"I would begin....with the demonstrably impeachable offenses..."

To Impeach or Not to Impeach?
A Discussion with House Judiciary Chair John Conyers and CIA Veteran Ray McGovern

Three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee—Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin—have called on committee chair John Conyers to begin impeachment hearings against Vice President Dick Cheney. We host a discussion on impeachment with Conyers and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

...RAY McGOVERN: Well, we not only have the obstruction of justice, but we have the President’s former spokesman saying that he was involved in the outing of Valerie Plame. We also have the President threatening World War III on bogus evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons development program. So, you know, it’s sort of like outreach fatigue. Where do you begin?

Well, where I would begin is with the demonstrably impeachable offenses—first and foremost, the President’s not only admission, but his bragging about violating laws against eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. He bragged that he did that thirty times. That was one of the articles of impeachment voted against President Nixon. Similarly, disregarding subpoenas, that, too, was one of the articles voted against President Nixon in the Judiciary Committee, where Congressman Conyers, of course, served very loyally. So you have those two right there.

And that’s not even mentioning, you know, forging, manufacturing, coming up with false intelligence to deceive congressmen and senators out of their constitutional prerogative to declare or to otherwise authorize war. I mean, it doesn’t get any worse than that. And so, my sense is that our founders are probably turning over in their grave at this point, because they put the impeachment clause in the declarative mood, not the subjunctive mood. They didn’t say that—...[Open in new window]