Will Attorney General Eric Holder prosecute Bush and Cheney?

February 3, 4:13 PMPolitical Issues ExaminerJudah Freed

Previous Next

11 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Political Issues Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Eric H. Holder was sworn in today as the U.S. Attorney General as his wife, Sharon Malone,
witnessed Vice President Joseph Biden administer the oath of office in a ceremony at the
Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Now that Eric H. Holder has made history by becoming America's first African-American Attorney General, will he now have the courage to investigate and prosecute the former president and vice president of the United States for a broad range of alleged criminal actions?

Possible charges against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney include violating their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution, lying to Congress, lying to the American people, illegally wiretapping American citizens, illegally kidnapping and detaining U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, illegally suspending habeas corpus, illegally authorizing torture, and (according to attorney-author Vincent Bugliosi) illegally conspiring to commit the murders of 4,000 American solders along with hundred of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whether or not the charges are true, the charges deserve investigation.

In essence, my question is this: Is the new U.S. Attorney General willing to establish the precedent and the principle that a president and vice president can be held criminally liable for illegal acts committed while in office?

The question arises because of the upsetting comments by former VP Dick Cheney during an interview with Bob Schieffer, aired Sunday on CBS. Cheney came within a hair's breadth of asserting that whatever he and Bush did while in office must have been legal because they were not impeached.

Logically, that's absurd.

It's like a thief saying his innocent of burglary because he never was arrested, tried and convicted. The thief may not have been found guilty in a court of law (yet), but he's far from innocent.

Let's look at the political "realism" that prevented Bush and Chaney from being impeached — despite calls for impeachment by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

Bush and Cheney were not impeached because key players effectively argued that (1) Americans were unwilling to go through another impeachment trial after Bill Clinton, (2) impeaching a president in a time of war would give "aid and comfort to our enemies," and (3) even if the majority Democrats and a few disgruntled Republicans passed articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives, conviction in the Senate was impossible so long as Republicans held filibuster power there.  

I'm reminded of the fabricated line in the film, Frost/Nixon, in which former President Richard Nixon insisted that if the president does something, because he's the president, it's not illegal.

Well, I'm profoundly uncomfortable with the notion that any president can think he or she is above the law, that she or he will never be held accountable for their actions while in office. That notion is anathema to democracy.

Eric Holder already has repudiated the legal pretext for torture offered by the Bush administration. He has promised a complete review of all the "Bush Doctrine" legal opinions that justified a host of civil liberties violations.

I'm now asking Attorney General Holder to extend his inquiry to it's rational and patriotic conclusion. Because we are a nation of laws, the new Attorney General needs to investigate criminal wrongdoing by the previous administration.

Further, such an investigation and prosecution might well be the best guarantee to us freedom-loving Americans that the new Obama administration will not be tempted to commit similar sins.

We cannot predict the outcome from a trial of Bush and Cheney, but they still must be brought before the bar of justice.

TAKE ACTION:

• Contact the U.S. Dept. of Justice
• Contact the White House
• Contact the Congress
  
  

A REQUEST: Please keep your comments relevant to the topic of the posting above.
And please practice civility in your interactions with others here. Thanks.