Self-Impeachment by Signing Statement

By David Swanson, afterdowningstreet.org

Imagine a president who violates numerous laws that predate his presidency. Imagine that Congress redundantly and repeatedly re-bans that criminal behavior. Imagine a president who repeatedly throws out the new bans with signing statements and continues to violate the same laws. This is the heart of the matter of the Bush “signing statements.” It is an unprecedented use of signing statements. And it is something that too many of us are unaware of and too many others aware of but apparently unwilling to face.

Borrowing heavily from various authors and lawyers, I’ve drafted the nine articles of impeachment of George W. Bush and the six articles of impeachment of Richard B. Cheney that are found at the bottom of this article. I am not a lawyer or a politician, but merely an offended American. My intent here is to select the offenses that most threaten our democratic system of government. I am offended most of all by one of the offenses mentioned below in Article V for the impeachment of Bush and in Article IV for the impeachment of Cheney. This offense is, if anything ever can be, a public declaration of impeachability. And it is by its very nature public, which puts the lie to the idea that further investigation is needed prior to impeachment hearings.

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