Impeach Cheney

Bill Moyers Journal this past Friday interviewed John Nicoles, a liberal reporter from The Nation and Bruce Fein, an ultra-conservative civil libertarian. Both passionately advocated for impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Look for this show in repeats or watch it on-line. It's well worth it. Here is an excerpt from the show and Fein's main bullet points outline the charges against Cheney that justify impeachment:

A public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney.

• According to Fein, Cheney has: Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.


• Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone.


• Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.


• Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.
  # Engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance programtargeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.


• Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.


• Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.


• Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq.

(Read Fein's SLATE article)

Bruce Fein is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on Constitutional law. Bruce Fein, photo by Robin Holland Graduating from Harvard Law School in 1972, Fein became the assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice. Shortly after that, Fein became the associate deputy attorney general under former President Ronald Reagan.