Bush's signing statements cut the heart out of the Founding Fathers' theory of tri-partite government, and are an impeachable abuse of power if there ever was one.
Conyers Puts Abuse of Power and Impeachment Back "On the Table"
By Dave Lindorff
Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have taken impeachment "off the table," but House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) is about to put it back on the menu.
Conyers had been blocked by a timid Pelosi from initiating impeachment hearings immediately into President Bush's crimes against the Constitution, but he's taken the first step anyway, with the anouncement of plans to hold hearings into what is surely the President's gravest abuse of power.
The congressman, a veteran of the Nixon impeachment hearings who recently published a book on Bush's crimes, today announced plans to have his Judiciary Committee hold hearings on Bush's rampant use of so-called "signing statements." These are the documents the president has claimed give him the power, as a commander-in-chief, to ignore laws duly passed by the Congress.
Bush has used this bogus claim to ignore all or parts of some 1200 laws passed by Congress. He has done it willfully, and he has done it deceptively, often adding the signing statement saying he will be ignoring a law after having first hosted a friendly photo-op signing session at which he offer no indication that he had any problem with a measure.
The first Judiciary Committee hearing is set for January 31.
Hopefully this will be followed by more Judiciary hearings into the president's other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Readers should encourage Conyers in his efforts, and urge him to follow through, by sending messages of support to: john.conyers@mail.house.gov
----------------
DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net and at www.counterpunch.org