My Repesentative does Not Represent Me.
Sat Nov 03, 2007 at 10:23:04 AM PDT
I am just a Blue California Girl in the 3rd District who is frustrated by her Red Representative. I send letters expressing my views, but what is the use? He is unpersuaded, and elections are so far away.
I am sharing the response I got from Congressman Dan Lungren because it illustrates a pattern of rationalization that explains away the crimes of the Bush Administration. Or at least I think they are crimes. With so much obfuscation, facts and opinions seem to be interchangeable.
Perhaps my fellow Kossacks can help me sort through the finer points of my Representative's response letter.
Here is goes:
Thank you for you letter concerning the subject of Presidential impeachment. I always appreciate hearing from my constituents, even when we disagree.
Article II Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides that the President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the U.S., shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. It is in my view not appropriate for this provision to be used for the purpose of constitutionalizing differences over policy.
Okay, so what some call "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors", Mr. Lungren calls policy. The Bush Administration has made a policy of treason. How does calling it policy make it excusable? Am I missing something here?
The question of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors is not relevant to the current debate over Administration policy. For example, the issue of NSA wiretaps does not even come close to the constitutional standard for impeachment.
...the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in U.S. v. Bin Laden has acknowledged, "warrantless foreign intelligence collection has been an established practice of the Executive Branch for decades."... In fact, in both the Carter Administration, and the Clinton Administration warrantless searches were conducted.
These facts appear to have been cherry-picked from the Court decision and are somewhat distanced from the current legal question. Even if Carter and Clinton cracked the door a smidgen, that does not make it legal for Bush to throw it wide open by applying this practice indiscriminantly to the American population.
Former Deputy Attorney General John Schmidt [wrote in] the Chicago Tribune that: "President Bush's post-September 11, 2001 authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents."
Schmidt's opinion that Bush was consistent with prior presidents does not make it legal. Given the 40 pending lawsuits against telecom companies, the legality of this decision has not been settled.
Critics of the decision by President Bush have argued that the President should have used the FISA procedures to obtain a "FISA Court warrant." First of all, it stretches credulity to suggest that the President was required by law to do so.
The court with appellate jurisdiction over the FISA Court issued an opinion in 2002 relating to the issue of Presidential authority to conduct warrantless foreign surveillance searches. The court stated, "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
...There is a sufficient legal and historical basis for the actions of President Bush concerning the surveillance program. The question is not whether one agrees with the policy, but rather, whether it rises to the constitutional standard for impeachment. In my view, it clearly does not.
Hmmm... So now that Mr. Lungren has rejected all FISA-related articles of impeachment. What about the other articles?
There has also been some criticism of the Military Commissions Act concerning limitations on habeas corpus review that would result from its enactment. As mentioned, the Act would divert all judicial review through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
However, it should be noted that the references made by opponents of the legislation to the Great Writ and the right to habeas corpus relief are misplaced. As Professor Erwin Chemerinsky points out in his treatise on Federal Jurisdiction, "The constitutional provision does not create a right to habeas corpus; rather federal statutes, specifically those adopted after the Civil War provided the authority for federal court habeas corpus relief to state courts from releasing individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned." In other words, statutory habeas corpus relief is a statutory creation which can be limited by Congress.
Whoa! Mr. Lungren is questioning the Constitutional basis of Habeas Corpus as a way to deflect its abuse as an impeachable offense! Moreover, Erwin Chemerinsky is pointing out the federal statutes that bolster the right of habeas corpus as relief to wrongly imprisoned persons. Is Mr. Lungren suggesting that Congress enact new laws to limit the right of habeas corpus? I hope not!
Another justification offered by some concerning [impeachment] concerns the war in Iraq. Although we did not find weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. was not alone in concluding that the intelligence pointed toward the conclusion that Iraq possessed such weapons. The British government looked at the same evidence and came to the same conclusion. In fact, the French government did not doubt that Iraq possessed such weapons but felt that the U.N. inspection process should be completed prior to taking any action against the nation of Iraq. The Clinton Administration was of the view that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Accordingly, the decisions made concerning Iraq do not rise to the constitutional level concerning impeachment.
The British came to the same conclusion based on false evidence the U.S. provided to them. So the fact that we conned the British into making a mistake justifies our so-called mistake?
Iraq DID have chemical weapons decades ago. However, no one demonstrated that Iraq had sufficient capability in 2002 to be a threat to our allies. The burden was on the United States to accurately prove that Iraq was an imminent threat before untaking a pre-emptive strike.
In closing, here is what Mr. Lungren had to say:
The actions of the Bush Administration do not come close to the threshold for this to be considered a legitimate issue.
Sincerely, Daniel E. Lungren
Member of Congress
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