by Tom Giusto
WASHINGTON
July 25, 2008
from
ABCNews Website
Less than six months before President Bush
leaves office, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on whether
he should be impeached.
House Judiciary Committee
Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., left, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas,
the committee's ranking
Republican member, preside over a hearing of the committee
on Capitol Hill in
Washington, Friday, July 25, 2008, to review President Bush's term.
As could be predicted, the hearing was highly
partisan. Democrats said they wanted accountability. Republicans called the
hearing a show trial. People on both sides showed anger and emotion.
The hearing was about executive power and its constitutional limitations.
The Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee
is concerned the Bush administration exceeded its authority in several areas
including the following:
-
improper politicization of the Justice
Dept
-
misuse of presidential signing
statements
-
misuse of surveillance, detention,
interrogation and rendition programs
-
manipulation of intelligence and misuse
of war powers;
-
improper retaliation and obstruction of
justice in the Valerie Plame CIA agent outing case
-
misuse of executive privilege
There were 13 witnesses, including current and
former members of Congress, most of whom accused the Bush administration of
abuse of power. Democrats and Republicans on the Committee spent an hour on
opening statements presenting their opinions either justifying Bush's
actions or accusing him of being the worst president in U.S. history.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, defended
holding such a hearing while the president was on his way out of office.
"And we're not done yet," Conyers said. "We
do not intend to go away until we achieve the accountability that the
Congress is entitled to and the American people deserve."
Ranking Republican member Rep. Lamar Smith,
R-Texas, disagreed.
"This week it seems that we are hosting an
anger management class," he said. "Nothing is going to come out of this
hearing with regard to impeachment of the president."
But Democrat member Rep. Robert Wexler of
Florida was angry at the president.
"Never before in the history of this nation
has an administration so successfully diminished the constitutional
powers of the legislative branch," Wexler said. "It is unacceptable, and
it must not stand."
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., didn't mince
words in her feelings about Bush.
"It is my judgment that President Bush is
the worst president our country has ever suffered," she said. "Making
judgments that have jeopardized our national security, impaired our
economy, and diminished the freedom and civil liberties of the American
people."
Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., ridiculed the
hearing.
"One wonders what we are becoming here. When
I was a kid growing up, we used to watch Friday night fights. Now it
looks like we have the Friday morning show trials," he said.
His colleague, Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.,
agreed.
"It conducts a do-over hearing that amuses
our terrorist friends greatly, and that would make Alice in Wonderland
roll her eyes," he declared.
One of the witnesses, Bruce Fein, a
former Justice Department official, testified that he believes the president
committed impeachable acts.
"The executive branch has vandalized the
constitution every bit as much as the barbarians sacked Rome in 410
A.D.," he told the committee.
Vincent Bugliosi, a former L.A.
prosecutor, agreed.
"Whether Republican or Democrat, all
Americans should be absolutely outraged over what the Bush
administration has done," he said. "How dare they do what they did? How
dare they?"
But George Mason University law professor
Jeremy Rabkin tried to bring the hearing into perspective.
"You should all remind yourselves," he said,
"that the rest of the country is not necessarily in this same bubble in
which people think it is reasonable to describe the president as if he
were Caligula."
Video
Robert Wexler Brings Forth Articles
of Impeachment