Rep. Maurice Hinchey, NY (lunatic) wants to impeach President Bush.
Posted on 10/22/2005 8:50:42 PM PDT by kddid
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are so pleased with reports that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict senior White House officials that they want him to lead an impeachment investigation into whether President Bush lied to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg,” House Judiciary Democrat Jerrold Nadler complains in a message posted to his web site.
In a letter asking the Justice Department to expand the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation, Nadler says: "We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level [and] wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security.”
If there is evidence that Bush or Cheney authorized aides to deliberately mislead lawmakers, Nadler told Congressional Quarterly: "That would be an impeachable offense.'"
The Manhattan Democrat is asking Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum to direct Fitzgerald to probe efforts by the White House to discredit critics of the Iraq war like former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Nadler wants Fitzgerald to determine whether attacks on Wilson were part of a "broader conspiracy knowingly to mislead Congress into authorizing a war."
Even before leaks from Fitzgerald's investigation indicated he planned indictments, Rep. Maurice Hinchey let slip the Democrats' plan to impeach Bush for alleged Iraq war lies.
In quotes picked up by the Ithaca Journal, Hinchey said in August: "My greatest hope is that all of these things will be revealed, they will be revealed in a very direct and legal context, and that in 2006 a Democratic majority will be elected to the House of Representatives, and in February of [2007] impeachment proceedings will begin."
For sure, if Bush "lied", then so did everyone else in Congress, including THEIR BOY KERRY!! Also Prime Ministers around the world "lied". Why did Congress vote the appropriations for Iraq if Bush was lying to them? They are every bit as complicit. What horsesh$t!!!
would say in MOST cases...the Republicans don't have to do anything...the dems are so good at screwing things up for themselves...that it isn't necessary...LOL
'
BUT, if anyone is indicted in the Bush White House, and Nadler and pals continue this vendetta....THEN, we better see a lot of Republicans waving that piece of paper that had the resolution that they voted on re: invading Iraq.
That resolution that blogblogginaway was so kind to post.
Even more shocking is that Bush lied to go into Iraq to prove he was lying all along!!!
Liberal logic knows no bounds.
Agree 100%.
Do not take the demonic insane left too lightly - they smell blood in the water and if they can't find it positively through Fitzgerald they have at least set their base in motion with all the hysteria. This will not stop until the Repubs unite and put a stop to this using the same ground rules the Libs/Demonrats are utilizing for their uprising. Sorry, it is not good enough to just sit back and say "wait until 2006 and see how the voters perceive this". That's my opinion anyway. History will tell
Well, I AM going to bed...I can already tell I will be late (yet again) for the Sunday Morning Talk Show thread...nuts!
Rep. Hinchey's other claim to fame is his crusade to essentially regulate conservative talk radio out of existence via the "Media Ownership Reform Act."
BINGO - Follow the money (if you could).
Wow, not sure what to make of that. Very interesting though, thanks.
September 15, 2005
United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald
Justice Department
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Re: Request To Expand Investigation
Dear United States Attorney Fitzgerald:
We hereby request that you expand your investigation regarding who in the Bush Administration revealed to the press that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was an undercover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). We believe that expansion should include investigating the Administration's false and fraudulent claims in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon, which the Administration offered as one of the key grounds to justify the war against Iraq.
President Bush made two uranium claims, one in his State of the Union Address to Congress and another in a report that he submitted to Congress concerning Iraq, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made three other uranium claims. We request that you investigate whether such claims violated two criminal statutes, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001 and 18 U.S.C., Sec. 371, that prohibit making false and fraudulent statements to Congress and obstructing the functions of Congress.
You have broad discretion to conduct this investigation. The issues we raise are directly related to your current investigation and clearly fall under your authority. The desire to discredit the information provided by Ambassador Wilson regarding the lack of evidence to support the Administration's contention that Iraq sought uranium from Niger is the nearly-universally accepted motive behind the leak of Mrs. Wilson's identity. In order to fully investigate the disclosure of an undercover CIA agent's identity, it is clear that you should fully investigate the reasons for that disclosure.
As we outline below, we believe that members of the Administration may have violated laws governing communications with Congress with respect to assertions about Iraq's nuclear capabilities. Ambassador Wilson's efforts to publicly contradict these assertions seem to be the reason for the uncovering of Mrs. Wilson's identity. It is very likely that you would encounter these assertions during the course of your investigation, and thus their legality should be the subject of your investigation.
The Administration's Claims About Iraq Seeking Uranium Were False And Fraudulent
The uranium claims of the Administration in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon were shown to be false because, after intensive post war investigations, the Iraq Survey Group found no evidence that Iraq had sought the uranium. In the months prior to the war, weapons inspectors of the United Nations (U.N.) conducted extensive inspections in Iraq and found no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program. The Administration has never produced any legitimate actual evidence that Iraq had sought the uranium.
The uranium claims were also fraudulent because although some in the American intelligence community (including the C.I.A.) may have agreed at the time with the British opinion that Iraq had sought uranium, numerous people within the Administration did not tell the whole truth consisting of the contrary views held by the best informed U.S. intelligence officials. C.I.A. Director George Tenet told the White House in October 2002 that C.I.A. analysts believed the reporting on the uranium claim was "weak" and thus the Director told the White House that it should not make the claim. Later that same day, the C.I.A.'s Associate Deputy Director for Intelligence sent a fax to the White House stating that the "evidence [on the uranium claim] is weak." The National Security Council (N.S.C.) believed in January 2003 that the nuclear case against Iraq was weak. Secretary of State Powell was told during meetings at the C.I.A. to vet his U.N. speech of February 5, 2003 that there were doubts about the uranium claim and he therefore kept it out of his speech for that reason. The U.S. government told the U.N. on February 4, 2003 that it could not confirm the uranium reports.
Furthermore, the original draft of the State of the Union Address stated that "we know that [Hussein] has recently sought to buy uranium in Africa," but after the White House consulted with the C.I.A., the White House changed the speech to refer to the British view rather than the American view. The final draft stated that the "British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The parties involved stated that they had no discussions about the credibility of the reporting and the reason for the switch was to identify the source for the uranium claim.
However, in response to the uproar over the op-ed article by Ambassador Wilson, C.I.A. Director Tenet issued a statement in which he admitted that C.I.A. officials who reviewed the draft of the State of the Union Address containing the remarks on the Niger-Iraqi uranium deal "raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with [White House] National Security Council colleagues" and "[s]ome of the language was changed." Tenet stated that "[f]rom what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct - i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."
What this tells us is that although Administration officials, informed by the highest ranking members of our own intelligence operation, knew that the claim of Niger uranium going to Iraq was "weak" and could not be confirmed, they were still determined to use it in the president's address to Congress and fell back on the dubious language of the British report. The Administration clearly sought to cover up their own officials' doubts about Iraq's nuclear capabilities and hide those doubts from the Congress and the U.S. public.
Motive
A motive for making such false and fraudulent uranium claims would have been to thwart Congressional and U.N. efforts to delay the start of the war. Pending at the time that the Administration made its uranium claims in January 2003 was a Congressional resolution, H.Con.Res.2, submitted by five members of Congress on January 7, 2003, which expressed the sense of Congress that it should repeal its earlier war resolution to allow more time for U.N. weapons inspectors to finish their work. On January 24, 2003, a few days prior to the State of the Union Address, 130 members of Congress wrote to the president encouraging him to consider any request by the U.N. for additional time for weapons inspections. On February 5, 2003, 30 members of Congress submitted another resolution, H.J.Res.20, to actually repeal the war resolution.
Had it not been for the uranium claims in the State of the Union Address, which sought to squelch congressional concern over the impetus for the pending war, the number of sponsors for H.J. Res. 20 would have been far greater. The influence of the uranium claims can be seen in the fact that 130 members of Congress signed the letter before the State of the Union Address, but only 30 sponsored H.J. Res. 20, which was introduced after the speech. The Administration's uranium claims thwarted the congressional efforts to delay the start of the war since the Administration used the claims to allege that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program -- despite the failure of the U.N. inspectors to find such a program -- and thus falsely assert that Iraq posed an immediate threat that needed to be nullified without further delay.
Concerning the importance of the uranium claims, the report Iraq On The Record, produced by the Minority Staff of the House Committee on Government Reform, states: "Another significant component of the Administration's nuclear claims was the assertion that Iraq had sought to import uranium from Africa. As one of few new pieces of intelligence, this claim was repeated multiple times by Administration officials as proof that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program." A nuclear-armed Iraq was a key reason, if not the most important reason, used by the Administration to justify the need for a preemptive war against Iraq. Rather than allow the U.N. inspectors to finish their inspections, the results of which might have fueled further congressional efforts and resolutions to stop the war, the Administration commenced the war in March 2003.
The Administration's False And Fraudulent Uranium Claims Arguably Violated Criminal Laws Concerning Communications With Congress.
The criminal statute, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001, prohibits knowingly and willfully making false and fraudulent statements to Congress in documents required by law. The two uranium claims in the State of the Union Address and the report to Congress concerning Iraq were false and fraudulent, and are in documents that the White House submitted to Congress. See House Document 108-1 and House Document 108-23. The law required the president to give such reports. Article II, Section 3 of the constitution requires presidents to give State of the Union Addresses. Section 4 of Public Law 107-243, which is the Congressional resolution authorizing the war against Iraq, requires the president to give reports to Congress relevant to the war resolution and the president submitted said report on Iraq pursuant to that law. Thus 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001 was evidently violated.
The criminal statute, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 371, prohibits conspiring to defraud the United States and is applicable since the Supreme Court in the case of Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U.S. 182, 188 (1924) held that to "conspire to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest." Senior Administration officials arguably violated Section 371 because their uranium claims had the effect of obstructing or interfering with the function of Congress to reconsider its war resolution and to allow further time for U.N. weapons inspections. If the whole truth had been told, Congress may well have withdrawn the war resolution or delayed the start of the war to allow further U.N. weapons inspections, which would have shown what we now know; that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had not sought the uranium. However, it should be noted that Section 371 does not require proof that the conspiracy was successful.
Additionally, the Downing Street memos should be part of the investigation as to whether one of the several ways in which the Administration deliberately "fixed" the facts and intelligence on uranium included its switch of the language in the State of the Union Address to justify the war. These documents provide valuable insight into the mindset of the Administration the summer preceding the Iraq invasion.
Conclusion
The above matters are clearly related to your current investigation. Ambassador Wilson's op-ed article focused on the uranium claim made in the 2003 State of the Union Address and he concluded that "intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." You are investigating whether any laws were violated when Administration officials - in order to discredit Wilson's claim and/or to retaliate against him - leaked to the press the fact that his wife was a CIA agent. As set forth in this letter, Wilson's original charge that the Administration "twisted" the evidence concerns matters that are just as criminal as the Administration's attempts to discredit Wilson and his charge by revealing the identity of Mrs. Wilson as a CIA operative.
Justice Department officials in Washington certainly have the same type of conflict of interest in this matter as they did in the CIA leak case, which resulted in current your assignment. (See 28 CFR, Sec. 45.2(a) prohibiting Department employees from matters in which they have a conflict of interest).
Thank you for your attention to this request. We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Maurice Hinchey (and 40 colleagues mentioned in the release)
Don't be so sure. If "conservatives" make do on their promise to sit on their hands during the '06 election over immigration and Harriet Miers, these impeachment proceedings will happen. Guaranteed.
I am not saying at all that we should just relax, sit back, and wait for the 2006 elections. We must work very hard to win as we have been doing for long time. I guarantee for you that 90% of conservatives and Republicans are united on the vast majority of issues despite this latest Miers issue that will eventually fade away. We are not just united in ideas but we are united to fight and defeat a very dangerous political opponent: The American Left.
And that is exactly why we have to prevent them from gaining power in 2006.
Look for Joe Wilson to be indicted by Fitzgerald.
I couldn't agree with you more. BUT I get the sense reading here that everything is OK, just sit back and watch the show. I sense a real foreboding, not that any crime has been committed by the Bush Admin, but rather that the Lib Demonrats have gained enough momentum to create another Watergate, which they have been dreaming about for years. The MSM is right their willing and able to assist in any way they can. Ya, sit back and watch but it ain't goin' to be pretty.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, NY (lunatic) wants to impeach President Bush.
They just reunited the Republican Party. Meirs or no Meirs, g*****mnit this is absolute war. Rush said this would happen 2 years ago. These bastards just overplayed their hand. Humpty-Dumpty just was put back together again by non other than Humpty Dumpty Nadler. This is incredible.
October 21, 2005
Ulster County
Millionaire likely dead in crash
Ulster County businessman Michael Zinn, a millionaire who did time in federal prison for bypassing federal election laws, was presumed killed Wednesday when his private plane crashed into a home in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Zinn, 52, was believed to be alone behind the controls of the Cessna 337 when it crashed. A teenager inside the house escaped injury, according to the Associated Press.
A body believed to be Zinn's had not yet been identified yesterday. An autopsy has been scheduled.
Zinn, who lived in the Town of Ulster, founded the Besicorp Group, an independent power producer, 30 years ago in a shed. But his rags-to-riches story was marred in 1997 when he pleaded guilty to charges that he bypassed federal election laws while he was finance chairman of Rep. Maurice Hinchey's 1992 election campaign.
He served six months in federal prison. Zinn solicited $27,000 in contributions for Hinchey's campaign, then paid them back with raises and bonuses. He also didn't bill Hinchey for use of Besicorp facilities.
Hinchey was never charged with any crime.
Sometimes you nail it and you did this time. Good points. OTOH, other times you get into muddy squabbles with total strangers and it only serves to dim your own multiple talents.
I had a client this week who volunteered "This is a great day to be a Democrat. There are 20 indictments coming down. Bush is going to be taken out." I had my back to him -- good thing -- so he couldn't see the laughter in my eyes. Then I politely asked him why he was on Medicare at his premature age. Hmmmm. A psychiatric illness. Made total sense.
We are now at war with the democrats. We should take no prisoners. This will undermine the troops in the field ,but the dems do not give a damn. Power-lust. That is all they care about. These bastards are not only unAmerican, they are AntiAmerican.
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