Q. What is Impeachment?
A. Impeachment is the only Constitutional method for holding a President, Vice President, judge, or other Federal official accountable for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" (U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 4). Impeachment is the first step in the process; it is the equivalent of an indictment under criminal law. It is not necessary to have a "smoking gun" to begin the impeachment process; the criminal standard of "probable cause" is sufficient, because the impeachment process includes a bipartisan investigation and a trial.
Q. How does Impeachment work?
A. It begins when any Member of the House of Representatives introduces Articles of Impeachment alleging a "high crime or misdemeanor." The House leadership then decides whether investigate those Articles, or ignore them. If there is an investigation, the Judiciary Committee would vote whether to recommend these (or other) Articles to the full House. Then the full House would vote whether to send the Articles to the Senate for a trial. After a Senate trial, 67 votes are needed to convict and remove the President from office. Two presidents (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton) have been impeached (indicted), but neither was convicted and removed. Richard Nixon resigned when his impeachment appeared inevitable. Here is an excellent Short History of Impeachment.
Q. Why should Bush and Cheney be impeached?
A. There are many reasons, but we are focused on the most obvious: Because they lied about the threat posed by Iraq in 2002 to launch an illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Q. What lies did they tell?
A. They claimed Iraq definitely had biological and chemical weapons, as well as an active nuclear weapons program, all of which Iraq had destroyed in 1991 after Gulf War I, just as Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, told us after he defected in 1995. They also claimed Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda and 9/11 - which was false, and the Bush administration knew it.
Q. Did Bush and Cheney knowingly lie, or were they misled by bad intelligence from the CIA?
A. They lied. Bush and Cheney were determined to invade Iraq from the very beginning of their administration, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. (Their policy can be traced to proposals written in 1998 by the Project for a New American Century, led by rightwingers who became top White House officials under Bush and Cheney.) After 9/11, Bush and Cheney decided to use the attack by Al Qaeda as justification for an invasion of Iraq, even though they knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We know this from the Downing Street Minutes, which state: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Bush and Cheney created two secret groups to manufacture lies about Iraq: (1) the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which included all top White House officials (Condi Rice, Andy Card, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, Karen Hughes, and Mary Matalin) and (2) the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, led by key neocons like Doug Feith. When the CIA refused to confirm the lies manufactured by WHIG and OSP, Dick Cheney personally visited the CIA to browbeat them into accepting White House lies. When CIA director George Tenet finally resigned, George Bush gave him a Medal of Freedom as a reward for cooperating with White House lies.
Q. Didn't a majority in Congress support the invasion of Iraq?
A. Yes, but mostly because they believed the lies from Bush and Cheney. After those lies were exposed, many Republicans and Democrats who voted for the invasion changed their positions and said they would have opposed it if they had been told the truth. These include Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC) and Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Kerry (D-MA), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).
Q. Is lying an impeachable offense?
A. The Republican Congress thought so in 1998 when they impeached Bill Clinton.
Q. Wasn't Clinton impeached for lying to a Grand Jury?
A. Yes. But George Bush lied to Congress in his 2003 State of the Union Address, which is just as serious as lying to a Grand Jury. Bush lied to Congress again on March 18, 2003, when he submitted his official letter declaring war on Iraq. And for those (like us) who distinguish between different kinds of lies, Bill Clinton lied about sex, which harmed no one but his family; Bush and Cheney lied about war, which has cost the lives of over 2,000 U.S. soldiers and over 30,000 innocent Iraqis (possibly over 100,000), not to mention tens of thousands of maimed Americans and Iraqis, and over $200 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Q. Do Americans support the impeachment of Bush and Cheney?
A. Yes. In June, a Zogby poll showed 42% support impeachment. In September, an Ipsos poll showed 50%. In October, another Zogby poll showed 53%. These polls show support for impeachment is growing at 3% per month. By comparison, only 26% of Americans supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
Q. Would a Republican-controlled Congress ever support impeachment of Bush and Cheney?
A. Right now they would not. But things could change quickly, particularly if Cheney or Bush were indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald in the context of the CIA scandal. Also, Republicans read polls, and they are aware that a solid and growing majority of Americans oppose Bush and support his impeachment. As we get closer to the 2006 election, Republicans may decide they need to impeach Bush and Cheney to stay in control of Congress. Or they may decide to send a delegation of influential Republicans to meet privately with Bush and Cheney to tell them to resign, as they did with Richard Nixon in 1974.
Q. Would it hurt Democrats politically to push for impeachment of Bush and Cheney?
A. Not if a majority of Americans support impeachment, as the polls show. Here is our analysis of the politics of impeachment.
Q. So why aren't Democrats pushing for impeachment?
A. Until the revelation of the NSA wiretapping scandal in December 2005, Democrats were afraid of a vicious counter-attack from the White House, the Republican Party, the rightwing media, and even "mainstream" media like the Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC, and CNN. But after the NSA wiretapping scandal broke, Democratic leaders like Senator Barbara Boxer, Rep. John Lewis, and Rep. John Conyers began talking about impeachment.
Q. Should Democrats be deterred by a counter-attack from the media?
A. Not if only 35% of Americans approve of Bush's job performance - and only 18% approve of Cheney's. It's long overdue for Democrats to stand up to the lying, bullying rightwing media, and the right-leaning "mainstream" media.
Q. Why should Bush and Cheney be impeached together?
A. Because they were full partners in deciding to launch a war based on lies. They must be removed from office, and the whole White House staff must go with them.
Q. Who would become President if Bush and Cheney were impeached?
A. The Speaker of the House is next in line, and would serve until the 2008 election. Right now that is Dennis Hastert (R-IL). But that could change if two dozen Republicans are indicted and convicted in the Abramoff scandal, as some newspapers have reported. And if Democrats win a majority in the House in 2006, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would become the Speaker. Whoever becomes President would nominate a Vice President, who would need a majority vote in the Senate and House. Naturally, the successor President would have to choose an distinguished Vice President who would have the respect of America and the world.
Q. If Dennis Hastert becomes President, would America be better off?
A. Absolutely. First, George Bush and Dick Cheney would be out of the White House and unable to start more wars, commit more war crimes, or subvert more Constitutional rights. Second, the impeachment of Bush and Cheney would send a message to Hastert - and all future Presidents - that they will be punished if they break such laws. Third, Hastert is barely known outside his district, so he would have to abandon the Bush-Cheney strategy of treating Democrats with contempt, and instead would have to reach out to Democrats to govern effectively.
Q. Why won't you support Republican candidates who support impeachment?
A. Because the very first thing a Representative does after being sworn in is to vote for Speaker of the House on a party-line vote. So if we help elect Republicans, they will vote for Denny Hastert as Speaker. If we help Democrats, they will vote for Nancy Pelosi. We believe Nancy Pelosi would be an infinitely better Speaker - or President - than Dennis Hastert.
Also, the party with the majority appoints the chairs of each committee and sets the agenda. Since Republicans led by Newt Gingrich won a majority in the House in 1994, the Republican leadership has been ruthless in its partisanship. Despite many urgent requests from Democrats, Republicans will not even investigate the Bush administration's Iraq War lies, let alone hold the liars accountable through impeachment. Republicans have repeatedly broken the rules and the law to get their way, including bribing House Members during close votes.
Q. Why won't you support independent candidates who support impeachment?
A. Because the result would be a 3-way race with a Republican, a Democrat, and a Democrat-leaning Independent. On election day, the Democrat and the Independent will split the Democratic vote, guaranteeing the election of the Republican. If a pro-impeachment Independent wants to be a serious candidate, (s)he can run in a Democratic primary to become the Democratic nominee.
Q. Would it hurt the United States to impeach Bush and Cheney?
A. Bush and Cheney are hurting the United States by desperately clinging to power, even though they have no support. They have destroyed U.S. influence in the world, they have destroyed our military, and they have recruited and trained a whole new generation of terrorists. The United States will be weaker and more vulnerable to attack every day they remain in the White House.
Q. Is there an easier way to remove Bush and Cheney without a painful impeachment process?
A. Certainly - they could both resign, just as Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon did.
Q. Does anyone have a deviously simple plan to succeed where more complicated plans may fail?
A. Possibly...
