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Judiciary Chairman Conyers Issues Report Documenting Bush Abuses, Calling For Further Committee Investigation, Blue-Ribbon Panel, and Criminal Probes
For Immediate Release
January 13, 2009
Contact: Jonathan Godfrey, Lillian German
(Washington, D.C.) -- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. released a nearly-500 page report documenting numerous abuses and excesses of the Bush administration. The report, titled "Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the presidency of George W. Bush," contains 47 separate recommendations designed to restore the traditional checks and balances of our constitutional system. Recommendations include calls for continued committee investigation, a blue ribbon commission to fully investigate administration activities, and independent criminal probes.
"Even after scores of hearings, investigations, and reports, we still do not have answers to some of the most fundamental questions left in the wake of Bushs Imperial Presidency," Conyers said. Pointing to allegations of torture and inhumane treatment, extraordinary rendition, warrantless domestic surveillance, the Valerie Plame Wilson-leak, and the U.S. attorney scandal, Conyers continued, "Investigations are not a matter of payback or political revenge it is our responsibility to examine what has occurred and to set an appropriate baseline of conduct for future administrations."
In addition to the set of recommendations, the report contains a foreword by Chairman Conyers and detailed discussions of: the administrations legal approach to presidential power; the politicization of the Department of Justice; the administrations far-reaching assaults on individual liberty (including torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless domestic surveillance); the misuse of Executive Branch authority; the administrations retribution against its critics; and the administrations excessive secrecy, noncompliance with congressional oversight, and manipulation of pre-Iraq War intelligence.
http://judiciary.house.gov/news/090113_1.html
The full report [487 pages on pdf]:
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th/IPres090113.pdf
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