Impeachment

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

Last fall, prior to the start of the present congressional term, you publicly declared that the impeachment of President Bush would be "off the table". I am writing because I believe this was a serious mistake - and that a broad-reaching impeachment inquiry should be undertaken immediately by the House Judiciary Committee.

Here are a few of the reasons such an inquiry is needed:

• In December 2005, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was operating a massive program of warrantless and partly domestic wiretapping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. The President publicly admitted the truth of the story, and continued the program without change until the beginning of this year. There is substantial evidence that even now, the administration continues to violate Americans' Fourth Amendment rights on a gross and systematic scale under a modified form of this program - as well as under other programs as yet undisclosed.
  

• The President's broad assertion of executive privilege has included openly flouting congressional subpoenas both for documents and for the testimony of top aides. The President has also appended hundreds of Constitutionally baseless "signing statements" to legislation passed during his tenure in office - many of which declare his open intention to disregard or circumvent these laws as he sees fit. Recent executive orders also suggest the administration's willingness to assume total command, by fiat, over state and local government resources in the event of an emergency, however defined.
  

• The President has asserted extra-legal powers over persons he chooses to name "enemy combatants". In at least one instance, he held an American citizen in prison for years without stating a charge, or allowing any opportunity for judicial redress.

• In violation of international treaties, there is ample evidence that the administration is operating an international network of secret prisons where "ghost detainees" are subjected to treatment that can only reasonably be described as torture.

• Documents like the Downing Street Minutes have suggested the existence of a campaign of deliberate public deception in building the case for war with Iraq.
  

The power of impeachment vested in the House of Representatives is much more than a partisan political tool. It may have been used as such a tool by the Republican-controlled congress in 1998. However, impeachment remains the most basic of the checks and balances which form the essential genius of our system of government. For the Speaker of the House of Representatives to take impeachment "off the table" is as irresponsible as it would be for the President to take the veto power "off the table," or for the Supreme Court to announce it will no longer overturn laws as unconstitutional. To decline even to investigate potentially impeachable offenses - while the Executive branch claims arbitrary new powers for itself - is to allow our system of government to crumble away piece by piece.

Today, quite unlike in 1998, I believe it is to shy away from impeachment which is the partisan political act. Such a decision clearly reflects prioritizing the Democrats' safe standing in the 2008 elections over and above a respect for the integrity of our Constitution, or for the rule of law generally. To allow this President's extra-legal acts to go forward unchallenged, sets a precedent inimical to the future of our way of government.

For these many reasons, I urge you to support the opening of an impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee.

Sincerely,
Marc Wilson
San Francisco, CA

cc. Representative John Conyers, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee