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Rep. Kucinich Introduces Impeachment Resolutions

Representative Dennis Kucinich July 10 Media Statment

Four years ago this summer (and four months before President George W. Bush was elected to a second term), Nebraskans for Peace publicly called for the impeachment of both he and Vice-President Dick Cheney — and were roundly ridiculed for our action.

This past June, exactly four years later, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush into Congress (H. Res. 1258), with the warning that if the House Judiciary Committee failed to hold hearings within the next 30 days, he would be back with yet another resolution to impeach. Good as his word, on July 10, Kucinich introduced a follow-up resolution, and this time his tenacity appears to have paid off. In an about-face, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told the media that she now expected the Judiciary Committee and its chair, Rep. John Conyers, to consider the matter.

Reprinted here are both Kucinich’s July 10 media statement about the second impeachment resolution, and the full 35 articles from his original June 9 document.

July 10 Media Statement

Yesterday in the House, we had a moment of silence for the troops. Today it is time to speak out on behalf of those troops who will be in Iraq for at least another year, courageously representing our nation while their Commander in Chief sent them on a mission that was based on falsehoods about the threat of WMDs from Iraq.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2002, the Congress, the media and the American people heard the terrifying drumbeat of fear from the Bush White House in the form of loud, well-advertised and orchestrated chanting by the President and his Administration about “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” “Nuclear Threats,” “Biological Weapons,” “Chemical Weapons,” “Threats of Imminent Attack,” all calculated to gain media attention, public support and Congressional support for a war against Iraq.

This afternoon I will introduce a single Article of Impeachment of the President.

The Article is entitled: “Deceiving Congress with Fabricated Threats of Iraq WMDs to Fraudulently Obtain Support for an Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq.” The Impeachment resolution focuses narrowly on what the President presented to Congress in the Authorization of the Use of Military Force. It does not address the voluminous evidence of orchestrated deceptions which have been well documented by various governmental, nongovernmental and media sources.

I understand that many members of Congress voted in good faith to authorize the use of force against Iraq. And I understand that many in the media supported that action. When the President of the United States makes representations on matters of life and death, we all want to believe him and give him the benefit of the doubt. Trust is the glue which holds the fabric of our nation together.

Those in Congress and in the media who acted on the President’s representations of the threat of Iraq WMDs did so trusting that those representations were honest. Unfortunately, they were not. We all know the consequences of the war, the loss of lives and injury to our troops, the deaths of innocent Iraqis, the cost to the American taxpayers. There has been another consequence: Great damage to our Constitution through an unnecessary, illegal war and the destruction of the superior role of Congress in the life of this nation.

Congress must, in the name of the American people, use the one remedy which the Founders provided for an Executive who gravely abused his power: Impeachment. Congress must reassert itself as a co-equal branch of government; bring this President to an accounting, and in doing so reestablish the people’s trust in Congress and in our American system of government. We must not let this President’s conduct go unchallenged and thereby create a precedent which undermines the Constitution.

In the final analysis this is about our Constitution and whether a President can be held accountable for his actions and his deceptions, especially when the effects of those actions have been so calamitous for America, Iraq and the world. Unless Congress reasserts itself as the power branch of government which the Founders intended, our experiment with a republican form of Government may be nearing an end. But when Congress acts to hold this President accountable it will be redeeming the faith that the Founders had in the power of a system of checks and balances which preserves our republic.