Bush Legacy: Presidents Can Be Impeached After They Leave Office

[Breeze54]

Bush Legacy: Presidents Can Be Impeached After They Leave Office

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/01/15/bush-legacy-post-term-impeachment/

Jon Ponder | Jan. 15, 2008

If Alberto Gonzalez gets punk’d at speaking engagements, and Donald Rumsfeld has to be whisked out of France to avoid a war crimes indictment. What does the future hold for George W. Bush after he leaves office one year and six days from now?

Chris Hedges probably has it http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080113_the_end_of_the_road_for_george_w_bush/">right:

Bush will soon be reduced to the cipher he once was, left to spend the rest of his life trying to salvage a legacy of shame and deceit. In a just world he would be put on trial, if not by the International Criminal Court of Justice then by the U.S. Congress. He would be forced to face up to his lies and wars of aggression. But the moral rot that infects the nation has seeped into the bowels of the legislative as well as the executive branch.

There are many http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush">organizations and efforts dedicated to the impeachment of George Bush. And Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) is leading a drive to impeach Dick Cheney — if you haven’t signed his http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/">online petition, do it now. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042507L.shtml">articles of impeachment against the vice president last spring.

But there is one insurmountable obstacle to impeachment this year, and it is not Speaker Pelosi — it’s the continued support for Bush by Republicans in Congress. Unless and until it is expedient for them to get rid of Bush and Cheney, the congressional Republicans have shown that they will block any move to hold them accountable.

So while it looks likely that the millions of Americans who believe the Bush-Cheney regime has committed impeachable acts — lying about the pretext for war, betraying a secret operation that tracked the WMD black market, spying on Americans without warrants, torturing prisoners and firing U.S. attorneys without cause, to name a few — will have to settle for the cold comfort of watching Bush and Cheney grow old in disgrace, there is another option for bringing them to justice:

It is possible to impeach someone even after the accused has vacated their office in order to disqualify the person from future office or from certain emoluments of their prior office (such as a pension).

Another take:

Does it sound farfetched for Congress to impeach and try someone who is no longer in office?

It has happened!

In 1876, Secretary of War General William Belknap (who served in the scandal-plagued Republican administration of Pres. Ulysses Grant), accused of accepting a bribe, resigned just hours before the House was scheduled to consider articles of impeachment. The House went ahead and unanimously impeached him, and by a vote of 37-29 the Senate rejected the argument that Belknap’s resignation should abort the case. The Senate proceeded with the trial, but Belknap was narrowly acquitted. A number of the Senators who voted for acquittal explained that they felt they lacked jurisdiction because of his resignation…


By contrast, when in 1926 Illinois District Judge George English, impeached for various acts of wrongdoing, resigned from office six days before the scheduled commencement of his trial in the Senate, the matter was discontinued. The same was true, of course, when Richard Nixon resigned just prior to adoption of articles of impeachment by the House.


The Belknap precedent aside, is there any logic to impeaching and trying an official who is no longer in office? One answer might be the value of establishing a precedent that certain misconduct is (or is not) impeachable

Evidence suggests that the Framers of the Constitution concurred in this conclusion — they did not regard resignation as automatically precluding impeachment or conviction.

The purpose of a post-term impeachment of Bush and Cheney would be to send a message to future rightwing cabals who intend to highjack the American republic that they do so at their own peril — that they will be brought to justice.

A strong case can be made that if Pres. Nixon had been impeached, followed by a trial and conviction in court on the http://watergate.info/impeachment/impeachment-articles.shtml">obstruction of justice and other charges and sentenced to prison, even briefly, Bush and particularly Cheney would have felt less emboldened to behave like despots. (In fact, it’s doubtful Cheney would have been interested in the vice presidency if he’d felt constrained from looting the government for his corporate cronies.)

Just as hindsight shows that Americans 30 years ago could have prevented the abuses of Bush and Cheney by prosecuting and imprisoning Nixon in 1974, we owe it to future generations of Americans to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their crimes and incompetence today.

If the move for post-term impeachments took hold, Republicans would doubtless object — but just seven years ago it was GOP legal types who floated the idea of a http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardonop3.htm">post-presidential, second impeachment of Pres. Clinton because they didn’t like the pardons he granted as he left office.

But, assuming current trends play themselves out, the dynamics of the upcoming 111th Congress could be quite different from any in recent memory. Conviction on impeachment charges requires 60 votes in the Senate, and it is quite possible that Democrats could end up controlling as many as 55 Senate seats, if not more. The split in the House is also likely to widen in favor of the Democrats.


(And, technically, Speaker Pelosi only took impeachment “off the table” for the 110th Congress.)

It is also possible that Bush is aware he could be brought to justice after he leaves office. What else would explain
the http://www.pensitoreview.com/2006/10/22/are-the-bushes-moving-to-paraguay/">rumors that he purchased 100,000 acres of land in the Chaco region of Paraguay two years ago?

Topics: Worst Vice President Ever, Impeachment, Worst President Ever

[wildbilln864]

1. Sadly....

it ain't going to happen IMO.
But a Mr. Vincent Bugliosi has a different idea.

[Breeze54]

4. The hearings may start before the August recess

UPDATE:

http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2361&Itemid=1

The House Judiciary Committee may let anti-war Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich present his case
for impeaching President Bush before the August recess, the panel’s chairman said Monday.

[wildbilln864]

13. Great news!

Thank you.
But "may"!? Maybe they will, maybe they won't?
Are they trying to tease us or something? WTF!
Waving a carrot on a stick?
The whole country should demand it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. I hope so

[1]

2. nope. they had their chances and they passed on it...

given the shit storm obama will inherit, getting the country back and on track will be the effort to focus on.

impeachment after the fact is political suicide and these politicians know it.

it will never happen...

[Breeze54]

3. But, It is possible.

Many have asked recently, so I found this article that answers the question.

[1]

5. yes, absolutely. i misunderstood your post i guess...

can they? absolutely.

should they? again, the state of the country that obama inherits and must address will be his first and most important priorities.

will they? no...

[Breeze54]

6. a President may not intervene in either the House impeachment or the Senate trial.

..... as explicitly stated in Article Two of the United States Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush

[1]

7. ok...

when i say obama i was using that as a blanket to cover the new democratic president and the new democratic controlled congress. the entire party.

they will have a very large job to do, and it will have to be addressed rather quickly.


i'd go with the poster above and vote for the bugliosi approach to the problem. it can't be perceived as a political maneuver (at least against obama or congress), it doesn't distract the government from addressing the pressing needs of our country's problems and it just might work.

[wildbilln864]

14. also....

a president may not:
lie a country into a war of aggression,
torture,
spy on citizens without a warrant,
rendition,
allow 3000 Americans to die in an alledged surprise terrorist attack,
allow alledged mastermind of said attack to get away,
wipe his ass with the American Constitution...
Yet he's been getting by with all of that so far with Congressional approval. It seems they've saved their powder for so long it's gotten stale and useless.

[1]

20. powder that can't explode will never explode...

i'm with you. they had their chance. 2006. from the very first session of that congress, the single most important issue that should have been the very first issue they addressed.



right then. at that moment. remember 2006? before the housing market crashed? before gas was $5 a gallon? before all of the banks failed? before the stock market was in the toilet?

right then.

and they passed. they gave up on the idea. just like that.

i have no hope for future developments on this. none...

[onenote]

8. what is the "evidence" that the framers intended to allow post-term impeachment

The article quoted in the OP states: "Evidence suggests that the Framers of the Constitution concurred in this conclusion". But it doesn't cite to any such evidence. I've looked but haven't found anything that cites to any of the discussions of impeachment by the founding fathers that answers this question.

Anyone know of anything that indicates that the framers of the constitution had a view on this issue?

[MaryRN]

9. Vincent Bugliosi appears to have a plan to have him arrested for murder...New book out ...

"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" - I believe it's being reviewed on Cspan on Aug. 3. Let's hope so.

[Breeze54]

10. I heard him interviewed on either Hartmann or Jeff Farias' show on

www.1480kphx.com

He has a lot of good idea's.

[orleans]

11. i heard him talking on ed schultz's show today with ed's stand-in

who asked him right off to imagine he's speaking in front of the jury giving a summation argument and bugliosi went off on this fucking harangue about how norm was expecting him to sum this up in five minutes and as you know a lawyer prepares for hours even a 30 second blablablablablablablablablablablablabla blablablablablablablablablablablablablablablabla blablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablabla


i couldn't believe him! i screamed at the radio and turned it off.

talk about fucking sidetracking--i couldn't believe it. (i admit, i turned the radio on a couple minutes later--he was still rattling but more on topic. norm wasn't saying a word--i wondered if he was as pissed off as i was--here he was giving bugliosi a chance to explain to the audience & make his case and bugliosi chose, instead, to spank the radio host and waste a lot of time. my first impression: what an asshole! and i want the fuckhead in the white house in jail as much as anyone else!)

[MaryRN]

15. LOL..well, had I heard THAT I'd have had a meltdown myself! Now THAT'S a missed opportunity! n/t

[crimsonblue]

12. good luck getting that past the SS officers...

The secret service doesn't give a shit about the law, they only care about protecting the asset...

[pnorman]

16. That miserable corksucker will be spending the rest of his life in a Free Speech Zone!

Each and every one of his personal appearances from then on, will require the same carefully screened audiences, as well as the accompanying Gestapo-like security measures we've all come to expect. Won't that be a fitting tribute to the Bush Legacy?

That supreme irony won't even BEGIN to make up for all the damage he has done to our nation and our democratic institutions, as well as to the entire world. But it's at least a thought to contemplate with grim satisfaction!

pnorman

[Rex]

18. George will have to move down to Latin America to work on his tan.

Maybe send his private army against Chavez. He will ALWAYS be remembered as the worst president in American history, if not contemporary history. I think Dick Cheney will go down as being one of the worst VPs in American history. At least 5 times worse than Agnew. They will be remembered as horrible men.

Of course both of their terms will always be questioned as to their legitimacy. As the years go on, it will only increase as new facts come out.

These warmongering shitheads better go and hide after 2008 rolls into 2009. The world will be after them. Of course George and Dick will get a free pass.

[cascadiance]

19. We need one of the following as well... First courts should NOT recognize preemptive pardons!

There has to be a crime that was adjudicated and that arguably could be pardoned. But for crimes not known or specified per the pardon, then these bums should be still prosecutable after this administration leaves office.

Secondly, it maybe too late in this congress, but if one could have cut a deal to not do impeachment (too bad Nancy already GAVE them this), that we would pass a constitutional ammendment with numbers that would override a veto, that would prevent pardons from anyone in the president's administration employ or someone who was appointed by him, or a previous administration for that matter (to prevent the Gerald Ford move to pardon Nixon).

[Senator]

21. But Only Before Will Absolve The American People...

...for that which they never gave their proper consent.

Impeachment is not about "getting" the war criminals. It's about Americans -- as a whole -- acquitting themselves of complicity with violations of the treaties that tens of thousands of Our Greatest Generation(s) fought and died to forge.

Any action in this country against the regime is virtually impossible with impeachment in real time. Without it, tacit approval of the entire nation, through (a flaccid) Congress is not just arguable -- but a manifest reality. I'd even have some trouble convicting (but not much).

That is why Failure To Impeach is far worse than even the worst of the regime's abuses. Because it is complicity -- approval -- exoneration in Our Name.

Whatever "reasons" the DC-Dem "leadership" prattles on about, their result is more Anti-American than bushcheney's.

Impeachment remains our ONLY moral, patriotic option.

===

[Breeze54]

22. Well said!!

"Impeachment remains our ONLY moral, patriotic option."

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: