Thursday, November 9, 2006

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Congratulations on your party's electoral victory and on becoming the first woman Speaker of the House! The country is long overdue for both. The Bush Administration's many abuses of the last six years could have been checked, at least partially, had Democrats controlled Congress. Also, you have my personal congratulations for breaking the Speakership's glass ceiling.

I have read that you believe that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Attorney General Gonzales should not be impeached. I respectfully disagree with you. It is a matter of public record that Bush, Cheney, and other leaders of the Bush Administration have repeatedly broken the law. As every member of Congress swears an oath to uphold the Constitution upon taking office, impeaching the President and Vice President is your legal obligation.

In 1998, the Republican-controlled Congress impeached President Clinton at the conclusion of an investigation that had far exceeded its Congressional mandate. The crux of their argument was that Clinton had perjured himself by lying during a deposition. However, to my understanding, the independent counsel had no legal mandate to pursue Clinton's personal life, and in any event his perjury -- dependent on a technicality of wording -- had no bearing on his duties or conduct as President. The Republican Congress insisted on impeachment, not because he had committed "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors," but because he was a Democrat. Contrariwise, President Bush has deliberately broken far more laws. He should not escape accountability because he's a Republican or a lame duck.

My essay about the numerous clauses of the Constitution that Bush has broken, ignored or defied is available at billofrights.html. In addition, David Lindorff and Howard Zinn have both written books to this effect. I will not summarize every instance here. In brief, Bush's worst misdeeds include:

1) He has wiretapped the telephones of American citizens, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In order to do this legally, all he had to do was request a search warrant from the secret court established by the 1978 FISA act. However, Bush and Cheney have unilaterally decided they are above the law. They refuse to seek search warrants as the Constitution requires, and have publically defended this practice.

2) Bush has arrested several hundred people around the globe, including American citizens, and imprisoned them indefinitely, without charging them with any crimes or giving them access to any attorney. He has also declared that he can coerce confessions, then try suspects with military tribunals, use secret evidence, and then execute them upon conviction. His public statements and executive orders claim he can do this to any "enemy combatant." He also claims that he alone has the power to decide who constitutes an "enemy combatant." In short, Bush has trampled the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of hundreds of suspects. I believe (and pray) that most of those he has seized are, in fact, terrorists -- but, since he refuses to prove this in public, we'll never know. 

As you know, earlier this year, the Republican-controlled Congress violated the Constitution and legalized this tyrannical behavior with the Military Commissions Act. Speaker Pelosi, if Congress accomplishes nothing else in the next two years, you must repeal the Military Commissions Act in the name of justice. To imprison someone indefinitely, they must be tried lawfully and convicted fairly. For the President to accuse someone of being a terrorist without providing proof cannot justify their life imprisonment.

3) In 2002-2003, White House Counsel (and now Attorney General) Alberto Gonzales -- along with then-Attorney General Ashcroft and then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld -- wrote the Torture Memos. Before those memos it was commonly understood that the legal term "torture" includes rape, sexual humiliation, freezing, beating, and simulated drowning of prisoners. Thanks to Gonzales and company, the Bush Administration redefined "torture" to include only murder or pain equivalent to murder. This enabled Bush, Cheney and others to proclaim with straight faces that the United States doesn't torture people -- because they were using a different definition than the rest of us. Speaker Pelosi, if this doesn¹t constitute a conspiracy to violate the War Crimes Act and the Eighth Amendment, I don't know what does. It's no secret that the Torture Memos led to the terrible human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- and 90% of the people imprisoned there had been arrested by mistake. Of all the Bush Administration's violations of the law, this is the most monstrous and inhuman. A thorough investigation of how and when the Torture Memos were written and how they led to abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib would demonstrate conclusive "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" that would demand the impeachment and removal of Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and many of their subordinates. At this writing, a far greater percentage of the American public supports the impeachment of Bush and Cheney than ever supported the Clinton impeachment. A full Congressional investigation of the Torture Memos would impress the necessity of impeachment upon the rest of the public, as well as many Republican members of Congress. You must investigate how Bush, Cheney and Gonzales tried to legalize torture, and then release the rest of the photographs from Abu Ghraib. There must be no question as to what Bush, Cheney and Gonzales were trying to do -- and what happened to innocent people because of it.

Speaker Pelosi, when Bush signed the McCain Amendment, he wrote in his signing statement that he was free to ignore it any time he saw fit. Torture is a moral outrage, and Congress must make sure it stops -- and make sure those who torture or conspired to torture are brought to justice.

4) In his letter to Congress explaining the invasion of Iraq, Bush wrote that it was consistent with the authority Congress had given him to pursue the terrorists responsible for the attacks of September 11th. However, the 9/11 Commission concluded that Iraq had nothing to do with it. Their report indicates that Bush must have known this at the time -- or, at the very least, his ignorance must have been deliberate. In any event, Bush took us to war in Iraq under false pretenses. At this writing, that war has killed 2839 of our soldiers. We owe it to their families and to our country that Congress learn the truth -- and we owe it to the rest of our soldiers to bring them home as soon as possible. Congress must immediately repeal the 2002 authorization it gave Bush to attack Iraq, and refuse to fund any further military operations there.

5) The Constitution reads "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." In 2002, Bush violated that clause when he diverted money from the war in Afghanistan to prepare to attack Iraq -- long before he had requested that authority from Congress.

6) Finally, the Constitution requires the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." We already know that the President's staff has not been careful to uphold the law. Vice President Cheney's then chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has been indicted for being part of the conspiracy to punish Bush critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson by ruining his wife's career. Libby (along with Karl Rove) did this by leaking her role as a CIA agent to the press, in violation of the law. 

This is hardly the only example of Bush refusing to enforce laws he disagrees with. For instance, upon becoming President, Bush ordered the EPA to drop lawsuits against a number of plants and factories that were engaged in illegal pollution. And as I mentioned above, Bush has refused to enforce the Anti-Torture Act, the War Crimes Act, and the FISA act.

Speaker Pelosi, the House must impeach the President, the Vice President, the Attorney General, and other members of the Bush Administration. In 1998, the House impeached Clinton because he was a Democrat. In 2007, the House must not repeat the same mistake. Bush should not be impeached simply because he's a Republican. Instead, the House must impeach him because he has broken our laws time and time again. In this nation, anyone who breaks the law is a criminal -- even if it's the President.

As of today, the Democratic Party has a one-seat majority in the Senate. As you know, to remove an impeached official, two-thirds of the Senators must vote for removal. That's why it's imperative that the House thoroughly investigate the wiretaps, the torture memos, and the lies that took us to war in Iraq. A Senate vote along party lines would not remove Bush and Cheney from office -- nor should it. Congress should not remove a President or a Vice President because of their politics, no matter how strongly Congress disagrees with them. Instead, the House must investigate the ugliness of the Torture Memos, the immorality of the invasion of Iraq, and the illegality of the NSA wiretaps. The House must expose these crimes and must prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Bush and Cheney conspired to have people tortured, conspired to take us to war under false pretenses, and conspired to illegally harass their critics. When the gross injustice of these actions is revealed, even the Senate Republicans must vote for the removal of the President and Vice President. They will be forced to do so by public opinion, if not by their own consciences.

Speaker Pelosi, I am not writing as a Democrat or as a Republican, but as an American. I am horrified that people at the highest levels of my government conspired to torture suspects, to spy on us, and to start a war that was not only unnecessary, but has weakened our country. I am not suggesting that the House vote to impeach the President as soon as the new Congress sits in January. Instead, I am calling upon you to investigate and expose the Bush Administration's crimes so that impeachment will be the House's only option, and removal the Senate's only recourse. Congress must pursue this, but not because of a dislike of President Bush or a vendetta against the way he has bullied Congress over the last six years. Congress must pursue this because Bush is a criminal, and for him to remain in office will mean that he will use his power to commit more crimes.

I speak to you as a fellow Californian and a fellow American. I call upon you and the other Democrats in Congress to use your legal authority to investigate Bush and Cheney to the fullest extent of the law.

Yours sincerely,

C. Colvin

CC: Congressman John Conyers, Jr.