Criminal Prosecution and Accountability

by Katherine Brengle Op-Ed News February 16, 2006

My country is dying. My country has become cruel, and dangerous, and fraught with corruption. The promise that was America has dwindled from a blazing fire to a pale fluorescent flicker...

Once upon a time, the world looked to us for leadership, for strength and integrity, for hope, for compassion. This image has been shattered. When the United States invaded the nation of Iraq on March 19th, 2003, we shattered that image. When the first photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison were broadcast on April 30th, 2004, the shards were shattered further. Yesterday, the image finally evaporated.

By Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (Cross-posted at DailyKos)

You may recall that a few weeks ago I introduced a resolution of inquiry to obtain Justice Department documents about the President's domestic spying program.

Many of you are no doubt familiar with the procedure for resolutions of inquiry; however, for those who are not, a brief explanation. A resolution of inquiry requests information or documents from the Executive Branch. The Committee to which it is referred must vote on it within a specified period of time or the full House must consider it.

As a practical matter, if the Republicans want to dodge an issue, they refer the bill to Committee and then "adversely report" it, which kills it, stopping the request for documents and protecting every non-Committee Republican from having to vote on it.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee considered my resolution of inquiry on the domestic spying program. The Resolution was rejected 16 to 21, with all Democrats and one Republican (Congressman Hostetler) voting for it.

Cheney Lacked $7 Hunting Credential by Nicholas Riccardi and James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writers

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Although he was not cited with breaking any laws, Vice President Dick Cheney did not have proper hunting credentials when he accidentally shot a fellow hunter at a private ranch over the weekend, authorities said Monday.

[...]

The accident occurred on a ranch Saturday when the vice president wheeled to shoot at a covey of quail and accidentally sprayed his hunting partner, 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington, with shotgun pellets, authorities said.

[I]t has forced a White House already under fire for secrecy to explain why it made no mention of the shooting until the ranch owner disclosed it to a local newspaper, 18 hours after the incident.

Was Cheney Drunk? | Lawrence O'Donnell | 02.14.2006

The L.A. Times is edging closer to the most likely reason for the 18 hour delay in reporting that the Vice President of the United States shot someone:

"This was a hunting accident," said Gilbert San Miguel, chief deputy of the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office. "There was no alcohol or misconduct."

How do we know there was no alcohol? Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I've talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting. The next question for the White House should be: Was Cheney drunk?

Files May Be Lost in Leak Case - The Associated Press - February 2, 2006

WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.

The prosecutor in the criminal case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff said in a Jan. 23 letter that not all e-mail was archived in 2003, the year the Bush administration exposed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

by Jane Smiley: The Huffington Post

I understand that all the folks at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend are busy celebrating their accomplishments. Since they live in the same overextended, widely hated, and increasingly impoverished nation that I do, where the "president" and the "vice-president" think they can break the law with impunity, where the bureaucracy has been eviscerated of everyone who actually knows anything, and in a world where, in some circles, "US" is a byword for "torture" (did you notice that no one wanted to sit with Laura Bush at the Winter Olympics?), I can only assume that what I see and lament is the same thing they see and celebrate.

ConvictBushCheney Articles (as of February 11, 2006).

Libby Testified He Was Told To Leak Data About Iraq
By Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer, February 10, 2006

Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.

Cheney was one of the "superiors" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said had authorized him to make the disclosures, according to sources familiar with the investigation into Libby's discussions with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

From: ThinkProgress.org

FITZGERALD FOCUSING ON DIRECT CHENEY INVOLVEMENT: Bloomberg reported, “A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent’s name, according to people familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.” [Bloomberg, 10/17/05]

From: ThinkProgress.org

In July 2005, the New York Times raised the possibility that Bush could be involved in the leak. “It is still not clear what the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. operative’s identity will mean for President Bush. So far the disclosures about the involvement of Karl Rove, among others, have not exacted any substantial political price from the administration. And nobody has suggested that the investigation directly implicates the president. Yet Mr. Bush has yet to address some uncomfortable questions that he may not be able to evade indefinitely There is the broader issue of whether Mr. Bush was aware of any effort by his aides to use the C.I.A. officer’s identity to undermine the standing of her husband, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting its prewar intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program.” [NYT, 7/24/05]

CBS News, Associated Press Feb. 10, 2006

Quote: "The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows." -- Jack Abramoff

Jack Abramoff says in newly disclosed e-mail messages that he met President Bush "almost a dozen" times, challenging Mr. Bush's contention that he barely knew the disgraced lobbyist at the center of a Washington corruption scandal.

Bar association to oppose domestic spying
Chicago Sun Times February 11, 2006
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter

The American Bar Association is preparing to weigh in against President Bush's eavesdropping on telephone calls going into and out of America.

Contrary to polls showing Americans divided on the issue, "our poll shows that average Americans and legal scholars alike agree that the awesome power of the government to penetrate citizens' most private communications must not be held in one set of hands," ABA President Michael Greco said Friday at group's annual midyear meeting in Chicago. "To prevent the very human temptation to abuse the power, there must be checks and balances in the form of oversight by the courts and Congress."

By Dave Lindorff, http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

It's pretty easy to trace the war crime of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay back to the Oval Office. The memos are all there.

By David Johnston, New York Times

Washington - Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told prosecutors that Mr. Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the identity of the CIA officer at the heart of the leak case, according to a formerly secret legal opinion, parts of which were made public on Friday.

By Bloomberg

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's former chief of staff, will go on trial next year after a delay intended to accommodate lawyers' schedules and resolve disputes over evidence that includes Libby's hard-to-read notes.

By Pete Yost, Associated Press

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.

From Tomdispatch tonight: Elizabeth de la Vega's "When Two Worlds Collide, Rove v. Fitzgerald" http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=55695

Right now, with the President sailing through his latest State of the Union speech untouched by the mainstream media, it looks another danger -- the CIA leak case of Valerie Plame -- has also left the political playing field and that this administration has a minimum of nine lives. Well, don't let the relative media silence surrounding Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation right now fool you. As former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega indicates in her latest Tomdispatch report on the case, Fitzgerald is simply working on another time schedule than that of top administration officials. Yet, her experience assures her, two quite different worlds -- that of Karl Rove and that of Fitzgerald -- are in due course heading for a seismic collision. So expect fireworks out of the Special Counsel's office that will first illuminate the role of Rove in the case, and then may light up a far larger stretch of the administration horizon.

305 West Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013
PRESS CONTACT: Larry Everest 510-472-8484 COMMISSION OFFICE: 212-941-8086
commission@nion.us www.bushcommission.org

BUSH ADMINISTRATION GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY SAYS COMMISSION OF INQUIRY; ACTIVIST CONFRONTS RUMSFELD WITH VERDICT, SAYS “STEP DOWN

Thursday, February 02, 2006
Reddhedd, Firedoglake
Let's See...Who Was It that Thought He'd Be Indicted?

Oh yeah, it was Stephen Hadley.

International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity by the Bush Administration
305 West Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013
PRESS CONTACT: Heather Hurwitz 440-478-0165 COMMISSION OFFICE: 212-941-8086

Bush on Trial for Crimes against Humanity
By Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | www.truthout.org

The International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration convened last weekend in New York City's Riverside Church. Martin Luther King Jr.'s portrait hangs in the foyer. Dr. King delivered his historic 1967 speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Place to Break the Silence," opposing the war and calling for the removal of all foreign troops from Vietnam, in that same church.

BY MARTIN C. EVANS, New York Newsday, http://www.nynewsday.com

A former general in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison during the 2004 abuse scandal there and England's former ambassador to Uzbekistan were among several people to speak out against the Bush administration's handling of the "War on Terror" Saturday at an anti-war hearing at Manhattan's Riverside Church.

Pinochet Stripped of Immunity in Cases, By Associated Press

Santiago, Chile - Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was stripped of immunity from prosecution Friday in 59 cases of torture and kidnapping at a secret detention center where hundreds of dissidents were held - including President-elect Michelle Bachelet and her mother.

305 West Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013
PRESS CONTACT: Connie Julian: 917-449-9064 Commission office: 212-941-8086
commission@nion.us www.bushcommission.org

FORMER ABU GHRAIB COMMANDER JANIS KARPINSKI, EX-UK AMBASSADOR CRAIG MURRAY, TOP EXPERTS, AND FORMER OFFICIALS TO TESTIFY AT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON BUSH WAR CRIMES
Harry Belafonte to Will Also Speak at Bush Crimes Commission

Friday, January 20, 5-9pm, Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive
Saturday, January 21, 10am-6pm, Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive
Sunday, January 22, 1-5pm, Columbia University Law School, 116th & Amsterdam Avenue

Human Rights Watch

Order this Report
Download PDF

   Audio Commentaries

by Thomas Walkom | The Toronto Star | November 16, 2004

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa - probably later this year - should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

What the World is Saying...About The Torture of Iraqi Detainees at Abu Ghraib - Compiled by The Center for American Progress | May 6, 2004

Over the past week, shocking images and reports of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison have surfaced. The international community has unequivocally condemned the U.S. military. The State Department has compiled editorials from all over the world, which can be viewed here. Below is a sample of the global commentary

New Zogby Poll: 52% of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by After Downing Street and conducted by Zogby International.

"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik.

Read the results and print out a one-page flyer summarizing the various polls that have been done on impeachment:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling

Tell the media to cover this news:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/1084

By Mike Hersh

(Washington, DC January 16, 2006) Former Vice President Gore, the man selected by most voters in 2000 said of the man selected by most of the Supreme Court: "the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently." This stark but accurate accusation highlighted a rousing and extremely well-received address in defense of the US Constitution aptly delivered at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC.

By Eric Lichtblau | The New York Times | Jan. 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.