I know, I know, tagging that tired suffix "gate" behind any word to describe a White House scandal is shopworn at best. But the eyeopener is to dare emblazon the shingle "TREASON" squarely in front of it.
While the mainstream media's old rusty "gate" swings all the way back to Nixon (who, by the way, was the first President to receive a blanket pardon
- before he was prosecuted
- for obstruction of justice, no less.
By nailing the word TREASON onto it, we will have sufficiently swung it back onto the framework
of the crime currently being prosecuted. And in the bargain we've wedged it tightly shut against the executive pardons we just KNOW are strolling down the line.
But what's in a name, after all? Perhaps no less than blocking yet another round of Bush Administration presidential pardons. By daring to call it treason we may just stop them from compromising future field intelligence by future cadres of profiteering neocons.
But are they covering up for treason?
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It is a matter of record that Poppy Bush pioneered the pre-emptive pardon. The former president and head of the CIA issued pardons for to Defense Secretary Weinberger and his Iran-contra cadre amazingly before they were even prosecuted!
At the very least by our collectively daring to call it treason, we may just help set the stage for a legal reversal of the adverse effect these pardons will surely have.
Look. No matter how the mainstream media downplays the signifigance of the Libby trial (and we all know that they are definitely downplaying it), the prosecution of Scooter Libby is obviously not just about a simple perjury charge. And it never was. What it is about is the obstruction of an ongoing investigation by Cheney's Chief of Staff and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. Mr. Libby is charged with covering for whoever effectively compromised an extremely important defense asset. And purposely lying under oath to do so.
It's been speculated that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has focused on as many as 22 additional members of the White House cabinet over this. Among them are Stephen Hadley (currently the U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs), Karl Rove, Mary Matalin, and probably the greater part of Bush's War Cabinet as well as neocon members of the then-State Department office of John Bolton, who was arms control chief of that department. It's been reported that Stephen Hadley has told friends that he actually expects to be indicted.
This past week strong evidence was introduced in the Treasongate trial (get used to calling it that. Seriously.) indicating that Scooter’s boss, Dick Cheney, was directly involved in blowing the cover of a CIA agent whose specialty was weapons of mass destruction in the mideast. It is important to note that Valerie Wilson Plame reportedly was directly involved in containing Iran's developing nuclear capabilities.
Physical evidence was also introduced in the trial indicating GeeDubya‘s possible involvement in the cover up. Interestingly, it was in the form of Cheney’s own handwriting.
When FBI agent Deborah Bond directly testifiedin open court about Cheney's involvement, the current head of the NSA should have had his security clearance immediately suspended. But that’s about as likely to happen as Mary Cheney marrying the father of Dick’s new grandchild.
You may recall the rich legacy of Ronald Reagan's staff using the CIA to illegally trade arms for the crack cocaine that saturated the Los Angeles neighborhoods. And remember how U.S. citizens held in Iran as hostages got mixed in that very clandestine and very, very illegal arms deal in order to illegally fund a war that Congress rightfully had outlawed from the get-go?
Unfortunately, you and I will likely never know who masterminded the Iran-Contra Arms-for-drugs-n'-hostages deal because Poppy Bush actually preemptively granted Executive Clemency to the cadre of cabinet members that Special prosecutor Walsh had just nailed. But did Bush Sr. have compassion in his mind, or was he motivated by loyalty? It may well have been self-preservation, but now we'll never know because he pardoned them before Walsh could roll any of them over for a plea bargain. Just who would they have turned on had Poppy properly waited until after the trial to grant them pardons?
This wasn't only an abrogation of Judiciary power by the Executive Branch. It is now obvious that a proper determination of the Weinberger Six's fate by our court system should have stood as a very real deterrent to those in GeeDubya's Executive cabinet who today are being investigated for the very real and very dangerous crime of spotlight-the-undercover-agent.
In hindsight, allowing former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and five others to skate away scot-free from their heinous actions did far more harm than anyone could have imagined at the time. Besides making it possible for others higher up in that earlier Administration to avoid any threat of embarrassment or inconvenience that fully prosecuting those indictments might have rendered, it also set a dangerous precedent by virtually guaranteeing that there would be an escape plan for future White House Cabinet members as long as the President could be tied to the crime solely by a threat hanging over him by their testimony.
Is it possible that GeeDubya now faces being blackmailed into granting blanket pardons through the threat of being implicated in a cover-up scheme for any number of crimes and misdemeanors in the event that he decides not to grant executive clemency?
Thus Poppy's preemptive presidential pardon is a precedence that now provides Plausible Deniability - Version 3.0 for GeeDubya's entire Executive Cabinet as well as himself.
Except in the case of treason.
On Feb. 28, 2001, House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held hearings on the constitutional limits of the President with regards to the power of Executive Clemency. During those hearings, one member eloquently expressed his opinion that "Improperly exercised, the pardon is a travesty of justice—an act borne not of mercy, but of tyranny"
Besides pardoning his Secretary of Defense, Bush Sr. also ordered that the records entire Iran Contra hearings records be permanently sealed from public disclosure. Executive Order 12356 is known as the "Weinberger Declaration" classified all of that material as "Top Secret" with the reason given that it could cause "exceptionally grave damage" to our national security. Yet somehow, his pardons weren't determined to pose a treasonous threat. They only protected him from the embarrassment of being implicated and all possibility of prosecution.
It is notable that Poppy proclaimed that the "common denominator of their motivation -- whether their actions were right or wrong -- was patriotism."
Yeah, right. They're Patriots. That's the ticket.
According to Alexander Hamilton the ''power of pardoning in the President has...been only contested in relation to the crime of treason.'' The delegates to the Constitutional Convention believed that treason was a crime leveled at ''the immediate being of the society''. To be treasonous one had to commit an offense that strikes at the heart of America's institutions and values. Article III of the Constitution includes giving aid and comfort to the enemy in its definition of treason. In 1999, George H.W. Bush said "... I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."
His son apparently disagrees with that assessment because in HIS White House it may be that loyalty is valued even above our defense intelligence.
Now in their twisted attempt to shield whomever in the Bush cabinet leaked the name of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame to the press, supporters of the current President have done everything from downplay the importance of the position of that agent to question the intent and the patriotism of those who are outraged by that "outing". Because you see, downplaying her position is extremely important to the upcoming fight over the question of whether the act itself constitutes an act of treason.
It is only in the event of treason that a preemptive pardon can be overturned.
BUT DOES THE SACRIFICING OF INTEL ASSETS RISE TO THE LEVEL OF TREASON?
As Dick Cheney and company apparently prepares to launch a preemptive attack on Iran, most Americans now realize that we were lied into decimating and occupying Iraq with evidence trumped up and sold to us primarily by George Bush and Dick Cheney. We also know that Cheney has direct financial interests tied into not only starting that conflict and prolonging the occupation in Iraq but all across the Mideast as well. Just as he and his cadre of militaryindustrial profiteers mapped out in their Project for the New American Century report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" dated September 2000.
So because Cheney had a strong vested interest in compromising Valerie Plame's position within the CIA, and because FBI agent Bond recently testified under oath that Dick Cheney was probably Scooter Libby's source, then someone should explain how Deadeye Dick can retain his security clearance.
This ain't about politics, folks. And it's not just a cover-up of a smarmy little burglary plotted by egomaniacal punks like G. Gordon Liddy. This time it looks like they've committed full-out treason and it's high time to start calling it exactly what it is.
So that when push-comes-to-shove, the public won't likely stand for the round of clemency you just KNOW is coming for yet another bunch of bloody war profiteers.
It's Treasongate!
We should all insist on calling this particular scandal by its proper name. Very publicly. Alexander Hamilton would likely have been the first to thank you for your true patriotic attitude as well as your resolute actions.