Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney's Articles of Impeachment As
her last act as a US Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney filed articles of
impeachment against Geroge W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice on
friday December 9th, 2006. Saying "With a heavy heart and in
the deepest spirit of patriotism, I exercise my duty and responsibility
to speak truthfully about what is before us...", she fomally introduced
the aricles of impeachment.
The news broke on Matt Pascarella's blog Friday
evening, quickly spreading to Truthout and the AP wire service. From there it set the
Blogoshere on fire...
Here are the Articles of
Impeachment filed by
Congeresswoman Cynthia McKinney (edited from PDF file) against Bush, Cheney,
and Rice
……………………………
(Original
Signature of Member)
109TH CONGRESS
2ND SESSION
H. Res. 1106
Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President
of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes
and misdemeanors.
_____________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF
REPESENTATIVES
DECEMBER 8, 2006
Ms. McKINNEY introduced the following Resolution: _____________________________
RESOLUTION
Resolved, that George Walker Bush, President of the
United
States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the
following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States
Senate: Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself
and of all the people of the United States of America, against George
Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other
officials, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him
for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled that:
ARTICLE
I. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: “I
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office
of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,”
George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States
has demonstrated a pattern of abuse of office and of executive
privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself. This conduct
includes the following:
Manipulating
Intelligence and Lying to Justify War. In
violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his
subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George
Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of
America, in preparing the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence
from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full
intelligence picture that he was being given, by redacting information
by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6,
2001 Presidential Daily Brief, and actively manipulating the
intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs by pressuring the
Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide
intelligence such that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy” as revealed in the “Downing Street Memo.”
To this end, President George Walker Bush and
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans
inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by
providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq’s
alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the
United States of America. By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false
and misleading statements linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11,
2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for
which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions
being either false, or based on “fixed” intelligence, with the intent
to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order
to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and
their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice,
George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was
guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
ARTICLE
II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF 3 EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.
In violation of his oath to “faithfully execute the
office of President of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his
conduct while President of the United States, has consistently
demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the
work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the
scope of the powers of his office. This conduct includes the following:
Failure
to Uphold Accountability.
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of
officeto take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he
agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall
conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone
under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take
responsibility for, investigate or discipline those responsible for an
ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the
detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the
23 United States of America, has failed to hold to account include but
are not limited to the following top-level officials in his
administration:
(a) Richard Cheney. In
violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution,
Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played
a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting
the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central
Intelligence Agency to “fix” their intelligence estimates of the danger
posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby
Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was
guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) Condoleezza
Rice. In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and
provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the
Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did
play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by
repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq’s alleged
weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that
the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a
nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to
purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought help in
developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby
Conoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America,
did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United
States of America.
By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these
officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for
their negligence or violations of law, George Walker Bush, President of
the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors
against the United States of America.
Wherefore, by their aforementioned conduct, George
Walker Bush, Richard Cheney and Condoleezza Rice warrant impeachment,
trial and removal from office.
ARTICLE
III. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section
3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to “take Care
that the Laws be faithfully executed,” George Walker Bush, during his
tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and
spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and
military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and
practices that carry out the law.
This conduct
includes the following:
Illegal Domestic Spying.
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50
USC Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the
National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in
secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes
unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic
surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without
seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby
subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by
circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts
established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses
of executive power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge
to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled
illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this
unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all
but a few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to
outright public deceit as on 20 April, 2004, when he told an audience
in Buffalo, New York: “any time you hear the United States government
talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,
we're talking about getting a court order before we do so,” whereby
said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and
was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly
and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to
undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding
Founders. Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the
interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat
of arbitrary government, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal
from office.
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