally important cause.
Many of you have written me, asking for an update on where we stand with regards to impeachment hearings. I know most of you believe - as I do - that impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney – are not only justified, but that it is our constitutional obligation to look into the serious allegations of wrongdoing that have been raised. This is especially true based on the newest revelations from Scott McClellan.
I believe that it is the duty of Congress to pursue impeachment whenever there's significant evidence of wrongdoing, be it by Republicans or Democrats, regardless of the timing of elections or the current political environment.
Some of you have written me demanding that I deliver hearings or impeachment. As hard as I have been fighting for this cause, I cannot make impeachment happen by myself. What I can do, and what I have been doing at every turn, is trying to communicate two simple messages to my colleagues:
• the serious allegations of wrongdoing and the clear-cut rationale for impeachment hearings;and
• the fact that the public will support our efforts when Congress boldly acts on the side of justice and accountability.
Unfortunately, to date, these arguments have not been enough to convince even a majority of the liberal and progressive Members of Congress to support impeachment hearings. In addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress genuinely feels that pursuing impeachment will jeopardize our congressional agenda and threaten gains in the November elections. Although I genuinely disagree with this view, to date I have been unable to convince them to change this policy.
I understand the challenges that we are up against, and I recognize the odds that we face. Nevertheless, I remain unfazed and unyielding.
This new evidence from Scott McClellan could be the tipping point – but we must move quickly. I will use the McClellan admissions to help convince my colleagues that we must hold impeachment hearings.
Regardless, I will continue to fight for progressive values and our Constitution. I will do everything I can to pursue accountability for criminal actions taken by this Administration and this Vice President. I will be a furious opponent to any expansion of this misguided war, and I will fight against the use of torture by our government and to protect our civil liberties here at home.
Most of all, I will continue my efforts to convince my fellow members of Congress and voters, that we should not be a party of passivity - but that we succeed when we present the public with stark choices that are based on the guarantees in our Constitution, and not on the politics of the moment.
I will continue - at every pass - to call for impeachment and accountability. While I wish more of my colleagues supported our movement, we must not let our discouragement lead to apathy and distraction in this important election year when we must break free from eight long years of illegalities, corporate handouts, and a tragic and devastating war.
We should not end the calls for impeachment. I will push against the crimes of the Bush Administration whenever I am provided the opportunity. I will use my role on the Judiciary Committee to take on Administration officials – like I have done with Condoleezza Rice, Attorney Generals Gonzalez and Mukasey, and FBI Director Mueller.
I have not given up our fight to hold this Administration accountable and neither can you. I am grateful for your patriotism and your support. I'll continue to keep you informed and part of the conversation.
Sincerely,
Congressman Robert Wexler
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has revealed in his upcoming book that:
• Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Vice President Cheney lied about their role in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson – actions easily amounting to obstruction of Justice.
McClellan also admitted that:
• There was a coordinated effort within the Bush Administration to use propaganda to pump up the case for the Iraq war and hide the projected costs of the war from the public.
Scott McClellan must be called to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee to tell Congress and the American people everything he knows about this massive effort by the White House to deceive this nation into war.
Last week, a subpoena was issued for Karl Rove to testify before the Judiciary Committee. It appears he will take every legal action to block this subpoena. The truth is that Congress has the right – and obligation – to hold him accountable now - not months or years from now. It is long past time to pass Inherent Contempt and bring Rove, Libby and others before Congress.
We simply cannot ignore these recent developments, nor should we postpone serious inquiry until after the next election.
Your commitment to accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration, and the support of 230,000 other Americans who signed up at wexlerwantshearings.com, has inspired and motivated me in my effort to hold impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney and Inherent Contempt for Rove and others. During the past months I have been a tireless and dogged advocate of this vitally important cause.
Many of you have written me, asking for an update on where we stand with regards to impeachment hearings. I know most of you believe - as I do - that impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney – are not only justified, but that it is our constitutional obligation to look into the serious allegations of wrongdoing that have been raised. This is especially true based on the newest revelations from Scott McClellan.
I believe that it is the duty of Congress to pursue impeachment whenever there's significant evidence of wrongdoing, be it by Republicans or Democrats, regardless of the timing of elections or the current political environment.
Some of you have written me demanding that I deliver hearings or impeachment. As hard as I have been fighting for this cause, I cannot make impeachment happen by myself. What I can do, and what I have been doing at every turn, is trying to communicate two simple messages to my colleagues:
• the serious allegations of wrongdoing and the clear-cut rationale for impeachment hearings;and
• the fact that the public will support our efforts when Congress boldly acts on the side of justice and accountability.
Unfortunately, to date, these arguments have not been enough to convince even a majority of the liberal and progressive Members of Congress to support impeachment hearings. In addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress genuinely feels that pursuing impeachment will jeopardize our congressional agenda and threaten gains in the November elections. Although I genuinely disagree with this view, to date I have been unable to convince them to change this policy.
I understand the challenges that we are up against, and I recognize the odds that we face. Nevertheless, I remain unfazed and unyielding.
This new evidence from Scott McClellan could be the tipping point – but we must move quickly. I will use the McClellan admissions to help convince my colleagues that we must hold impeachment hearings.
Regardless, I will continue to fight for progressive values and our Constitution. I will do everything I can to pursue accountability for criminal actions taken by this Administration and this Vice President. I will be a furious opponent to any expansion of this misguided war, and I will fight against the use of torture by our government and to protect our civil liberties here at home.
Most of all, I will continue my efforts to convince my fellow members of Congress and voters, that we should not be a party of passivity - but that we succeed when we present the public with stark choices that are based on the guarantees in our Constitution, and not on the politics of the moment.
I will continue - at every pass - to call for impeachment and accountability. While I wish more of my colleagues supported our movement, we must not let our discouragement lead to apathy and distraction in this important election year when we must break free from eight long years of illegalities, corporate handouts, and a tragic and devastating war.
We should not end the calls for impeachment. I will push against the crimes of the Bush Administration whenever I am provided the opportunity. I will use my role on the Judiciary Committee to take on Administration officials – like I have done with Condoleezza Rice, Attorney Generals Gonzalez and Mukasey, and FBI Director Mueller.
I have not given up our fight to hold this Administration accountable and neither can you. I am grateful for your patriotism and your support. I'll continue to keep you informed and part of the conversation.
Sincerely,
Congressman Robert Wexler
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by warren pease on -
So here's an interesting line, particularly coming from somebody who should know:
"...in addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress genuinely feels that pursuing impeachment will jeopardize our congressional agenda and threaten gains in the November elections."
So I was poking around the House daily calendar a while back and, wow, you can sure see why they don't want to "jeopardize their congressional agenda." For example:
H. Res. 972: Supporting the goals and ideals of American Heart Month and National Wear Red Day.
It passed, btw, after 40 minutes of highly contentious debate.
There's no time for impeachment, but there's apparently plenty of time to designate October as Suzy Creamcheese and Frank Zappa Nostalgia Month. Just kidding, although that's one I could support.
On the one hand, you've got resolutions proclaiming things like national mayonnaise month or congratulating a boy scout for rescuing a cat in a tree.
On the other, you've got the most consistently criminal, renegade, pathologic and unrestrained administration in US history and they must be driven out of office and out of town before they can do any further harm.
Because I can't seem to take anything at face value anymore -- if I ever did -- I looked at Pelosi's "off that table" nonsense, which is the most overt example of misreading the mood of the American public I can remember, and started wondering how deep the Bushies' hooks are in her.
So after a good hour or so communing with the google gods, I ran into this:
Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."
Here's a link to December 2007 Washington Post the complete story
The short version: she he was briefed by the CIA on torture methods including waterboarding in 2002, basically signed off on it and, in the process, became an accomplice to the Bushies' war crimes.
She blew it by not immediately going public and condemning the CIA's routine use of torture, and specifically waterboarding. Instead, she tacitly agreed to ignore gross violations of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. This made her an accessory after the fact to BushCo's war crimes.
By her silence, Pelosi's also remains complicit in BushCo's daily violations of worldwide bans on torture, another violation of the Eighth Amendment and a breach of Article VI of the Constitution that requires the US to comply with international treaties it's a party to. Chalk up another series of war crimes for Madam Squeaker.
All the above puts her right in the administration's deepest pocket and completely eliminates her as a political threat.
Of course she doesn't want a Congressional investigation into torture. Of course she doesn't want impeachment.
Hearings on those subjects, and many more, would inevitably lead to the old "what did she know and when did she know it" line of questioning. And so she'll continue to kill any and all efforts to nail the Bushies for anything that might lead to her own criminal complicity.
And she's still the House leader because...? She should have been gone at least 15 months ago. The fact that she can't deliver any votes for legislation that might help promote a democratic agenda -- assuming there is one except running and hiding -- is bad enough.
I just hope the courageous, honest and forthright Ms. Golub kicks Pelosi's Vichy ass from the Cow Palace to the Golden Gate. And I hope it hurts a lot.
wp
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Permalink Reply by UsQueersdotcom on
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I just hope the courageous, honest and forthright Ms. Golub kicks Pelosi's Vichy ass from the Cow Palace to the Golden Gate. And I hope it hurts a lot.
Um, yeah. That. That's what I want too. 'Zactly.
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Permalink Reply by Russ on
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yeah warren, nancy doesn't seem to know what she's doing. must enjoy her orgies in bushies bed.
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Permalink Reply by Pat on -
Yup--Pelosi and others are COMPLICIT (in war crimes and in breaking the laws of the land).
Not to mention the war profiteering by members of Congress (Sen. John Kerry leads the pack).
Wexler... As one representative, what he CAN do is hopper a bill of impeachment. To my knowledge, he never has!
Nor has he co-sponsored Kucinich's H.Res. 333.
WHY NOT?
Wexler is on the Judiciary Committee. THOSE are the members who hold the power re Kucinich's bill to impeach Cheney. So, those are the members which Wexler should be "working on" every single day, if he were serious.
How do we know that Wexler was ever serious??????
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