Across Capitol Hill, Democratic-led committees are considering punishments for past and present Bush administration officials for a range of alleged misdeeds, from discriminating against liberals at the Justice Department to blowing off subpoenas and lying to Congress.
The proceedings on Wednesday are the latest congressional review of the White House, a constitutionally mandated power that majority Democrats relish. But three months out from Election Day, a lame-duck Congress conducting oversight of a lame-duck White House produces mostly talk. There’s little time and less willingness to spend the remaining five weeks of the congressional session doing more than holding televised hearings to try to convince voters that President Bush has abused the powers of his office.
The allegations certainly are serious.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday was to hear from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who reported this week that former department officials broke the law by letting Bush administration politics dictate the hiring of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers. The probe springs from Justice’s firings of nine federal prosecutors that sparked congressional investigations last year and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
House and Senate Democrats said the findings affirmed their contention that career Justice employees were hired and fired based on whether they were deemed sufficiently conservative, a violation of law. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said he was considering bringing criminal charges against some of the former officials named in Fine’s report who may have lied to his committee. Lying to Congress is a crime, but there’s little agreement among Democrats on whether a perjury referral against some of the officials is warranted.
Everyone has questions. Sen. Arlen Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, said in an interview that he was seeking more details from Fine.
"He says that federal law was violated as to a number of people. That’s a very serious charge," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "I would want to know the details on the facts which led the inspector general to these conclusions."
On the House side, meanwhile, a subcommittee of Conyers’ panel is considering citing former presidential adviser Karl Rove with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena that compelled his attendance at a July 10 session. Democrats on the panel want to hear his testimony about the extent to which the politicization of the Justice Department was directed by the White House. Bush declared that information off limits under executive privilege.
If approved by the House subcommittee, the contempt citation against Rove would move to the full House. It was unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi would allow a vote on it. Earlier this year, the House approved contempt citations against two Bush confidants — White House counsel Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers — who likewise refused to comply with their subpoenas. The House then filed suit against the two, which is still pending in federal court.
Regardless of the outcome, if the judge wades into the dispute, Bush will be out of office before it’s resolved.
18 thoughts on “Time for Bush to pay for his crimes?”
Fuck Impeachment !!
Strike until the federal government ratifies the International Criminal Court accord.
Turn the Bush administration over to the Hague to be prosecuted for war crimes.
FREE AMERICA
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
FREE AMERICA
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
Corey seems to kinda like got it figured out. Democrats, Republicans, Fascists … all pretty much the same.
— Kent Shaw
Bush has ruined America more than ALL other Presidents combined.
We used to “poo poo” when people of other countries told us they thought we were spoiled brats….now all we can do it hide our faces in shame, realizing our government is a terrorist organization that lives by the mind-set of globalization gone wild in its imperialist ways where we kill innocent people, so we can rape their land of all natural resources.
This is NOT for the people of America, the corporations will still raise their prices because their CEOs and their contacts they have in other countries need to be paid off.
The American people will just be raped of the “taxes” they give to the US Government.
The US Government IS the enemy of the American people, and the people of the world.
Having 730 military bases in over 100 countries is NOT for our benefit, not We the People, but the US Government and all it’s friends who get tax right-offs, and pay less taxes than your average hard working American.
As an American, born and bred, I am disgusted at the US Government.
I want MY country back…..the one the Founding Fathers envisioned.
They warned over and over about the action of power hungry politicians and corporations…it is time we, WE the PEOPLE stop trusting them and realize that the US Government does not care if We the People die, as long as we die for their pocket books.
Corey Mondello
Boston, Massachusetts
http://www.CoreyMondello.com
7-30-08
Go after them hammer and tong, to the full extent indictable under the law, and let’s not have any of the ‘save the country from a trial’ nonsense like we had with Nixon. Honest to God punishment is what’s called for to prove that, in the words of GW, himself, ‘words mean something, and actions have consequences’. It’s time for him to suffer them for once in his sorry life.
Democrats I used to think I respected are 1000% Scheister-Meisters. Nancy ‘the care of our country is off the table’ Fancy Pants Pelosi is way up there, Hairy Reed is one of the worst Democrapic Scheiser-Meisters.
Congressman John Conyers who I thought had testicular fortitude is a Spineless Jellyfish. Sir Obama of Camelot [NOT] sold the 4th Amendmant down the crapper tubes so as to not rock the boat for his presidential run (Oh! but it’s only a strategic retreat!).
Every step of the way the Democrappers have aided and abetted the Chimp Administration. The Democrappers are complicit in this illegal occupation for Iraq and Halliburton and all the other scumbuckets are laughing all the way to the bank.
Pillary Clinton, the PANTS SUIT MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE is interchangable with Sir Obama, it would’ve mattered not which one of them won the Democratic nomination for President.
The Democrats have layed a Stinking Steamer on America all to preserve their chairs in the ‘Dome’ (upholstered with Rich Corinthian Leather).
NO MORE PANTS SUITS
NO MORE FANCY PANTS PELOSI
VOTE THIRD PARTY
The problem with Democrats is twofold: They are lousy liars and 2.) They don’t like fighting. It will take an almost unimaginable level of organization, similar to Gandhi’s Salt March, to fight the GOP filth machine with decency and truth. The Dems need to remember another lesson from Gandhi: “Wisdom without courage is worthless.” Fight on and don’t quit until Bush and Cheney receive their just deserts at the skinny end of a firing squad in Guantanamo.
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