36 US House Reps Want Bush Impeachment Probe

By Matthew Cardinale, Atlanta Progressive News

Atlanta - 36 US House Representatives have signed on as
sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would
create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for
recommending President Bush’s impeachment, Atlanta
Progressive News has learned.

The two latest co-sponsors, as of Friday, were US Rep.
Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) and US Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-
PA).

"For the House to impeach and the Senate to convict a
President, the public must be fully informed and
convinced by credible information that a President
deserves impeachment. That means gathering the facts.
Rep. Conyers’ bill calls for setting up a select
committee to gather information to see if there is any
basis for impeachment - i.e., a violation of the
Constitution - or if impeachment should even be
considered. With that understanding I support H. Res.
635," Congressman Jackson said in a statement released
to Atlanta Progressive News.

Rep. Fattah’s Office was not able to provide comment in
time for press, but was invited to send along comments
to be added to the Atlanta Progressive News website
when available.

"The Bush administration must be held accountable for
the failures in their Iraq War policy. Congress has a
Constitutional obligation to determine whether this
disastrous Iraq policy is the result of deceit and
deception or simply reckless incompetence. Providing
the Congress and American people with the opportunity
to seek the truth regarding the facts and the
fabrications that led our nation into the Iraq War is
why I am supporting the Conyers’ resolution," US Rep.
Betty McCollum, another recent co-sponsor, said in a
statement prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.

An Atlanta Progressive News analysis has found that,
interestingly, 29 of the 36 total co-sponsors are
members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
However, only 29 of the 62 members of the Caucus have
signed on.

Atlanta Progressive News is calling out the other 33
self-described progressives who have not signed on.
They are Reps. Becerra, Bordallo, Corrine Brown,
Sherrod Brown, Carson, Cristenson, Cleaver, Cummings,
DeFazio, DeLauro, Evans, Frank, Grijalva, Gutierrez,
Tubbs Jones, Kaptur, Kilpatrick, Kucinich, Lantos,
Markey, McGovern, Miller, Holmes-Norton, Pastor, Rush,
Serrano, Slaughter, Solis, Thompson, Udall, Watson,
Watt, and Waxman.

As noted below, two of these Progressive Caucus members
who have not signed on, are in fact two of the four
Democrats on the House Rules Committee, meaning they
have direct influence over this bill: Slaughter and
McGovern.

In the US Senate, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin
(D-IA) are currently the two co-sponsors of US Senator
Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill, S. Res 398, to censure
President Bush.

"There has been massive support for House Resolution
635 from a very vigorous network of grassroots
activists and people committed to holding the Bush
Administration accountable for its widespread abuses of
power," US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said in a statement
prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.

"The Atlanta Progressive News has reported regularly on
this bill," Conyers wrote in an article on his blog.

A spokesperson for Rep. Conyers noted the Congressman
is continuing in his lobbying efforts for the bill,
which was first introduced in December 2005, prior to
so many recent additional shocking revelations about
the actions of President Bush.

It was recently revealed, for one thing, that Bush
himself authorized the leak of the identity of a CIA
agent, endangering US security, in retaliation for the
agent’s husband questioning the US’s faulty
intelligence on Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs.

In another recent revelation, Bush was provided with
evidence that the information he was propagating on
Iraq was faulty.

Conyers’s spokesperson also concurred there continues
to be some confusion among Members of US Congress who
have not yet signed on to the bill about the content of
the bill. Specifically, some members have not signed on
because the media has not clearly reported that the
bill is not a call for impeachment, nor an impeachment
inquiry, but rather is a call for the creation of a
committee that would look into the possible grounds for
impeachment and could make recommendations.

Meanwhile, at least twelve (12) US cities, including
Arcata, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, each
in California; Woodstock in New York; and Battleboro,
Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro, Newfane, Putney, and
Rockingham, each in Vermont, have passed resolutions
calling for Bush’s impeachment, according to a running
tally at www.impeachpac.org/resolutions.

In addition, the State Legislatures in California,
Illinois, and Vermont are each considering impeachment
resolutions, which, if passed, could fast track the
impeachment issue to the US House.

Over 17% of US House Democrats now support the
impeachment probe; over 8% of all US House
Representatives now support the probe. In December
2005, there were 231 Republicans in the US House, 202
Democrats, 1 Independent, and 1 vacancy, a clerk for
the US House of Representatives told Atlanta
Progressive News.

The best represented states on H. Res 635 are
California (8), New York (6), Illinois (3),
Massachusetts (3), Minnesota (3), Georgia (2), and
Wisconsin (2).

The current 36 total co-sponsors are Rep. Neil
Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep.
Michael Capuano (D-MA), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep.
William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI),
Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep.
Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Rep.
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep.
Jackson, Jr., (D-IL), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX),
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep.
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN),
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-
GA), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-
NY), Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Rep. John Olver (D-
MA), Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ),
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN),
Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL),
Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. John Tierney (D-
MA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters
(D-CA), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and Rep. David Wu (D-
OR).

"What a lot of activists group want is the next step,
which is Articles of Impeachment. You don’t have to
pass this type of bill first. I think there’s a fair
chance that if the list of co-sponsors grows
dramatically, Conyers and others will take that next
step of introducing articles of impeachment," David
Swanson of ImpeachPAC told Atlanta Progressive News.

At least two members of Congress are prepared to sign
Articles of Impeachment if they were to be introduced,
sources tell Atlanta Progressive News. One of the
members is US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), whose office
clarified earlier Associated Press reports, by saying
Lewis would indeed sign such a bill, assuming that any
bill of impeachment would of course be introduced as a
result of a thorough process, such as one including the
investigation called for in H. Res 635.

Dave Lindorff wrote in The Baltimore Chronicle that he
and Barbara Olshansky (an attorney at The Center for
Constitutional Rights) will reveal in an upcoming book
that "members of Congress-even firebrands like Maxine
Waters (D-CA) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-have been
strong-armed behind the scenes by the Democratic
National Committee not to introduce an impeachment bill
in the House."

Conyers’s bill was initially referred to the US House
Rules Committee, which has not taken action. None of
the US House Democrats on the Rules Committee have
signed on as co-sponsors. The Ranking Democrat on the
Committee is US Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY).
Democratic members of the Committee are Alcee Hastings
(D-FL), Doris Matsui (D-CA), and James McGovern (D-MA).
Republicans currently outnumber Democrats on the
committee by about a two-to-one ratio.

The US House Rules Committee would need to take action
on H. Res 635 because it calls for the creation of a
Select Committee, in other words the creation of a new
committee that is not a standing committee, Jonathan
Godfrey, Communications Director for US Rep. Conyers,
told Atlanta Progressive News. Such a Committee would
need to be staffed, Godfrey noted.

If the Democratic Party is able to retake the US House
of Representatives, Rep. Conyers would become Chairman
Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee, whereas he is
currently the Ranking Democrat on the Committee. The
Judiciary Committee would oversee any actual
impeachment investigation.

If not acted on this session, the bill would have to be
reintroduced next session. It is possible that a new
bill could include new language regarding Bush’s
approval of illegal NSA domestic wiretapping.

For now, however, sources in Washington DC tell Atlanta
Progressive News that H. Res 635 is a venue for
coalition among members of Congress who are willing to
consider impeachment for a variety of reasons.

Even though H. Res 635 does not specifically reference
the NSA domestic wiretapping issue, some Members of US
Congress have found the wiretapping issue to be a
compelling reason to sign on as a co-sponsor, sources
say.

In other words, why introduce separate legislation to
address a single issue when momentum has been built
with H. Res 635?

The thing about H. Res. 635 is, it deals with
impeaching Bush over a cluster of issues from
misleading the public to go to war, to authorizing
torture. Wiretapping was not listed as one of the
reasons to investigate the grounds for Bush’s
impeachment in the bill because the existence of the
secret, illegal wiretapping had not come to light yet
when the bill was being prepared.

US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) withdrew her name from H.
Res 635 at the end of January 2006, whereas she had
been listed as a cosponsor throughout January 2006.
Lofgren cited a clerical error for her name having been
listed in the first place. Lofgren’s Office told
Atlanta Progressive News the Representative learned of
her being listed as a co-sponsor after reading an
exclusive article by Atlanta Progressive News issued
January 01, 2006.

Lofgren, and 17 other Members of Congress, wrote to
President Bush in February 2006 that they wanted the
wiretapping issue to be pursued by a Special Counsel,
which Lofgren considers a next step in a crucial
investigation, seeing as how the Republicans have been
stonewalling on necessary documents and testimony to
determine if Bush’s domestic wiretapping program was
legal.

H. Res 635 reads as its official title: "Creating a
select committee to investigate the Administration’s
intent to go to war before congressional authorization,
manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and
countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and
to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible
impeachment."

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) also just
released a book, Articles of Impeachment Against
President Bush. The Center is extremely influential in
high-profile court fights over issues such as
wiretapping, the treatment of detainees by the US, and
felon voting rights.

"We have the book, we are calling for the impeachment
of the President, and we’re supporting Conyers’s
resolution," Bill Goodman, CCR Legal Director, told
Atlanta Progressive News.

Rock music artist Neil Young has also released a song
with the lyrics, "Let’s impeach the President for
lying..."

Atlanta Progressive News has provided near-exclusive-
and during many times, exclusive-coverage of the
progress of H. Res 635. We will continue to follow this
story and any related developments.

Matthew Cardinale is the Editor of Atlanta Progressive
News and may be reached at
matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com

http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0049.html