[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 94 (Monday, June 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5088-H5107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   NOTICE OF INTENTION TO OFFER RESOLUTION RAISING A QUESTION OF THE 
                        PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 2 of rule IX, I rise 
to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of 
the House.
  The form of the resolution is as follows:

       Resolved, That President George W. Bush be impeached for 
     high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles 
     of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
       Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of 
     Representatives of the United States of America in the name 
     of itself and of the people of the United States of America, 
     in maintenance and support of its impeachment against 
     President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the 
     laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following 
     abuses of power.


  ARTICLE I.--CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A 
                    FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, illegally spent public dollars on a secret 
     propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war 
     against Iraq.
       The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long 
     secret domestic propaganda campaign to promote the invasion 
     and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by 
     the White House Press Secretary following its exposure. This 
     program follows

[[Page H5089]]

     the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I, II, IV and 
     VIII.. The mission of this program placed it within the field 
     controlled by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a White 
     House task-force formed in August 2002 to market an invasion 
     of Iraq to the American people. The group included Karl Rove, 
     I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, 
     Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and James R. Wilkinson.
       The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called 
     intelligence of Iraq's nuclear threat that later proved to be 
     false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that 
     Iraq had sought uranium from Niger as well as the claim that 
     the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China 
     were to be used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges 
     to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence Estimate 
     of 2002, the WHIG's white papers provided ``gripping images 
     and stories'' and used ``literary license'' with 
     intelligence. The WHIG's white papers were written at the 
     same time and by the same people as speeches and talking 
     points prepared for President Bush and some of his top 
     officials.
       The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between 
     September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and his top advisers 
     appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly 
     gripping images about the possibility of nuclear attack by 
     Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained 
     in an interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to 
     try to sell the American people on military action against 
     Iraq, ``From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce 
     new products in August.''
       September 7-8, 2002:
       NBC's ``Meet the Press: Vice President Cheney accused 
     Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over 
     the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and 
     biological arms.
       CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding 
     the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear weapon, ``We don't 
     want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.''
       CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was ``six months 
     away from developing a weapon,'' and cited satellite photos 
     of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited 
     as evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
       The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was 
     revealed in an April 20, 2002, New York Times article. The 
     program illegally involved ``covert attempts to mold opinion 
     through the undisclosed use of third parties.'' Secretary of 
     Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military 
     officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, 
     ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and according to the New York Times 
     report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the 
     White House, ``Participants were instructed not to quote 
     their briefers directly or otherwise describe their 
     contacts with the Pentagon.''
       According to the Pentagon's own internal documents, the 
     military analysts were considered ``message force 
     multipliers'' or ``surrogates'' who would deliver 
     administration ``themes and messages'' to millions of 
     Americans ``in the form of their own opinions.'' In fact, 
     they did deliver the themes and the messages but did not 
     reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking 
     points. Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox 
     News military analyst described this as follows: ``It was 
     them saying, `We need to stick our hands up your back and 
     move your mouth for you.'''
       Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since 
     1951 with this language: ``No part of any appropriation 
     contained in this or any other Act shall be used for 
     publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not 
     heretofore authorized by the Congress.''
       A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research 
     Service states that ``publicity or propaganda'' is defined by 
     the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean 
     either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) 
     purely partisan activity, or (3) ``covert propaganda.''
       These concerns about ``covert propaganda'' were also the 
     basis for the GAO's standard for determining when government-
     funded video news releases are illegal:
       ``The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source 
     of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by 
     encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the 
     broadcasting news organization developed the information. The 
     prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be 
     indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. 
     When the television viewing public does not know that the 
     stories they watched on television news programs about the 
     government were in fact prepared by the government, the 
     stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual--the 
     essential fact of attribution is missing.''
       The White House's own Office of Legal Council stated in a 
     memorandum written in 2005 following the controversy over the 
     Armstrong Williams scandal:
       ``Over the years, GAO has interpreted `publicity or 
     propaganda' restrictions to preclude use of appropriated 
     funds for, among other things, so-called 'covert propaganda.' 
     . . . Consistent with that view, the OLC determined in 1988 
     that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for 
     `publicity or propaganda' precluded undisclosed agency 
     funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that 
     `covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use 
     of third parties' would run afoul of restrictions on using 
     appropriated funds for `propaganda.'''
       Asked about the Pentagon's propaganda program at White 
     House press briefing in April 2008, White House Press 
     Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was 
     legal but by suggesting that it ``should'' be: ``Look, I 
     didn't know look, I think that you guys should take a step 
     back and look at this look, DOD has made a decision, they've 
     decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the 
     things that we try to do in the administration is get 
     information out to a variety of people so that everybody else 
     can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I 
     don't think that that should be against the law. And I think 
     that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to 
     people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their 
     opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those 
     military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I 
     think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their 
     analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't 
     mean that we shouldn't talk to people.''
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


    Article II.--FALSELY, SYSTEMATICALLY, AND WITH CRIMINAL INTENT 
CONFLATING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 WITH MISREPRESENTATION OF 
      IRAQ AS AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT AS PART OF A FRAUDULENT 
                 JUSTIFICATION FOR A WAR OF AGGRESSION.

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to 
     deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into 
     believing that there was and is a connection between Iraq and 
     Saddam Hussein on the one hand, and the attacks of September 
     11, 2001 and al Qaeda, on the other hand, so as to falsely 
     justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the 
     nation of Iraq in a manner that is damaging to the national 
     security interests of the United States, as well as to 
     fraudulently obtain and maintain congressional authorization 
     and funding for the use of such military force against Iraq, 
     thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful 
     functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
       The means used to implement this deception were and 
     continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning 
     the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his 
     direction and control, including the Vice President and the 
     Vice President's agents, and second, personally making, or 
     causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-
     placed subordinates, including the President's Chief of 
     Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House 
     spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the 
     National Security Advisor, and their deputies and 
     spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the 
     citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an 
     alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq, on the 
     one hand, and the September 11th attacks and al Qaeda, on the 
     other hand, that were half-true, literally true but 
     misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with 
     reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to 
     state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the 
     truth as follows:
       (A) On or about September 12, 2001, former terrorism 
     advisor Richard Clarke personally informed the President that 
     neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was responsible for the 
     September 11th attacks. On September 18, Clarke submitted to 
     the President's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a 
     memo he had written in response to George W. Bush's specific 
     request that stated: (1) the case for linking Hussein to the 
     September 11th attacks was weak; (2) only anecdotal evidence 
     linked Hussein to al Qaeda; (3) Osama Bin Laden resented the 
     secularism of Saddam Hussein; and (4) there was no confirmed 
     reporting of Saddam Hussein cooperating with Bin Laden on 
     unconventional weapons.
       (B) Ten days after the September 11th attacks the President 
     received a President's Daily Briefing which indicated that 
     the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking 
     Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there 
     was ``scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant 
     collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.''
       (C) In Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02, 
     issued in February 2002, the United States Defense 
     Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility 
     of a Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda conspiracy: ``Saddam's regime is 
     intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary 
     movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide 
     assistance to a group it cannot control.''
       (D) The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate gave a 
     ``Low Confidence'' rating to

[[Page H5090]]

     the notion of whether ``in desperation Saddam would share 
     chemical or biological weapons with Al Qaeda.'' The CIA never 
     informed the President that there was an operational 
     relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; on the 
     contrary, its most ``aggressive'' analysis contained in Iraq 
     and al-Qaeda-Interpreting a ``Murky Relationship'' dated June 
     21, 2002 was that Iraq had had ``sporadic, wary contacts with 
     al Qaeda since the mid-1990s rather than a relationship with 
     al Qaeda that has developed over time.''
       (E) Notwithstanding his knowledge that neither Saddam 
     Hussein nor Iraq was in any way connected to the September 
     11th attacks, the President allowed and authorized those 
     acting under his direction and control, including Vice 
     President Richard B. Cheney and Lewis Libby, who reported 
     directly to both the President and the Vice President, and 
     Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others, to 
     pressure intelligence analysts to alter their assessments and 
     to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the 
     intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable 
     information, to manufacture intelligence or reinterpret raw 
     data in ways that would further the Bush administration's 
     goal of fraudulently establishing a relationship not only 
     between Iraq and al Qaeda, but between Iraq and the attacks 
     of September 11th.
       (F) Further, despite his full awareness that Iraq and 
     Saddam Hussein had no relationship to the September 11th 
     attacks, the President, and those acting under his direction 
     and control have, since at least 2002 and continuing to the 
     present, repeatedly issued public statements deliberately 
     worded to mislead, words calculated in their implication to 
     bring unrelated actors and circumstances into an artificially 
     contrived reality thereby facilitating the systematic 
     deception of Congress and the American people. Thus the 
     public and some members of Congress, came to believe, 
     falsely, that there was a connection between Iraq and the 
     attacks of 9/11. This was accomplished through well-
     publicized statements by the Bush Administration which 
     contrived to continually tie Iraq and 9/11 in the same 
     statements of grave concern without making an explicit 
     charge:
       (1) `` [If] Iraq regimes [sic] continues to defy us, and 
     the world, we will move deliberately, yet decisively, to hold 
     Iraq to account . . . It's a new world we're in. We used to 
     think two oceans could separate us from an enemy. On that 
     tragic day, September the 11th, 2001, we found out that's not 
     the case. We found out this great land of liberty and of 
     freedom and of justice is vulnerable. And therefore we must 
     do everything we can--everything we can--to secure the 
     homeland, to make us safe.'' Speech of President Bush in Iowa 
     on September 16, 2002.
       (2) ``With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining 
     and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to 
     confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime 
     were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the 
     attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater 
     horrors.'' March 6, 2003, Statement of President Bush in 
     National Press Conference.
       (3) ``The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror 
     that began on September the 11, 2001--and still goes on. That 
     terrible morning, 19 evil men--the shock troops of a hateful 
     ideology--gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of 
     their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one 
     terrorist, that September the 11th would be the `beginning of 
     the end of America.' By seeking to turn our cities into 
     killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that 
     they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our 
     retreat from the world. They have failed.'' May 1, 2003, 
     Speech of President Bush on U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
       (4) ``Now we're in a new and unprecedented war against 
     violent Islamic extremists. This is an ideological conflict 
     we face against murderers and killers who try to impose their 
     will. These are the people that attacked us on September 
     the 11th and killed nearly 3,000 people. The stakes are 
     high, and once again, we have had to change our strategic 
     thinking. The major battleground in this war is Iraq.'' 
     June 28, 2007, Speech of President Bush at the Naval War 
     College in Newport, Rhode Island.
       (G) Notwithstanding his knowledge that there was no 
     credible evidence of a working relationship between Saddam 
     Hussein and Al Qaeda and that the intelligence community had 
     specifically assessed that there was no such operational 
     relationship, the President, both personally and through his 
     subordinates and agents, has repeatedly falsely represented, 
     both explicitly and implicitly, and through the misleading 
     use of selectively-chosen facts, to the citizens of the 
     United States and to the Congress that there was and is such 
     an ongoing operational relationship, to wit:
       (1) ``We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level 
     contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who 
     fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior 
     al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad 
     this year, and who has been associated with planning for 
     chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has 
     trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and 
     deadly gases.'' September 28, 2002, Weekly Radio Address of 
     President Bush to the Nation.
       (2) ``[W]e we need to think about Saddam Hussein using al 
     Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints 
     behind.'' October 14, 2002, Remarks by President Bush in 
     Michigan.
       (3) ``We know he's got ties with al Qaeda.'' November 1, 
     2002, Speech of President Bush in New Hampshire.
       (4) ``Evidence from intelligence sources, secret 
     communications, and statements by people now in custody 
     reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, 
     including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without 
     fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to 
     terrorists, or help them develop their own.'' January 28, 
     2003, President Bush's State of the Union Address.
       (5) ``[W]hat I want to bring to your attention today is the 
     potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al 
     Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic 
     terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq 
     today harbors a deadly terrorist network. . .'' February 5, 
     2003, Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the 
     United Nations.
       (6) ``The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror 
     that began on September the 11, 2001--and still goes on. . . 
     . [T]he liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al 
     Qaeda.'' May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on U.S.S. 
     Abraham Lincoln.
       (H) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on 
     Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government 
     Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, 
     which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
       (1) ``Statements and implications by the President and 
     Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a 
     partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with weapons 
     training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.''
       (2) ``The Intelligence Community did not confirm that 
     Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 
     2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.''
       Through his participation and instance in the breathtaking 
     scope of this deception, the President has used the highest 
     office of trust to wage of campaign of deception of such 
     sophistication as to deliberately subvert the national 
     security interests of the United States. His dishonesty set 
     the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States 
     service members; injuries to tens of thousands of soldiers, 
     the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since 
     the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527 
     billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and 
     the ultimate expenditure of three to five trillion dollars 
     for all costs covering the war; the loss of military 
     readiness within the United States Armed Services due to 
     overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; 
     the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and 
     the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of 
     Iraq.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


Article III.--MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO 
     BELIEVE IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO 
                    MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, executed instead a calculated and wide-ranging 
     strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United 
     States into believing that the nation of Iraq possessed 
     weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the use of 
     the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in 
     a manner damaging to our national security interests, 
     thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful 
     functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
       The means used to implement this deception were and 
     continue to be personally making, or causing, authorizing and 
     allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, 
     including the President's Chief of Staff, the White House 
     Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the 
     Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security 
     Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and 
     fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United 
     States and Congress regarding Iraq's alleged possession of 
     biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that were half-true, 
     literally true but misleading, and/or made without a 
     reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their 
     truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to 
     present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:
       (A) Long before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, a 
     wealth of intelligence informed the President and those under 
     his direction and control that Iraq's stockpiles of chemical 
     and biological weapons had been destroyed well before 1998 
     and that there was little, if

[[Page H5091]]

     any, credible intelligence that showed otherwise. As reported 
     in the Washington Post in March of 2003, in 1995, Saddam 
     Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel had informed U.S. and 
     British intelligence officers that ``all weapons--biological, 
     chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.'' In September 
     2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report that 
     concluded: ``A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare 
     agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were 
     destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation 
     Desert Storm and UNSCOM actions . . . [T]here is no reliable 
     information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling 
     chemical weapons or whether Iraq has-or will-establish its 
     chemical warfare agent production facilities.'' 
     Notwithstanding the absence of evidence proving that such 
     stockpiles existed and in direct contradiction to substantial 
     evidence that showed they did not exist, the President and 
     his subordinates and agents made numerous false 
     representations claiming with certainty that Iraq possessed 
     chemical and biological weapons that it was developing to use 
     to attack the United States, to wit:
       (1) ``[T]he notion of a Saddam Hussein with his great oil 
     wealth, with his inventory that he already has of biological 
     and chemical weapons . . . is, I think, a frightening 
     proposition for anybody who thinks about it.'' Statement of 
     Vice President Cheney on CBS's Face the Nation, March 24, 
     2002.
       (2) ``In defiance of the United Nations, Iraq has 
     stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding 
     the facilities used to make more of those weapons.'' Speech 
     of President Bush, October 5, 2002.
       (3) ``All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi 
     Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological 
     agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that 
     could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far 
     beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV 
     launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach 
     hundreds of miles inland.'' Statement by President Bush from 
     the White House, February 6, 2003.
       (B) Despite overwhelming intelligence in the form of 
     statements and reports filed by and on behalf of the CIA, the 
     State Department and the IAEA, among others, which indicated 
     that the claim was untrue, the President, and those under his 
     direction and control, made numerous representations claiming 
     and implying through misleading language that Iraq was 
     attempting to purchase uranium from Niger in order to falsely 
     buttress its argument that Iraq was reconstituting its 
     nuclear weapons program, including:
       (1) ``The regime has the scientists and facilities to build 
     nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials needed to do 
     so.'' Statement of President Bush from White House, October 
     2, 2002.
       (2) ``The [Iraqi] report also failed to deal with issues 
     which have arisen since 1998, including: . . . attempts to 
     acquire uranium and the means to enrich it.'' Letter from 
     President Bush to Vice President Cheney and the Senate, 
     January 20, 2003.
       (3) ``The British Government has learned that Saddam 
     Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium 
     from Africa.'' President Bush Delivers State of the Union 
     Address, January 28, 2003.
       (C) Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of reports by 
     nuclear weapons experts from the Energy, the Defense and 
     State Departments, as well from outside and international 
     agencies which assessed that aluminum tubes the Iraqis were 
     purchasing were not suitable for nuclear centrifuge use and 
     were, on the contrary, identical to ones used in rockets 
     already being manufactured by the Iraqis, the President, and 
     those under his direction and control, persisted in making 
     numerous false and fraudulent representations implying and 
     stating explicitly that the Iraqis were purchasing the tubes 
     for use in a nuclear weapons program, to wit:
       (1) ``We do know that there have been shipments going . . . 
     into Iraq . . . of aluminum tubes that really are only suited 
     to--high-quality aluminum tools [sic] that are only really 
     suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.'' 
     Statement of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice 
     on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2002.
       (2) ``Our intelligence sources tell us that he has 
     attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable 
     for nuclear weapons production.'' President Bush's State of 
     the Union Address, January 28, 2003.
       (3) ``[H]e has made repeated covert attempts to acquire 
     high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different 
     countries, even after inspections resumed. . . . By now, just 
     about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that 
     there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about 
     what these tubes are for. Most US experts think they are 
     intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich 
     uranium.'' Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin 
     Powell to the United Nations, February 5, 2003.
       (D) The President, both personally and acting through those 
     under his direction and control, suppressed material 
     information, selectively declassified information for the 
     improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and 
     presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from 
     Iraq, facilitated the exposure of the identity of a covert 
     CIA operative and thereafter not only failed to investigate 
     the improper leaks of classified information from within his 
     administration, but also failed to cooperate with an 
     investigation into possible federal violations resulting from 
     this activity and, finally, entirely undermined the 
     prosecution by commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing 
     false and insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent 
     Congress and the citizens of the United States from 
     discovering the fraudulent nature of the President's claimed 
     justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
       (E) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on 
     Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government 
     Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, 
     which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
       (1) ``Statements by the President and Vice President prior 
     to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding 
     Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities 
     did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as 
     to whether such production was ongoing.''
       (2) ``The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi 
     government operated underground WMD facilities that were not 
     vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were 
     underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by 
     available intelligence information.''
       (3) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay 
     Rockefeller concluded: ``In making the case for war, the 
     Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when 
     in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-
     existent. As a result, the American people were led to 
     believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than 
     actually existed.''
       The President has subverted the national security interests 
     of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of 
     more than 4000 United States service members and the injury 
     to tens of thousands of US soldiers; the loss of more than 
     1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States 
     invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs 
     which has increased our Federal debt with a long term 
     financial cost of between three and five trillion dollars; 
     the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed 
     Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack 
     of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world 
     affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the 
     invasion of Iraq.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


Article IV.--MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO 
       BELIEVE IRAQ POSED AN IMMINENT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to 
     deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into 
     believing that the nation of Iraq posed an imminent threat to 
     the United States in order to justify the use of the United 
     States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner 
     damaging to our national security interests, thereby 
     interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful functions 
     of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
       The means used to implement this deception were and 
     continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning 
     the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his 
     direction and control, including the Vice President and the 
     Vice President's agents, and second, personally making, or 
     causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-
     placed subordinates, including the President's Chief of 
     Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House 
     spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the 
     National Security Advisor, and their deputies and 
     spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the 
     citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an 
     alleged urgent threat posed by Iraq, statements that were 
     half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without 
     a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their 
     truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to 
     present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:
       (A) Notwithstanding the complete absence of intelligence 
     analysis to support a claim that Iraq posed an imminent or 
     urgent threat to the United States and the intelligence 
     community's assessment that Iraq was in fact not likely to 
     attack the United States unless it was itself attacked, 
     President Bush, both personally and through his agents and 
     subordinates, made, allowed and caused to be made repeated 
     false representations to the citizens and Congress of the 
     United States implying and explicitly stating that such a 
     dire threat existed, including the following:

[[Page H5092]]

       (1) ``States such as these [Iraq, Iran and North Korea] and 
     their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to 
     threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass 
     destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. 
     They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the 
     means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or 
     attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these 
     cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.'' 
     President Bush's State of the Union Address, January 29, 
     2002.
       (2) ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein 
     has weapons of mass destruction. He is amassing them to use 
     against our friends our enemies and against us.'' Speech of 
     Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention, 
     August 26, 2002.
       (3) ``The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one 
     conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering 
     danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. 
     To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of 
     millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And 
     this is a risk we must not take.'' Address of President Bush 
     to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.
       (4) ``[N]o terrorist state poses a greater or more 
     immediate threat to the security of our people than the 
     regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.'' Statement of Former 
     Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress, September 19, 
     2002.
       (5) ``On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat 
     of unique urgency . . . it has developed weapons of mass 
     death.'' Statement of President Bush at White House, October 
     2, 2002.
       (6) ``But the President also believes that this problem has 
     to be dealt with, and if the United Nations won't deal with 
     it, then the United States, with other likeminded nations, 
     may have to deal with it. We would prefer not to go that 
     route, but the danger is so great, with respect to Saddam 
     Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps even 
     terrorists getting hold of such weapons, that it is time for 
     the international community to act, and if it doesn't act, 
     the President is prepared to act with likeminded nations.'' 
     Statement of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 
     interview with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News, October 30, 
     2002.
       (7) ``Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique 
     and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used 
     weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be 
     allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not 
     permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations 
     which love freedom.'' Speech by President Bush to Prague 
     Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002.
       (8) ``But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the 
     security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a 
     madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risk 
     of any action we may be forced to take.'' President Bush 
     Meets with National Economic Council at White House, February 
     25, 2003.
       (B) In furtherance of his fraudulent effort to deceive 
     Congress and the citizens of the United States into believing 
     that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the 
     United States, the President allowed and authorized those 
     acting under his direction and control, including Vice 
     President Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense 
     Donald Rumsfeld, and Lewis Libby, who reported directly to 
     both the President and the Vice President, among others, to 
     pressure intelligence analysts to tailor their assessments 
     and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the 
     intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable 
     information, to manufacture intelligence, or to reinterpret 
     raw data in ways that would support the Bush administration's 
     plan to invade Iraq based on a false claim of urgency despite 
     the lack of justification for such a preemptive action.
       (C) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on 
     Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government 
     Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, 
     which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:
       (1) ``Statements by the President and the Vice President 
     indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons 
     of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against 
     the United States were contradicted by available intelligence 
     information.''
       Thus the President willfully and falsely misrepresented 
     Iraq as an urgent threat requiring immediate action thereby 
     subverting the national security interests of the United 
     States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4,000 
     United States service members; the injuries to tens of 
     thousands of U.S. soldiers; the deaths of more than 1,000,000 
     Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of 
     approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased 
     our Federal debt and the ultimate costs of the war between 
     three trillion and five trillion dollars; the loss of 
     military readiness within the United States Armed Services 
     due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of 
     equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world 
     affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the 
     invasion of Iraq.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


  Article V.--ILLEGALLY MISSPENDING FUNDS TO SECRETLY BEGIN A WAR OF 
                               AGGRESSION

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, illegally misspent funds to begin a war in secret 
     prior to any Congressional authorization.
       The president used over $2 billion in the summer of 2002 to 
     prepare for the invasion of Iraq. First reported in Bob 
     Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, and later confirmed by the 
     Congressional Research Service, Bush took money appropriated 
     by Congress for Afghanistan and other programs and--with no 
     Congressional notification--used it to build airfields in 
     Qatar and to make other preparations for the invasion of 
     Iraq. This constituted a violation of Article I, Section 9 of 
     the U.S. Constitution, as well as a violation of the War 
     Powers Act of 1973.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


  Article VI.--INVADING IRAQ IN VIOLATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF H.J. 
                               Res. 114.

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', exceeded his Constitutional authority 
     to wage war by invading Iraq in 2003 without meeting the 
     requirements of H.J. Res. 114, the ``Authorization for Use of 
     Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002'' to wit:
       (1) H.J. Res. 114 contains several Whereas clauses 
     consistent with statements being made by the White House at 
     the time regarding the threat from Iraq as evidenced by the 
     following:
       (A) H.J. Res. 114 states ``Whereas Iraq both poses a 
     continuing threat to the national security of the United 
     States and international peace and security in the Persian 
     Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach 
     of its international obligations by, among other things, 
     continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and 
     biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear 
     weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist 
     organizations;''; and
       (B) H.J. Res. 114 states ``Whereas members of Al Qaeda, an 
     organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United 
     States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks 
     that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in 
     Iraq;''.
       (2) H.J. Res. 114 states that the President must provide a 
     determination, the truthfulness of which is implied, that 
     military force is necessary in order to use the 
     authorization, as evidenced by the following:
       (A) Section 3 of H.J. Res. 114 states:
       ``(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.--In connection with the 
     exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use 
     force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon 
     thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours 
     after exercising such authority, make available to the 
     Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro 
     tempore of the Senate his determination that--
       (1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or 
     other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately 
     protect the national security of the United States against 
     the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to 
     lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security 
     Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
       (2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent 
     with the United States and other countries continuing to take 
     the necessary actions against international terrorist and 
     terrorist organizations, including those nations, 
     organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed 
     or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 
     2001.''
       (3) On March 18, 2003, President George Bush sent a letter 
     to Congress stating that he had made that determination as 
     evidenced by the following:
       (A) March 18th, 2003 Letter to Congress stating:
       Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use 
     of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 
     107-243), and based on information available to me, including 
     that in the enclosed document, I determine that:
       (1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and 
     other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately 
     protect the national security of the United States against

[[Page H5093]]

     the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to 
     enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council 
     resolutions regarding Iraq; and
       (2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-
     243 is consistent with the United States and other countries 
     continuing to take the necessary actions 
     against international terrorists and terrorist 
     organizations, including those nations, organizations, or 
     persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 
     terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
       (4) President George Bush knew that these statements were 
     false as evidenced by:

      (A) Information provided with Article I, II, III, IV and V.

       (B) A statement by President George Bush in an interview 
     with Tony Blair on January 31st 2003: [WH]
       Reporter: ``One question for you both. Do you believe that 
     there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and 
     the men who attacked on September the 11th?''
       President Bush: ``I can't make that claim''
       (C) An article on February 19th by Terrorism expert Rohan 
     Gunaratna states ``I could find no evidence of links between 
     Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and interviews indicated 
     that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a secular leader, as an 
     infidel.'' [InternationalHeraldTribune]
       (D) According to a February 2nd, 2003 article in the New 
     York Times: [NYT]
       At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some investigators 
     said they were baffled by the Bush administration's 
     insistence on a solid link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's 
     network. ``We've been looking at this hard for more than a 
     year and you know what, we just don't think it's there,'' a 
     government official said.
       (5) Section 3C of HJRes 114 states that ``Nothing in this 
     joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers 
     Resolution.''
       (6) The War Powers Resolution Section 9(d)(1) states:
       (d) Nothing in this joint resolution--
       (1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of 
     the Congress or of the President, or the provision of 
     existing treaties; or
       (7) The United Nations Charter was an existing treaty and, 
     as shown in Article VIII, the invasion of Iraq violated that 
     treaty.
       (8) President George Bush knowingly failed to meet the 
     requirements of HJRes 114 and violated the requirement of the 
     War Powers Resolution and, thereby, invaded Iraq without the 
     authority of Congress.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


        Article VII.--INVADING IRAQ ABSENT A DECLARATION OF WAR

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has launched a war against Iraq absent 
     any congressional declaration of war or equivalent action.
       Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 (the War Powers Clause) 
     makes clear that the United States Congress holds the 
     exclusive power to decide whether or not to send the nation 
     into war. ``The Congress,'' the War Powers Clause states, 
     ``shall have power . . . To declare war . . .''
       The October 2002 congressional resolution on Iraq did not 
     constitute a declaration of war or equivalent action. The 
     resolution stated: ``The President is authorized to use the 
     Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary and 
     appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security of 
     the United States against the continuing threat posed by 
     Iraq; and 2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security 
     Council resolutions regarding Iraq.'' The resolution 
     unlawfully sought to delegate to the President the decision 
     of whether or not to initiate a war against Iraq, based on 
     whether he deemed it ``necessary and appropriate.'' The 
     Constitution does not allow Congress to delegate this 
     exclusive power to the President, nor does it allow the 
     President to seize this power.
       In March 2003, the President launched a war against Iraq 
     without any constitutional authority.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


 Article VIII.--INVADING IRAQ, A SOVEREIGN NATION, IN VIOLATION OF THE 
               UN CHARTER AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', violated United States law by invading 
     the sovereign country of Iraq in violation of the United 
     Nations Charter to wit:
       (1) International Laws ratified by Congress are part of 
     United States Law and must be followed as evidenced by the 
     following:
       (A) Article VI of the United States Constitution, which 
     states ``This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States 
     which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties 
     made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the 
     United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;''
       (2) The UN Charter, which entered into force following 
     ratification by the United States in 1945, requires Security 
     Council approval for the use of force except for self-defense 
     against an armed attack as evidenced by the following:
       (A) Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter 
     states:
       ``3. All Members shall settle their international disputes 
     by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace 
     and security, and justice, are not endangered.
       ``4. All Members shall refrain in their international 
     relations from the threat or use of force against the 
     territorial integrity or political independence of any state, 
     or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the 
     United Nations.''
       (B) Chapter 7, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter 
     states:
       ``51. Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the 
     inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an 
     armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, 
     until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to 
     maintain international peace and security.''
       (3) There was no armed attack upon the United States by 
     Iraq.
       (4) The Security Council did not vote to approve the use of 
     force against Iraq as evidenced by:
       (A) A United Nation Press release which states that the 
     United States had failed to convince the Security Council to 
     approve the use of military force against Iraq. [UN]
       (5) President Bush directed the United States military to 
     invade Iraq on March 19th, 2003 in violation of the UN 
     Charter and, therefore, in violation of United States Law as 
     evidenced by the following:
       (A) A letter from President Bush to Congress dated March 
     21st, 2003 stating ``I directed U.S. Armed Forces, operating 
     with other coalition forces, to commence combat operations on 
     March 19, 2003, against Iraq.'' [WH]
       (B) On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General 
     of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, ``I 
     have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. 
     From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it 
     was illegal.'' [BBC]
       (C) The consequence of the instant and direction of 
     President George W. Bush, in ordering an attack upon Iraq, a 
     sovereign nation is in direct violation of United States 
     Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118, Section 2441, governing 
     the offense of war crimes.
       (6) In the course of invading and occupying Iraq, the 
     President, as Commander in Chief, has taken responsibility 
     for the targeting of civilians, journalists, hospitals, and 
     ambulances, use of antipersonnel weapons including cluster 
     bombs in densely settled urban areas, the use of white 
     phosphorous as a weapon, depleted uranium weapons, and the 
     use of a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs. 
     Under the direction of President George Bush the United 
     States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian 
     populations, including but not limited to blocking roads, 
     cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, 
     planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and 
     plowing over orchards.
       (A) Under the principle of ``command responsibility'', 
     i.e., that a de jure command can be civilian as well as 
     military, and can apply to the policy command of heads of 
     state, said command brings President George Bush within the 
     reach of international criminal law under the Additional 
     Protocol I of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 
     August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of 
     International Armed Conflicts, Article 86(2). The United 
     States is a state signatory to Additional Protocol I, on 
     December 12, 1977.
       (B) Furthermore, Article 85(3) of said Protocol I defines 
     as a grave breach making a civilian population or individual 
     civilians the object of attacks. This offense, together with 
     the principle of command responsibility, places President 
     George Bush's conduct under the reach of the same law and 
     principles described as the basis for war crimes prosecution 
     at Nuremburg, under Article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg 
     Tribunals: including crimes against peace, violations of the 
     laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity, 
     similarly codified in the Rome Statute of the International 
     Criminal Court, Articles 5 through 8.
       (C) The Lancet Report has established massive civilian 
     casualties in Iraq as a result of the United States' invasion 
     and occupation of that country.
       (D) International laws governing wars of aggression are 
     completely prohibited under the legal principle of jus 
     cogens, whether or not a nation has signed or ratified a 
     particular international agreement.

[[Page H5094]]

       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office


  Article IX.--FAILING TO PROVIDE TROOPS WITH BODY ARMOR AND VEHICLE 
                                 ARMOR

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, has been responsible for the deaths of members of 
     the U.S. military and serious injury and trauma to other 
     soldiers, by failing to provide available body armor and 
     vehicle armor.
       While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice, not 
     fought in self-defense, and not launched in accordance with 
     any timetable other than the President's choosing, President 
     Bush sent U.S. troops into danger without providing them with 
     armor. This shortcoming has been known for years, during 
     which time, the President has chosen to allow soldiers and 
     marines to continue to face unnecessary risk to life and limb 
     rather then providing them with armor.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


 Article X.--FALSIFYING ACCOUNTS OF U.S. TROOP DEATHS AND INJURIES FOR 
                           POLITICAL PURPOSES

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, promoted false propaganda stories about members of 
     the United States military, including individuals both dead 
     and injured.
       The White House and the Department of Defense (DOD) in 2004 
     promoted a false account of the death of Specialist Pat 
     Tillman, reporting that he had died in a hostile exchange, 
     delaying release of the information that he had died from 
     friendly fire, shot in the forehead three times in a manner 
     that led investigating doctors to believe he had been shot at 
     close range.
       A 2005 report by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones reported that in 
     the days immediately following Specialist Tillman's death, 
     U.S. Army investigators were aware that Specialist Tillman 
     was killed by friendly fire, shot three times to the head, 
     and that senior Army commanders, including Gen. John Abizaid, 
     knew of this fact within days of the shooting but 
     nevertheless approved the awarding of the Silver Star, Purple 
     Heart, and a posthumous promotion.
       On April 24, 2007, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last soldier to 
     see Specialist Pat Tillman alive, testified before the House 
     Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he was warned 
     by superiors not to divulge information that a fellow soldier 
     killed Specialist Tillman, especially to the Tillman family. 
     The White House refused to provide requested documents to the 
     committee, citing ``executive branch confidentiality 
     interests.''
       The White House and DOD in 2003 promoted a false account of 
     the injury of Jessica Dawn Lynch, reporting that she had been 
     captured in a hostile exchange and had been dramatically 
     rescued. On April 2, 2003, the DOD released a video of the 
     rescue and claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and 
     that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and 
     interrogated. Iraqi doctors and nurses later interviewed, 
     including Dr. Harith Al-Houssona, a doctor in the Nasirya 
     hospital, described Lynch's injuries as ``a broken arm, a 
     broken thigh, and a dislocated ankle.'' According to Al-
     Houssona, there was no sign of gunshot or stab wounds, and 
     Lynch's injuries were consistent with those that would be 
     suffered in a car accident. Al-Houssona's claims were later 
     confirmed in a U.S. Army report leaked on July 10, 2003.
       Lynch denied that she fought or was wounded fighting, 
     telling Diane Sawyer that the Pentagon ``used me to symbolize 
     all this stuff. It's wrong. I don't know why they filmed [my 
     rescue] or why they say these things.  .  .  . I did not 
     shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. 
     And that's the last I remember.'' She reported excellent 
     treatment in Iraq, and that one person in the hospital even 
     sang to her to help her feel at home.
       On April 24, 2007 Lynch testified before the House 
     Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
       ``[Right after my capture], tales of great heroism were 
     being told. My parent's home in Wirt County was under siege 
     of the media all repeating the story of the little girl 
     Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was not 
     true. . . . I am still confused as to why they chose to 
     lie.''
       The White House had heavily promoted the false story of 
     Lynch's rescue, including in a speech by President Bush on 
     April 28, 2003. After the fiction was exposed, the President 
     awarded Lynch the Bronze Star.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


  Article XI.--ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY BASES IN IRAQ

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has violated an act of Congress that 
     he himself signed into law by using public funds to construct 
     permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.
       On January 28, 2008, President George W. Bush signed into 
     law the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 
     2008 (H.R. 4986). Noting that the Act ``authorizes funding 
     for the defense of the United States and its interests 
     abroad, for military construction, and for national security-
     related energy programs,'' the president added the following 
     ``signing statement'':
       ``Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846, 1079, 
     and 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit 
     the President's ability to carry out his constitutional 
     obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully 
     executed, to protect national security, to supervise the 
     executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander 
     in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions 
     in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of 
     the President.''
       Section 1222 clearly prohibits the expenditure of money for 
     the purpose of establishing permanent U.S. military bases in 
     Iraq. The construction of over $1 billion in U.S. military 
     bases in Iraq, including runways for aircraft, continues 
     despite congressional intent, as the Administration intends 
     to force upon the Iraqi government such terms which will 
     assure the bases remain in Iraq.
       Iraqi officials have informed Members of Congress in May 
     2008 of the strong opposition within the Iraqi parliament and 
     throughout Iraq to the agreement that the administration is 
     trying to negotiate with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
     Maliki. The agreement seeks to assure a long-term U.S. 
     presence in Iraq of which military bases are the most 
     obvious, sufficient and necessary construct, thus clearly 
     defying Congressional intent as to the matter and meaning of 
     ``permanency.''
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


    Article XII.--INITIATING A WAR AGAINST IRAQ FOR CONTROL OF THAT 
                       NATION'S NATURAL RESOURCES

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, invaded and occupied a foreign nation for the 
     purpose, among other purposes, of seizing control of that 
     nation's oil.
       The White House and its representatives in Iraq have, since 
     the occupation of Baghdad began, attempted to gain control of 
     Iraqi oil. This effort has included pressuring the new Iraqi 
     government to pass a hydrocarbon law. Within weeks of the 
     fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the U.S. Agency for 
     International Development (USAid) awarded a $240 million 
     contract to Bearing Point, a private U.S. company. A Bearing 
     Point employee, based in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, was 
     hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up the 
     new hydrocarbon law. The draft law places executives of 
     foreign oil companies on a council with the task of approving 
     their own contracts with Iraq; it denies the Iraqi National 
     Oil Company exclusive rights for the exploration, 
     development, production, transportation, and marketing of 
     Iraqi oil, and allows foreign companies to control Iraqi oil 
     fields containing 80 percent of Iraqi

[[Page H5095]]

     oil for up to 35 years through contracts that can remain 
     secret for up to 2 months. The draft law itself contains 
     secret appendices.
       President Bush provided unrelated reasons for the invasion 
     of Iraq to the public and Congress, but those reasons have 
     been established to have been categorically fraudulent, as 
     evidenced by the herein mentioned Articles of Impeachment I, 
     II, III, IV, VI, and VII.
       Parallel to the development of plans for war against Iraq, 
     the U.S. State Department's Future of Iraq project, begun as 
     early as April 2002, involved meetings in Washington and 
     London of 17 working groups, each composed of 10 to 20 
     Iraqi exiles and international experts selected by the 
     State Department. The Oil and Energy working group met 
     four times between December 2002 and April 2003. Ibrahim 
     Bahr al-Uloum, later the Iraqi Oil Minister, was a member 
     of the group, which concluded that Iraq ``should be opened 
     to international oil companies as quickly as possible 
     after the war,'' and that, ``the country should establish 
     a conducive business environment to attract investment of 
     oil and gas resources.'' The same group recommended 
     production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies, 
     the same approach found in the draft hydrocarbon law, and 
     control over Iraq's oil resources remains a prime 
     objective of the Bush Administration.
       Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney, then-
     CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of Petroleum 
     in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the sensitive 
     economic and geopolitical role of Middle East oil resources 
     saying: ``By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional 
     50 million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come 
     from? Governments and national oil companies are obviously 
     controlling about 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains 
     fundamentally a government business. While many regions of 
     the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, 
     with two-thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still 
     where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are 
     anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be 
     slow.''
       The Vice President led the work of a secret energy task 
     force, as described in Article XXXII below, a task force that 
     focused on, among other things, the acquisition of Iraqi oil 
     through developing a controlling private corporate interest 
     in said oil.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


   ARTICLE XIII.--CREATING A SECRET TASK FORCE TO DEVELOP ENERGY AND 
       MILITARY POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO IRAQ AND OTHER COUNTRIES

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the 
     laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting 
     through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, created a secret task force to guide our nation's 
     energy policy and military policy, and undermined Congress' 
     ability to legislate by thwarting attempts to investigate the 
     nature of that policy.
       A Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on the 
     Cheney Energy Task Force, in August 2003, described the 
     creation of this task force as follows:
       ``In a January 29, 2001, memorandum, the President 
     established NEPDG [the National Energy Policy Development 
     Group]--comprised of the Vice President, nine cabinet-level 
     officials, and four other senior administration officials--to 
     gather information, deliberate, and make recommendations to 
     the President by the end of fiscal year 2001. The President 
     called on the Vice President to chair the group, direct its 
     work and, as necessary, establish subordinate working groups 
     to assist NEPDG.''
       The four ``other senior administration officials were the 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the 
     Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for 
     Policy, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, 
     and the Deputy Assistant to the President for 
     Intergovernmental Affairs.
       The GAO report found that: ``In developing the National 
     Energy Policy report, the NEPDG Principals, Support Group, 
     and participating agency officials and staff met with, 
     solicited input from, or received information and advice from 
     nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal, 
     nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry 
     representatives and lobbyists. The extent to which 
     submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, 
     influenced policy deliberations, or were incorporated into 
     the final report cannot be determined based on the limited 
     information made available to GAO. NEPDG met and conducted 
     its work in two distinct phases: the first phase culminated 
     in a March 19, 2001, briefing to the President on challenges 
     relating to energy supply and the resulting economic impact; 
     the second phase ended with the May 16, 2001, presentation of 
     the final report to the President. The Office of the Vice 
     President's (OVP) unwillingness to provide the NEPDG records 
     or other related information precluded GAO from fully 
     achieving its objectives and substantially limited GAO's 
     ability to comprehensively analyze the NEPDG process. 
     associated with that process.
       ``None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG 
     effort provided GAO with a complete accounting of the costs 
     that they incurred during the development of the National 
     Energy Policy report. The two federal entities responsible 
     for funding the NEPDG effort--OVP and the Department of 
     Energy (DOE)--did not provide the comprehensive cost 
     information that GAO requested. OVP provided GAO with 77 
     pages of information, two-thirds of which contained no cost 
     information while the remaining one-third contained some 
     miscellaneous information of little to no usefulness. OVP 
     stated that it would not provide any additional information. 
     DOE, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental 
     Protection Agency (EPA) provided GAO with estimates of 
     certain costs and salaries associated with the NEPDG effort, 
     but these estimates, all calculated in different ways, were 
     not comprehensive.''
       In 2003, the Commerce Department disclosed a partial 
     collection of materials from the NEPDG, including documents, 
     maps, and charts, dated March 2001, of Iraq's, Saudi Arabia's 
     and the United Arab Emirates' oil fields, pipelines, 
     refineries, tanker terminals, and development projects.
       On November 16, 2005, the Washington Post reported on a 
     White House document showing that oil company executives had 
     met with the NEPDG, something that some of those same 
     executives had just that week denied in Congressional 
     testimony. The Bush Administration had not corrected the 
     inaccurate testimony.
       On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post reported the full 
     list of names of those who had met with the NEPDG.
       In 1998 Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told 
     a San Francisco audience, ``Iraq possesses huge reserves of 
     oil and gas, reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.'' 
     According to the GAO report, Chevron provided detailed advice 
     to the NEPDG.
       In March, 2001, the NEPDG recommended that the United 
     States Government support initiatives by Middle Eastern 
     countries ``to open up areas of their energy sectors to 
     foreign investment.'' Following the invasion of Iraq, the 
     United States has pressured the new Iraqi parliament to pass 
     a hydrocarbon law that would do exactly that. The draft law, 
     if passed, would take the majority of Iraq's oil out of the 
     exclusive hands of the Iraqi Government and open it to 
     international oil companies for a generation or more. The 
     Bush administration hired Bearing Point, a U.S. company, to 
     help write the law in 2004. It was submitted to the Iraqi 
     Council of Representatives in May 2007.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


Article XIV.--MISPRISION OF A FELONY, MISUSE AND EXPOSURE OF CLASSIFIED 
 INFORMATION AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN THE MATTER OF VALERIE PLAME 
      WILSON, CLANDESTINE AGENT OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President,
       (1) suppressed material information;
       (2) selectively declassified information for the improper 
     purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and 
     presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from 
     Iraq;
       (3) facilitated the exposure of the identity of Valerie 
     Plame Wilson who had theretofore been employed as a covert 
     CIA operative;
       (4) failed to investigate the improper leaks of classified 
     information from within his administration;
       (5) failed to cooperate with an investigation into possible 
     federal violations resulting from this activity; and
       (6) finally, entirely undermined the prosecution by 
     commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and 
     insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress 
     and the citizens of the United States from discovering the 
     deceitful nature of the President's claimed justifications 
     for the invasion of Iraq.
       In facilitating this exposure of classified information and 
     the subsequent cover-up, in all of these actions and 
     decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner 
     contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of 
     constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of 
     law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of 
     the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by 
     such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting 
     removal from office.


     Article XV.--PROVIDING IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR CRIMINAL 
                          CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation

[[Page H5096]]

     of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office 
     of President of the United States and, to the best of his 
     ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of 
     the United States, and in violation of his constitutional 
     duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution ``to 
     take care that the laws be faithfully executed'', has both 
     personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, 
     together with the Vice President, established policies 
     granting United States government contractors and their 
     employees in Iraq immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. law, and 
     international law.
       Lewis Paul Bremer III, then-Director of Reconstruction and 
     Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, on June 27, 2004, 
     issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17, which 
     granted members of the U.S. military, U.S. mercenaries, and 
     other U.S. contractor employees immunity from Iraqi law.
       The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform 
     Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries 
     and other contractors employed by the United States 
     government in Iraq.
       Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have 
     killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have 
     described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S. 
     contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims 
     of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow 
     contract employees in Iraq. These charges have not been 
     brought to trial, and in several cases the contracting 
     companies and the U.S. State Department have worked together 
     in attempting to cover them up.
       Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United 
     States is party, and which under Article VI of the U.S. 
     Constitution is therefore the supreme law of the United 
     States, it is the responsibility of an occupying force to 
     ensure the protection and human rights of the civilian 
     population. The efforts of President Bush and his 
     subordinates to attempt to establish a lawless zone in Iraq 
     are in violation of the law.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice 
     of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of 
     the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George 
     W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense 
     warranting removal from office.


   Article XVI.--RECKLESS MISSPENDING AND WASTE OF US TAX DOLLARS IN 
                    CONNECTION WITH IRAQ CONTRACTORS

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, recklessly wasted public funds on contracts 
     awarded to close associates, including companies guilty of 
     defrauding the government in the past, contracts awarded 
     without competitive bidding, ``cost-plus'' contracts designed 
     to encourage cost overruns, and contracts not requiring 
     satisfactory completion of the work. These failures have been 
     the rule, not the exception, in the awarding of contracts for 
     work in the United States and abroad over the past seven 
     years. Repeated exposure of fraud and waste has not been met 
     by the president with correction of systemic problems, but 
     rather with retribution against whistleblowers.
       The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 
     reported on Iraq reconstruction contracting:
       ``From the beginning, the Administration adopted a flawed 
     contracting approach in Iraq. Instead of maximizing 
     competition, the Administration opted to award no-bid, cost-
     plus contracts to politically connected contractors. 
     Halliburton's secret $7 billion contract to restore Iraq's 
     oil infrastructure is the prime example. Under this no-bid, 
     cost-plus contract, Halliburton was reimbursed for its costs 
     and then received an additional fee, which was a percentage 
     of its costs. This created an incentive for Halliburton to 
     run up its costs in order to increase its potential profit.
       ``Even after the Administration claimed it was awarding 
     Iraq contracts competitively in early 2004, real price 
     competition was missing. Iraq was divided geographically and 
     by economic sector into a handful of fiefdoms. Individual 
     contractors were then awarded monopoly contracts for all of 
     the work within given fiefdoms. Because these monopoly 
     contracts were awarded before specific projects were 
     identified, there was no actual price competition for more 
     than 2,000 projects.
       ``In the absence of price competition, rigorous government 
     oversight becomes essential for accountability. Yet the 
     Administration turned much of the contract oversight work 
     over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest. 
     Oversight contractors oversaw their business partners and, in 
     some cases, were placed in a position to assist their own 
     construction work under separate monopoly construction 
     contracts. . . .
       ``Under Halliburton's two largest Iraq contracts, Pentagon 
     auditors found $1 billion in `questioned' costs and over $400 
     million in 'unsupported' costs. Former Halliburton employees 
     testified that the company charged $45 for cases of soda, 
     billed $100 to clean 15-pound bags of laundry, and insisted 
     on housing its staff at the five-star Kempinski hotel in 
     Kuwait. Halliburton truck drivers testified that the company 
     `torched' brand new $85,000 trucks rather than perform 
     relatively minor repairs and regular maintenance. Halliburton 
     procurement officials described the company's informal motto 
     in Iraq as 'Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus.' A 
     Halliburton manager was indicted for `major fraud against the 
     United States' for allegedly billing more than $5.5 billion 
     for work that should have cost only $685,000 in exchange for 
     a $1 million kickback from a Kuwaiti subcontractor. . . .
       ``The Air Force found that another U.S. government 
     contractor, Custer Battles, set up shell subcontractors to 
     inflate prices. Those overcharges were passed along to the 
     U.S. government under the company's cost-plus contract to 
     provide security for Baghdad International Airport. In one 
     case, the company allegedly took Iraqi-owned forklifts, re-
     painted them, and leased them to the U.S. government.
       ``Despite the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars, 
     U.S. reconstruction efforts in keys sectors of the Iraqi 
     economy are failing. Over two years after the U.S.-led 
     invasion of Iraq, oil and electricity production has fallen 
     below pre-war levels. The Administration has failed to even 
     measure how many Iraqis lack access to drinkable water.''
       ``Constitution in Crisis,'' a book by Congressman John 
     Conyers, details the Bush Administration's response when 
     contract abuse is made public:
       ``Bunnatine Greenhouse was the chief contracting officer at 
     the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much 
     of the reconstruction work in Iraq. In October 2004, Ms. 
     Greenhouse came forward and revealed that top Pentagon 
     officials showed improper favoritism to Halliburton when 
     awarding military contracts to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg 
     Brown & Root (KBR). Greenhouse stated that when the 
     Pentagon awarded Halliburton a five-year $7 billion 
     contract, it pressured her to withdraw her objections, 
     actions which she claimed were unprecedented in her 
     experience.
       ``On June 27, 2005, Ms. Greenhouse testified before 
     Congress, detailing that the contract award process was 
     compromised by improper influence by political appointees, 
     participation by Halliburton officials in meetings where 
     bidding requirements were discussed, and a lack of 
     competition. She stated that the Halliburton contracts 
     represented ``the most blatant and improper contract abuse I 
     have witnessed during the course of my professional career.'' 
     Days before the hearing, the acting general counsel of the 
     Army Corps of Engineers paid Ms. Greenhouse a visit and 
     reportedly let it be known that it would not be in her best 
     interest to appear voluntarily.
       ``On August 27, 2005, the Army demoted Ms. Greenhouse, 
     removing her from the elite Senior Executive Service and 
     transferring her to a lesser job in the corps' civil works 
     division. As Frank Rich of The New York Times described the 
     situation, '[H]er crime was not obstructing justice but 
     pursuing it by vehemently questioning irregularities in the 
     awarding of some $7 billion worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq 
     to the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root.' The 
     demotion was in apparent retaliation for her speaking out 
     against the abuses, even though she previously had stellar 
     reviews and over 20 years of experience in military 
     procurement.''
       The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 
     reports on domestic contracting:
       ``The Administration's domestic contracting record is no 
     better than its record on Iraq. Waste, fraud, and abuse 
     appear to be the rule rather than the exception. . . .
       ``A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) cost-plus 
     contract with NCS Pearson, Inc., to hire federal airport 
     screeners was plagued by poor management and egregious waste. 
     Pentagon auditors challenged $303 million (over 40%) of the 
     $741 million spent by Pearson under the contract. The 
     auditors detailed numerous concerns with the charges of 
     Pearson and its subcontractors, such as `$20-an-hour 
     temporary workers billed to the government at $48 per hour, 
     subcontractors who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with 
     no supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated long 
     distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that flooded in 
     a rainstorm, [and] $4.4 million in ``no show'' fees for job 
     candidates who did not appear for tests.' A Pearson employee 
     who supervised Pearson's hiring efforts at 43 sites in the 
     U.S. described the contract as `a waste a taxpayer's money.' 
     The CEO of one Pearson subcontractor paid herself $5.4 
     million for nine months work and provided herself with a 
     $270,000 pension. . . .
       ``The Administration is spending $239 million on the 
     Integrated Surveillance and Intelligence System, a no-bid 
     contract to provide thousands of cameras and sensors to 
     monitor activity on the Mexican and Canadian borders. 
     Auditors found that the contractor, International Microwave 
     Corp., billed for work it never did and charged for equipment 
     it never provided, 'creat[ing] a potential for overpayments 
     of almost $13 million.' Moreover, the border monitoring 
     system reportedly does not work. . . .
       ``After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening 
     equipment for the nation's entry points, the Department of 
     Homeland Security is now `moving to replace or alter much of' 
     it because `it is ineffective, unreliable or

[[Page H5097]]

     too expensive to operate.' For example, radiation monitors at 
     ports and borders reportedly could not `differentiate between 
     radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring 
     radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic 
     tile.' . . .
       ``The TSA awarded Boeing a cost-plus contract to install 
     over 1,000 explosive detection systems for airline passenger 
     luggage. After installation, the machines `began to register 
     false alarms' and `[s]creeners were forced to open and hand-
     check bags.' To reduce the number of false alarms, the 
     sensitivity of the machines was lowered, which reduced the 
     effectiveness of the detectors. Despite these serious 
     problems, Boeing received an $82 million profit that the 
     Inspector General determined to be `excessive.' . . .
       ``The FBI spent $170 million on a `Virtual Case File' 
     system that does not operate as required. After three years 
     of work under a cost-plus contract failed to produce a 
     functional system, the FBI scrapped the program and began 
     work on the new `Sentinel' Case File System. . . .
       ``The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General 
     found that taxpayer dollars were being lavished on perks for 
     agency officials. One IG report found that TSA spent over 
     $400,000 on its first leader's executive office suite. 
     Another found that TSA spent $350,000 on a gold-plated gym. . 
     . .
       ``According to news reports, Pentagon auditors . . . 
     examined a contract between the Transportation Security 
     Administration (TSA) and Unisys, a technology and consulting 
     company, for the upgrade of airport computer networks. Among 
     other irregularities, government auditors found that Unisys 
     may have overbilled for as much as 171,000 hours of labor and 
     overtime by charging for employees at up to twice their 
     actual rate of compensation. While the cost ceiling for the 
     contract was set at $1 billion, Unisys has reportedly billed 
     the government $940 million with more than half of the seven-
     year contract remaining and more than half of the TSA-
     monitored airports still lacking upgraded networks.''
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


 Article XVII.--ILLEGAL DETENTION: DETAINING INDEFINITELY AND WITHOUT 
         CHARGE PERSONS BOTH U.S. CITIZENS AND FOREIGN CAPTIVES

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, violated United States and International Law and 
     the US Constitution by illegally detaining indefinitely and 
     without charge persons both US citizens and foreign captives.
       In a statement on Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush declared 
     that in the US fight against Al Qaeda, ``none of the 
     provisions of Geneva apply,'' thus rejecting the Geneva 
     Conventions that protect captives in wars and other 
     conflicts. By that time, the administration was already 
     transporting captives from the war in Afghanistan, both 
     alleged Al Qaeda members and supporters, and also Afghans 
     accused of being fighters in the army of the Taliban 
     government, to US-run prisons in Afghanistan and to the 
     detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The round-up and 
     detention without charge of Muslim non-citizens inside the US 
     began almost immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks 
     on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with some being 
     held as long as nine months. The US, on orders of the 
     president, began capturing and detaining without charge 
     alleged terror suspects in other countries and detaining them 
     abroad and at the US Naval base in Guantanamo.
       Many of these detainees have been subjected to systematic 
     abuse, including beatings, which have been subsequently 
     documented by news reports, photographic evidence, testimony 
     in Congress, lawsuits, and in the case of detainees in the 
     US, by an investigation conducted by the Justice Department's 
     Office of the Inspector General.
       In violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions, the Bush 
     Administration instructed the Department of Justice and the 
     US Department of Defense to refuse to provide the identities 
     or locations of these detainees, despite requests from 
     Congress and from attorneys for the detainees. The president 
     even declared the right to detain US citizens indefinitely, 
     without charge and without providing them access to counsel 
     or the courts, thus depriving them of their constitutional 
     and basic human rights. Several of those US citizens were 
     held in military brigs in solitary confinement for as long as 
     three years before being either released or transferred to 
     civilian detention.
       Detainees in US custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in 
     violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from and 
     denied visits by the International Red Cross organization, 
     while thousands of others in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, 
     ships in foreign off-shore sites, and an unknown number of 
     so-called ``black sites'' around the world have been denied 
     any opportunity to challenge their detentions. The president, 
     acting on his own claimed authority, has declared the 
     hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to be ``enemy 
     combatants'' not subject to US law and not even subject to 
     military law, but nonetheless potentially liable to the death 
     penalty.
       The detention of individuals without due process violates 
     the 5th Amendment. While the Bush administration has been 
     rebuked in several court cases, most recently that of Ali al-
     Marri, it continues to attempt to exceed constitutional 
     limits.
       In all of these actions violating US and International law, 
     President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to 
     his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive 
     of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause 
     of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people 
     of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by 
     such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting 
     removal from office.


ARTICLE XVIII.--TORTURE: SECRETLY AUTHORIZING, AND ENCOURAGING THE USE 
OF TORTURE AGAINST CAPTIVES IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND OTHER PLACES, AS 
                      A MATTER OF OFFICIAL POLICY

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, violated United States and International Law and 
     the US Constitution by secretly authorizing and encouraging 
     the use of torture against captives in Afghanistan, Iraq in 
     connection with the so-called ``war'' on terror.
       In violation of the Constitution, US law, the Geneva 
     Conventions (to which the US is a signatory), and in 
     violation of basic human rights, torture has been authorized 
     by the President and his administration as official policy. 
     Water-boarding, beatings, faked executions, confinement in 
     extreme cold or extreme heat, prolonged enforcement of 
     painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, sexual 
     humiliation, and the defiling of religious articles have been 
     practiced and exposed as routine at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib 
     Prison and other US detention sites in Iraq, and at Bagram 
     Air Base in Afghanistan. The president, besides bearing 
     responsibility for authorizing the use of torture, also as 
     Commander in Chief, bears ultimate responsibility for the 
     failure to halt these practices and to punish those 
     responsible once they were exposed.
       The administration has sought to claim the abuse of 
     captives is not torture, by redefining torture. An August 1, 
     2002 memorandum from the Administration's Office of Legal 
     Counsel Jay S. Bybee addressed to White House Counsel Alberto 
     R. Gonzales concluded that to constitute torture, any pain 
     inflicted must be akin to that accompanying ``serious 
     physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily 
     function, or even death.'' The memorandum went on to state 
     that even should an act constitute torture under that 
     minimal definition, it might still be permissible if 
     applied to ``interrogations undertaken pursuant to the 
     President's Commander-in-Chief powers.'' The memorandum 
     further asserted that ``necessity or self-defense could 
     provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal 
     liability.''
       This effort to redefine torture by calling certain 
     practices simply ``enhanced interrogation techniques'' flies 
     in the face of the Third Geneva Convention Relating to the 
     Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states that ``No 
     physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, 
     may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them 
     information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse 
     to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any 
     unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.''
       Torture is further prohibited by the Universal Declaration 
     of Human Rights, the paramount international human rights 
     statement adopted unanimously by the United Nations General 
     Assembly, including the United States, in 1948. Torture and 
     other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is 
     also prohibited by international treaties ratified by the 
     United States: the International Covenant on Civil and 
     Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture 
     and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 
     (CAT).
       When the Congress, in the Defense Authorization Act of 
     2006, overwhelmingly passed a measure banning torture and 
     sent it to the President's desk for signature, the President, 
     who together with his vice president, had fought hard to 
     block passage of the amendment, signed it, but then quietly 
     appended a signing statement in which he pointedly asserted 
     that as Commander-in-Chief, he was not bound to obey its 
     strictures.
       The administration's encouragement of and failure to 
     prevent torture of American captives in the wars in Iraq and 
     Afghanistan, and in the battle against terrorism, has 
     undermined the rule of law in the US and in the

[[Page H5098]]

     US military, and has seriously damaged both the effort to 
     combat global terrorism, and more broadly, America's image 
     abroad. In his effort to hide torture by US military forces 
     and the CIA, the president has defied Congress and has lied 
     to the American people, repeatedly claiming that the US 
     ``does not torture.''
       In all of these actions and decisions in violation of US 
     and International law, President George W. Bush has acted in 
     a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in 
     Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the 
     prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest 
     injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, 
     President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an 
     impeachable offense warranting removal from office.


  ARTICLE XIX.--RENDITION: KIDNAPPING PEOPLE AND TAKING THEM AGAINST 
   THEIR WILL TO ``BLACK SITES'' LOCATED IN OTHER NATIONS, INCLUDING 
                   NATIONS KNOWN TO PRACTICE TORTURE

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, violated United States and International Law and 
     the US Constitution by kidnapping people and renditioning 
     them to ``black sites'' located in other nations, including 
     nations known to practice torture.
       The president has publicly admitted that since the 9-11 
     attacks in 2001, the US has been kidnapping and transporting 
     against the will of the subject (renditioning) in its so-
     called ``war'' on terror--even people captured by US 
     personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany, Macedonia 
     and Italy--and ferrying them to places like Bagram Airbase in 
     Afghanistan, and to prisons operated in Eastern European 
     countries, African Countries and Middle Eastern countries 
     where security forces are known to practice torture.
       These people are captured and held indefinitely, without 
     any charges being filed, and are held without being 
     identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many are 
     clearly innocent, and several cases, including one in Canada 
     and one in Germany, have demonstrably been shown subsequently 
     to have been in error, because of a similarity of names or 
     because of misinformation provided to US authorities.
       Such a policy is in clear violation of US and International 
     Law, and has placed the United States in the position of a 
     pariah state. The CIA has no law enforcement authority, and 
     cannot legally arrest or detain anyone. The program of 
     ``extraordinary rendition'' authorized by the president is 
     the substantial equivalent of the policies of 
     ``disappearing'' people, practices widely practiced and 
     universally condemned in the military dictatorships of Latin 
     America during the late 20th Century.
       The administration has claimed that prior administrations 
     have practiced extraordinary rendition, but, while this is 
     technically true, earlier renditions were used only to 
     capture people with outstanding arrest warrants or 
     convictions who were outside in order to deliver them to 
     stand trial or serve their sentences in the US. The president 
     has refused to divulge how many people have been subject to 
     extraordinary rendition since September, 2001. It is possible 
     that some have died in captivity. As one US official has 
     stated off the record, regarding the program, Some of those 
     who were renditioned were later delivered to Guantanamo, 
     while others were sent there directly. An example of this is 
     the case of six Algerian Bosnians who, immediately after 
     being cleared by the Supreme Court of Bosnia Herzegovina in 
     January 2002 of allegedly plotting to attack the US and UK 
     embassies, were captured, bound and gagged by US special 
     forces and renditioned to Guantanamo.
       In perhaps the most egregious proven case of rendition, 
     Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was picked up 
     in September 2002 while transiting through New York's JFK 
     airport on his way home to Canada. Immigration and FBI 
     officials detained and interrogated him for nearly two weeks, 
     illegally denying him his rights to access counsel, the 
     Canadian consulate, and the courts. Executive branch 
     officials asked him if he would volunteer to go to Syria, 
     where he hadn't been in 15 years, and Maher refused
       Maher was put on a private jet plane operated by the CIA 
     and sent to Jordan, where he was beaten for 8 hours, and then 
     delivered to Syria, where he was beaten and interrogated for 
     18 hours a day for a couple of weeks. He was whipped on his 
     back and hands with a 2 inch thick electric cable and asked 
     questions similar to those he had been asked in the United 
     States. For over ten months Maher was held in an underground 
     grave-like cell--3 6 7 feet--which was damp and cold, and in 
     which the only light came in through a hole in the ceiling. 
     After a year of this, Maher was released without any charges. 
     He is now back home in Canada with his family. Upon his 
     release, the Syrian Government announced he had no links to 
     Al Qaeda, and the Canadian Government has also said they've 
     found no links to Al Qaeda. The Canadian Government launched 
     a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian 
     Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, to investigate the role 
     of Canadian officials, but the Bush Administration has 
     refused to cooperate with the Inquiry.
       Hundreds of flights of CIA-chartered planes have been 
     documented as having passed through European countries on 
     extraordinary rendition missions like that involving Maher 
     Arar, but the administration refuses to state how many people 
     have been subjects of this illegal program.
       The same U.S. laws prohibiting aiding and abetting torture 
     also prohibit sending someone to a country where there is a 
     substantial likelihood they may be tortured. Article 3 of CAT 
     prohibits forced return where there is a ``substantial 
     likelihood'' that an individual ``may be in danger of'' 
     torture, and has been implemented by federal statute. Article 
     7 of the ICCPR prohibits return to country of origin where 
     individuals may be ``at risk'' of either torture or cruel, 
     inhuman or degrading treatment.
       Under international Human Rights law, transferring a POW to 
     any nation where he or she is likely to be tortured or 
     inhumanely treated violates Article 12 of the Third Geneva 
     Convention, and transferring any civilian who is a protected 
     person under the Fourth Geneva Convention is a grave breach 
     and a criminal act.
       In situations of armed conflict, both international human 
     rights law and humanitarian law apply. A person captured in 
     the zone of military hostilities ``must have some status 
     under international law; he is either a prisoner of war and, 
     as such, covered by the Third Convention, [or] a civilian 
     covered by the Fourth Convention. . . . There is no 
     intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the 
     law.'' Although the state is obligated to repatriate 
     Prisoners of War as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC's 
     commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners 
     should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for 
     fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to 
     general principles of established international law for the 
     protection of human beings Thus, all of the Guantanamo 
     detainees as well as renditioned captives are protected by 
     international human rights protections and humanitarian law.
       By his actions as outlined above, the President has abused 
     his power, broken the law, deceived the American people, and 
     placed American military personnel, and indeed all 
     Americans--especially those who may travel or live abroad--at 
     risk of similar treatment. Furthermore, in the eyes of the 
     rest of the world, the President has made the US, once a 
     model of respect for Human Rights and respect for the rule of 
     law, into a state where international law is neither 
     respected nor upheld.
       In all of these actions and decisions in violation of 
     United States and International law, President George W. Bush 
     has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and 
     Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


                   Article XX.--IMPRISONING CHILDREN

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, authorized or permitted the 
     arrest and detention of at least 2500 children under the age 
     of 18 as ``enemy combatants'' in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at 
     Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in violation of the Fourth 
     Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of ``protected 
     persons'' and the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention 
     on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in 
     Armed Conflict, signed by the US in 2002 . To wit:
       In May 2008, the US government reported to the United 
     Nations that it has been holding upwards of 2,500 children 
     under the age of 18 as ``enemy combatants'' at detention 
     centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay (where 
     there was a special center, Camp Iguana, established just for 
     holding children). The length of these detentions has 
     frequently exceeded a year, and in some cases has stretched 
     to five years. Some of these detainees have reached adulthood 
     in detention and are now not being reported as child 
     detainees because they are no longer children.
       In addition to detaining children as ``enemy combatants,'' 
     it has been widely reported in media reports that the US 
     military in Iraq has, based upon Pentagon rules of 
     engagement, been treating boys as young as 14 years of age as 
     ``potential combatants,'' subject to arrest and even to being 
     killed. In Fallujah, in the days ahead of the November 2004 
     all-out assault, Marines ringing the city were reported to be 
     turning back into the city men and boys ``of combat age'' who 
     were trying to flee the impending scene of battle--an act 
     which in itself is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, 
     which require combatants to permit anyone, combatants as 
     well as civilians, to surrender, and to leave the scene of 
     battle.

[[Page H5099]]

       Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United 
     States has been a signatory since 1949, children under the 
     age of 15 captured in conflicts, even if they have been 
     fighting, are to be considered victims, not prisoners. In 
     2002, the United States signed the Optional Protocol to the 
     Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the 
     Involvement of children in Armed Conflict, which raised this 
     age for this category of ``protected person'' to under 18.
       The continued detention of such children, some as young as 
     10, by the US military is a violation of both convention and 
     protocol, and as such constitutes a war crime for which the 
     president, as commander in chief, bears full responsibility.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


Article XXI.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS 
FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE 
              GOAL OF OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the 
     laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting 
     through his agents and subordinates misled the Congress and 
     the citizens of the United States about a threat of nuclear 
     attack from the nation of Iran.
       The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress and 
     the public on December 4, 2007, which confirmed that the 
     government of the nation of Iran had ceased any efforts to 
     develop nuclear weapons, was completed in 2006. Yet, the 
     president and his aides continued to suggest during 2007 that 
     such a nuclear threat was developing and might already exist. 
     National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time 
     the National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was 
     released that the president had been briefed on its findings 
     ``in the last few months.'' Hadley's statement establishes a 
     timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to deceive 
     Congress and the American people about a nuclear threat that 
     did not exist.
       Hadley has stated that the president ``was basically told: 
     stand down'' and, yet, the president and his aides continued 
     to make false claims about the prospect that Iran was trying 
     to ``build a nuclear weapon'' that could lead to ``World War 
     III.''
       This evidence establishes that the president actively 
     engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his 
     administration to make a false ``case'' for an attack on 
     Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a critical 
     juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and 
     unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation.
       Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released 
     to Congress and the American people, the president stated 
     that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested 
     that he and members of his administration would continue to 
     argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the 
     United States. He did this despite the fact that United 
     States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially 
     stated that this was not the case.
       Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration's attempts 
     to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy 
     toward Iran. On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense 
     Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of 
     overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, 
     Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according 
     to a document quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for 
     Policy Douglas Feith's book, ``War and Decision.''
       General Wesley Clark, reports in his book ``Winning Modern 
     Wars'' being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 
     2001 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and Deputy 
     Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to overthrow 
     included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Clark 
     writes that the list also included Lebanon.
       Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2008 asking Feith 
     at a public event which of the six regimes on the Clark list 
     were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which Feith replied 
     ``All of them.''
       Rumsfeld's aides also drafted a second version of the 
     paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the 
     development of ``campaign plans against terrorism''. The 
     paper called for military commanders to assist other 
     government agencies ``as directed'' to ``encourage 
     populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their 
     supporters to overthrow that domination.''
       In January 2005, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker 
     Magazine that the Bush Administration had been conducting 
     secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since the 
     summer of 2004.
       In June 2005 former United Nations weapons inspector Scott 
     Ritter reported that United States security forces had been 
     sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) into Iranian 
     territory. The MEK has been designated a terrorist 
     organization by the United States, the European Union, 
     Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported that the United 
     States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used the MEK to 
     carry out remote bombings in Iran.
       In April 2006, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine 
     that U.S. combat troops had entered and were operating in 
     Iran, where they were working with minority groups including 
     the Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds.
       Also in April 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw 
     Story that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was working 
     with and training the MEK, or former members of the MEK, 
     sending them to commit acts of violence in southern Iran in 
     areas where recent attacks had left many dead. Raw Story 
     reported that the Pentagon had adopted the policy of 
     supporting MEK shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and 
     in response to the influence of Vice President Richard B. 
     Cheney's office. Raw Story subsequently reported that no 
     Presidential finding, and no Congressional oversight, existed 
     on MEK operations.
       In March 2007, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine 
     that the Bush administration was attempting to stem the 
     growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically 
     the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding 
     violent Sunni organizations, without any Congressional 
     authorization or oversight. Hersh said funds had been given 
     to ``three Sunni jihadist groups . . . connected to al 
     Qaeda'' that ``want to take on Hezbollah.''
       In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that 
     conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders were 
     understood by the Iranian government as a proxy war with the 
     United States and were leading Iran to support its allies 
     against the United States' occupation force in Iraq. Among 
     the groups the U.S. DOD is supporting, according to this 
     report, is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its 
     Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. The United States has provided 
     ``foodstuffs, economic assistance, medical supplies and 
     Russian military equipment, some of it funneled through 
     nonprofit groups.''
       In May 2008, Andrew Cockburn reported on Counter Punch that 
     President Bush, six weeks earlier had signed a secret finding 
     authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime. 
     President Bush's secret directive covers actions across an 
     area stretching from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and purports to 
     sanction actions up to and including the funding of 
     organizations like the MEK and the assassination of public 
     officials.
       All of these actions by the president and his agents and 
     subordinates exhibit a disregard for the truth and a 
     recklessness with regard to national security, nuclear 
     proliferation and the global role of the United States 
     military that is not merely unacceptable but dangerous in a 
     commander-in-chief.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


                   Article XXII--CREATING SECRET LAWS

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, established a body of secret laws through the 
     issuance of legal opinions by the Department of Justice's 
     Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
       The OLC's March 14, 2003, interrogation memorandum (``Yoo 
     Memorandum'') was declassified years after it served as law 
     for the executive branch. On April 29, 2008, House Judiciary 
     Committee Chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee on the 
     Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Chairman 
     Jerrold Nadler wrote in a letter to Attorney General Michael 
     Mukasey:
       ``It appears to us that there was never any legitimate 
     basis for the purely legal analysis contained in this 
     document to be classified in the first place. The Yoo 
     Memorandum does not describe sources and methods of 
     intelligence gathering, or any specific facts regarding any 
     interrogation activities. Instead, it consists almost 
     entirely of the Department's legal views, which are not 
     properly kept secret from Congress and the American people. 
     J. William Leonard, the Director of the National Archive's 
     Office of Information Security Oversight Office, and a top 
     expert in this field concurs, commenting that `[t]he document 
     in question is purely a legal analysis' that contains 
     `nothing which would justify classification.' In addition, 
     the Yoo Memorandum suggests an extraordinary breadth and 
     aggressiveness of OLC's secret legal opinion-making. Much 
     attention has rightly been given to the statement in footnote 
     10 in the March 14, 2003, memorandum that, in an October 23, 
     2001, opinion, OLC concluded `that the Fourth Amendment had 
     no application to domestic military operations.' As you know, 
     we have requested a

[[Page H5100]]

     copy of that memorandum on no less than four prior occasions 
     and we continue to demand access to this important document.
       ``In addition to this opinion, however, the Yoo Memorandum 
     references at least 10 other OLC opinions on weighty matters 
     of great interest to the American people that also do not 
     appear to have been released. These appear to cover matters 
     such as the power of Congress to regulate the conduct of 
     military commissions, legal constraints on the `military 
     detention of United States citizens,' legal rules applicable 
     to the boarding and searching foreign ships, the President's 
     authority to render U.S. detainees to the custody of foreign 
     governments, and the President's authority to breach or 
     suspend U.S. treaty obligations. Furthermore, it has been 
     more than five years since the Yoo Memorandum was 
     authored, raising the question how many other such 
     memoranda and letters have been secretly authored and 
     utilized by the Administration.
       ``Indeed, a recent court filing by the Department in FOIA 
     litigation involving the Central Intelligence Agency 
     identifies 8 additional secret OLC opinions, dating from 
     August 6, 2004, to February 18, 2007. Given that these 
     reflect only OLC memoranda identified in the files of the 
     CIA, and based on the sampling procedures under which that 
     listing was generated, it appears that these represent only a 
     small portion of the secret OLC memoranda generated during 
     this time, with the true number almost certainly much 
     higher.''
       Senator Russ Feingold, in a statement during an April 30, 
     2008, senate hearing stated:
       ``It is a basic tenet of democracy that the people have a 
     right to know the law. In keeping with this principle, the 
     laws passed by Congress and the case law of our courts have 
     historically been matters of public record. And when it 
     became apparent in the middle of the 20th century that 
     federal agencies were increasingly creating a body of non-
     public administrative law, Congress passed several statutes 
     requiring this law to be made public, for the express purpose 
     of preventing a regime of `secret law.' That purpose today is 
     being thwarted. Congressional enactments and agency 
     regulations are for the most part still public. But the law 
     that applies in this country is determined not only by 
     statutes and regulations, but also by the controlling 
     interpretations of courts and, in some cases, the executive 
     branch. More and more, this body of executive and judicial 
     law is being kept secret from the public, and too often from 
     Congress as well. . . .
       ``A legal interpretation by the Justice Department's Office 
     of Legal Counsel . . . binds the entire executive branch, 
     just like a regulation or the ruling of a court. In the words 
     of former OLC head Jack Goldsmith, `These executive branch 
     precedents are ``law'' for the executive branch.' The Yoo 
     memorandum was, for a nine-month period in 2003 until it was 
     withdrawn by Mr. Goldsmith, the law that this Administration 
     followed when it came to matters of torture. And of course, 
     that law was essentially a declaration that few if any laws 
     applied . . .
       ``Another body of secret law is the controlling 
     interpretations of the Fo reign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
     that are issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
     Court. FISA, of course, is the law that governs the 
     government's ability in intelligence investigations to 
     conduct wiretaps and search the homes of people in the United 
     States. Under that statute, the FISA Court is directed to 
     evaluate wiretap and search warrant applications and decide 
     whether the standard for issuing a warrant has been met--a 
     largely factual evaluation that is properly done behind 
     closed doors. But with the evolution of technology and with 
     this Administration's efforts to get the Court's blessing for 
     its illegal wiretapping activities, we now know that the 
     Court's role is broader, and that it is very much engaged in 
     substantive interpretations of the governing statute. These 
     interpretations are as much a part of this country's 
     surveillance law as the statute itself. Without access to 
     them, it is impossible for Congress or the public to have an 
     informed debate on matters that deeply affect the privacy and 
     civil liberties of all Americans . . .
       ``The Administration's shroud of secrecy extends to agency 
     rules and executive pronouncements, such as Executive Orders, 
     that carry the force of law. Through the diligent efforts of 
     my colleague Senator Whitehouse, we have learned that OLC has 
     taken the position that a President can `waive' or `modify' a 
     published Executive Order without any notice to the public or 
     Congress simply by not following it.''
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as 
     President, and subversive of constitutional government, to 
     the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the 
     manifest injury of the people of the United States. 
     Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is 
     guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


          Article XXIII--VIOLATION OF THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, repeatedly and illegally 
     established programs to appropriate the power of the military 
     for use in law enforcement. Specifically, he has contravened 
     U.S.C. Title 18, Section 1385, originally enacted in 1878, 
     subsequently amended as ``Use of Army and Air Force as Posse 
     Comitatus'' and commonly known as the Posse Comitatus Act.
       The Act states:
       ``Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances 
     expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, 
     willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a 
     posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be 
     fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, 
     or both.''
       The Posse Comitatus Act is designed to prevent the military 
     from becoming a national police force.
       The Declaration of Independence states as a specific 
     grievance against the British that the King had ``kept among 
     us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of 
     our legislatures,'' had ``affected to render the Military 
     independent of and superior to the civil power,'' and had 
     ``quarter[ed] large bodies of armed troops among us . . . 
     protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any 
     murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these 
     States''
       Despite the Posse Comitatus Act's intent, and in 
     contravention of the law, President Bush:
       (a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes 
     on U.S. border patrol;
       (b) has established a program to use military personnel for 
     surveillance and information on criminal activities;
       (c) is using military espionage equipment to collect 
     intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians 
     within the United States; and
       (d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance 
     agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
       In June 2006, President Bush ordered National Guard troops 
     deployed to the border shared by Mexico with Arizona, Texas, 
     and California. This deployment, which by 2007 reached a 
     maximum of 6,000 troops, had orders to ``conduct surveillance 
     and operate detection equipment, work with border entry 
     identification teams, analyze information, assist with 
     communications and give administrative support to the Border 
     Patrol'' and concerned ``. . . providing intelligence, 
     inspecting cargo, and conducting surveillance.''
       The Air Force's ``Eagle Eyes'' program encourages Air Force 
     military staff to gather evidence on American citizens. Eagle 
     Eyes instructs Air Force personnel to engage in surveillance 
     and then advises them to ``alert local authorities,'' asking 
     military staff to surveil and gather evidence on public 
     citizens. This contravenes DoD Directive 5525.5 ``SUBJECT: 
     DoD Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement'' which limits 
     such activities.
       President Bush has implemented a program to use imagery 
     from military satellites for domestic law enforcement through 
     the National Applications Office.
       President Bush has assigned numerous active duty military 
     personnel to civilian institutions such as the CIA and the 
     Department of Homeland Security, both of which have 
     responsibilities for law enforcement and intelligence.
       In addition, on May 9, 2007, President Bush released 
     ``National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51,'' which 
     effectively gives the president unchecked power to control 
     the entire government and to define that government in time 
     of an emergency, as well as the power to determine whether 
     there is an emergency. The document also contains 
     ``classified Continuity Annexes.'' In July 2007 and again in 
     August 2007 Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior member of the House 
     Homeland Security Committee, sought access to the classified 
     annexes. DeFazio and other leaders of the Homeland Security 
     Committee, including Chairman Bennie Thompson, have been 
     denied a review of the Continuity of Government classified 
     annexes.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


  Article XXIV.--SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS, WITHOUT A COURT-ORDERED 
       WARRANT, IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and

[[Page H5101]]

     subordinates, knowingly violated the fourth Amendment to the 
     Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Service Act of 1978 
     (FISA) by authorizing warrantless electronic surveillance of 
     American citizens to wit:
       (1) The President was aware of the FISA Law requiring a 
     court order for any wiretap as evidenced by the following:
       (A) ``Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States 
     government talking about wiretap, it requires--a wiretap 
     requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When 
     we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking 
     about getting a court order before we do so.'' White House 
     Press conference on April 20, 2004. [White House Transcript]
       (B) ``Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's 
     permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to 
     track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must 
     meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're talking 
     about.'' President Bush's speech in Baltimore Maryland on 
     July 20th 2005. [White House Transcript]
       (2) The President repeatedly ordered the NSA to place 
     wiretaps on American citizens without requesting a warrant 
     from FISA as evidenced by the following:
       (A) ``Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush 
     secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop 
     on Americans and others inside the United States to search 
     for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved 
     warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according 
     to government officials.'' New York Times article by James 
     Risen and Eric Lichtblau on December 12, 2005. [NYTimes]
       (B) The President admits to authorizing the program by 
     stating ``I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times 
     since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so 
     for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al 
     Qaeda and related groups. The NSA's activities under this 
     authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice 
     Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's 
     general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress 
     have been briefed more than a dozen times on this 
     authorization and the activities conducted under it.'' Radio 
     Address from the White House on December 17, 2005. [White 
     House Transcript]
       (C) In a December 19th 2005 press conference the President 
     publicly admitted to using a combination of surveillance 
     techniques including some with permission from the FISA 
     courts and some without permission from FISA.
       Reporter: It was, why did you skip the basic safeguards of 
     asking courts for permission for the intercepts?
       The President: . . . We use FISA still--you're referring to 
     the FISA court in your question--of course, we use FISAs. But 
     FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to 
     protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to 
     detect. Now, having suggested this idea, I then, obviously, 
     went to the question, is it legal to do so? I am--I swore to 
     uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this? 
     And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, 
     the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well 
     as the authorization of force by the United States 
     Congress.'' [White House Transcript]
       (D) Mike McConnel, the Director of National Intelligence, 
     in a letter to to Senator Arlen Specter, acknowledged that 
     Bush's Executive Order in 2001 authorized a series of secret 
     surveillance activities and included undisclosed activities 
     beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone 
     calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005. ``NSA Spying Part 
     of Broader Effort'' by Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 8/1/07.
       (3) The President ordered the surveillance to be conducted 
     in a way that would spy upon private communications between 
     American citizens located within the United States borders as 
     evidenced by the following:
       (A) Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, 
     submitted an affidavit in support of the Electronic Frontier 
     Foundation's FF's lawsuit against AT&T. He testified that in 
     2003 he connected a ``splitter'' that sent a copy of Internet 
     traffic and phone calls to a secure room that was operated by 
     the NSA in the San Francisco office of AT&T. He heard from a 
     co-worker that similar rooms were being constructed in other 
     cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San 
     Diego. From ``Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room,'' Wired News, 
     4/7/06 [Wired] [EFF Case]
       (4) The President asserted an inherent authority to conduct 
     electronic surveillance based on the Constitution and the 
     ``Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq'' (AUMF) that 
     was not legally valid as evidenced by the following:
       (A) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing General Alberto 
     Gonzales admitted that the surveillance authorized by the 
     President was not only done without FISA warrants, but that 
     the nature of the surveillance was so far removed from what 
     FISA can approve that FISA could not even be amended to allow 
     it. Gonzales stated ``We have had discussions with Congress 
     in the past--certain members of Congress--as to whether or 
     not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with 
     this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be 
     difficult, if not impossible.''.
       (B) The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution 
     states ``The right of the people to be secure in their 
     persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
     searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants 
     shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or 
     affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
     searched, and the persons or things to be seized.''
       (C) ``The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 
     unambiguously limits warrantless domestic electronic 
     surveillance, even in a congressionally declared war, to the 
     first 15 days of that war; criminalizes any such electronic 
     surveillance not authorized by statute; and expressly 
     establishes FISA and two chapters of the federal criminal 
     code, governing wiretaps for intelligence purposes and for 
     criminal investigation, respectively, as the ``exclusive 
     means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the 
     interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic 
     communications may be conducted.'' 50 U.S.C. 1811, 1809, 18 
     U.S.C. 2511(2)(f).'' Letter from Harvard Law Professor 
     Lawrence Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06.
       (D) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing Attorney 
     General Alberto Gonzales stated ``Our position is, is that 
     the authorization to use force, which was passed by the 
     Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes 
     that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to 
     engage in this kind of signals intelligence.''
       (E) The ``Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq'' 
     does not give any explicit authorization related to 
     electronic surveillance. [HJRes114]
       (F) ``From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that 
     a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly 
     authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here 
     under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the 
     extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of 
     ``electronic surveillance'' within the meaning of FISA or any 
     activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to 
     cover the entire field with these statutes.'' From the 
     ``Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic 
     Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information'' by 
     the Congressional Research Service on January 5, 2006.
       (G) ``The inescapable conclusion is that the AUMF did not 
     implicitly authorize what the FISA expressly prohibited. It 
     follows that the presidential program of surveillance at 
     issue here is a violation of the separation of powers--as 
     grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever 
     having studied.'' Letter from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence 
     Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06.
       (H) On August 17, 2006 Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the 
     United States District Court in Detroit, in ACLU v. NSA, 
     ruled that the ``NSA program to wiretap the international 
     communications of some Americans without a court warrant 
     violated the Constitution. . . . Judge Taylor ruled that the 
     program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a 1978 law 
     that requires warrants from a secret court for intelligence 
     wiretaps involving people in the United States. She rejected 
     the administration's repeated assertions that a 2001 
     Congressional authorization and the president's 
     constitutional authority allowed the program.'' From a New 
     York Times article ``Judge Finds Wiretap Actions Violate the 
     Law'' 8/18/06 and the Memorandum Opinion.
       (I) In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 
     dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs had no standing to 
     sue because, given the secretive nature of the surveillance, 
     they could not state with certainty that they have been 
     wiretapped by the NSA. This ruling did not address the 
     legality of the surveillance so Judge Taylor's decision is 
     the only ruling on that issue. [ACLU Legal Documents]
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


   article xxv.--directing telecommunications companies to create an 
illegal and unconstitutional database of the private telephone numbers 
                    and emails of american citizens

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, violated the Stored 
     Communications Act of 1986 and the Telecommunications Act of 
     1996 by creating of a very large database containing 
     information related to the private telephone calls and emails 
     of American citizens, to wit:
       The President requested that telecommunication companies 
     release customer phone records to the government illegally as 
     evidenced by the following:
       ``The Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA) prohibits the 
     knowing disclosure of customer telephone records to the 
     government unless pursuant to subpoena, warrant or a National 
     Security Letter (or other Administrative subpoena); with the 
     customers lawful consent; or there is a business necessity; 
     or an emergency involving the danger

[[Page H5102]]

     of death or serious physical injury. None of these exceptions 
     apply to the circumstance described in the USA Today story.'' 
     From page 169, ``George W Bush versus the US Constitution.'' 
     Compiled at the direction of Representative John Conyers.
       According to a May 11, 2006 article in USA Today by Lesley 
     Cauley ``The National Security Agency has been secretly 
     collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of 
     Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and 
     BellSouth.'' An unidentified source said `The agency's goal 
     is to create a database of every call ever made within the 
     nation's borders.''
       In early 2001, Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio rejected a request 
     from the NSA to turn over customers records of phone calls, 
     emails and other Internet activity. Nacchio believed that 
     complying with the request would violate the 
     Telecommunications Act of 1996. From National Journal, 
     November 2, 2007.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


   article xxvi.--announcing the intent to violate laws with signing 
                  statements, and violating those laws

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has used signing statements to claim 
     the right to violate acts of Congress even as he signs them 
     into law.
       In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported 
     that in a sample of Bush signing statements the office had 
     studied, for 30 percent of them the Bush administration had 
     already proceeded to violate the laws the statements claimed 
     the right to violate.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


  Article XXVII.--FAILING TO COMPLY WITH CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS AND 
               INSTRUCTING FORMER EMPLOYEES NOT TO COMPLY

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, refused to comply with 
     Congressional subpoenas, and instructed former employees not 
     to comply with subpoenas.
       Subpoenas not complied with include:
       A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for Justice Department 
     papers and Emails, issued April 10, 2007;
       A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena 
     for the testimony of the Secretary of State, issued April 25, 
     2007;
       A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for the testimony of 
     former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and documents, 
     issued June 13, 2007;
       A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and 
     testimony of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, issued 
     June 13, 2007;
       A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and 
     testimony of White House Political Director Sara Taylor, 
     issued June 13, 2007 (Taylor appeared but refused to answer 
     questions);
       A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and 
     testimony of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, 
     issued June 26, 2007;
       A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and 
     testimony of White House Deputy Political Director J. Scott 
     Jennings, issued June 26, 2007 (Jennings appeared but refused 
     to answer questions);
       A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for legal analysis 
     and other documents concerning the NSA warrantless 
     wiretapping program from the White House, Vice President 
     Richard Cheney, The Department of Justice, and the National 
     Security Council. If the documents are not produced, the 
     subpoena requires the testimony of White House chief of staff 
     Josh Bolten, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney chief 
     of staff David Addington, National Security Council executive 
     director V. Philip Lago, issued June 27, 2007;
       A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena 
     for Lt. General Kensinger.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


Article XXVIII.--TAMPERING WITH FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, CORRUPTION OF 
                     THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, conspired to undermine and 
     tamper with the conduct of free and fair elections, and to 
     corrupt the administration of justice by United States 
     Attorneys and other employees of the Department of Justice, 
     through abuse of the appointment power.
       Toward this end, the President and Vice President, both 
     personally and through their agents, did:
       Engage in a program of manufacturing false allegations of 
     voting fraud in targeted jurisdictions where the Democratic 
     Party enjoyed an advantage in electoral performance or 
     otherwise was problematic for the President's Republican 
     Party, in order that public confidence in election results 
     favorable to the Democratic Party be undermined;
       Direct United States Attorneys to launch and announce 
     investigations of certain leaders, candidates and elected 
     officials affiliated with the Democratic Party at times 
     calculated to cause the most political damage and confusion, 
     most often in the weeks immediately preceding an election, in 
     order that public confidence in the suitability for office of 
     Democratic Party leaders, candidates and elected officials be 
     undermined;
       Direct United States Attorneys to terminate or scale back 
     existing investigations of certain Republican Party leaders, 
     candidates and elected officials allied with the George W. 
     Bush administration, and to refuse to pursue new or proposed 
     investigations of certain Republican Party leaders, 
     candidates and elected officials allied with the George W. 
     Bush administration, in order that public confidence in the 
     suitability of such Republican Party leaders, candidates and 
     elected officials be bolstered or restored;
       Threaten to terminate the employment of the following 
     United States Attorneys who refused to comply with such 
     directives and purposes;
       David C. Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the District of New 
     Mexico;
       Kevin V. Ryan as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of 
     California;
       John L. McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of 
     Washington;
       Paul K. Charlton as U.S. Attorney for the District of 
     Arizona;
       Carol C. Lam as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of 
     California;
       Daniel G. Bogden as U.S. Attorney for the District of 
     Nevada;
       Margaret M. Chiara as U.S. Attorney for the Western 
     District of Michigan;
       Todd Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of 
     Missouri;
       Harry E. ``Bud'' Cummins, III as U.S. Attorney for the 
     Eastern District of Arkansas;
       Thomas M. DiBiagio as U.S. Attorney for the District of 
     Maryland, and;
       Kasey Warner as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of 
     West Virginia.
       Further, George W. Bush has both personally and acting 
     through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President conspired to obstruct the lawful Congressional 
     investigation of these dismissals of United States Attorneys 
     and the related scheme to undermine and tamper with the 
     conduct of free and fair elections, and to corrupt the 
     administration of justice.
       Contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of 
     President of the United States and, to the best of his 
     ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of 
     the United States, and in violation of his constitutional 
     duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, 
     George W. Bush has without lawful cause or excuse directed 
     not to appear before the Committee on the Judiciary of the 
     House of Representatives certain witnesses summoned by duly 
     authorized subpoenas issued by that Committee on June 13, 
     2007.
       In refusing to permit the testimony of these witnesses 
     George W. Bush, substituting his judgment as to what 
     testimony was necessary for the inquiry, interposed the 
     powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the 
     House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself 
     functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the 
     checking and balancing power of oversight vested in the House 
     of Representatives.
       Further, the President has both personally and acting 
     through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President directed the United States Attorney for the 
     District of Columbia to decline to prosecute for contempt of 
     Congress the aforementioned witnesses, Joshua B. Bolten and 
     Harriet E. Miers, despite the obligation to do so as 
     established by statute (2 USC Sec. 194) and pursuant to the 
     direction of the United States House of Representatives as 
     embodied in its resolution (H. Res. 982) of February 14, 
     2008.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner

[[Page H5103]]

     contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, 
     and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice 
     of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of 
     the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George 
     W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense 
     warranting removal from office.


   Article XXIX.--CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed,'' has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, has willfully corrupted and 
     manipulated the electoral process of the United States for 
     his personal gain and the personal gain of his co-
     conspirators and allies; has violated the United States 
     Constitution and law by failing to protect the civil rights 
     of African-American voters and others in the 2004 Election, 
     and has impeded the right of the people to vote and have 
     their vote properly and accurately counted, in that:
       A. On November 5, 2002, and prior thereto, James Tobin, 
     while serving as the regional director of the National 
     Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and as the New 
     England Chairman of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., did, at the 
     direction of the White House under the administration of 
     George W. Bush, along with other agents both known and 
     unknown, commit unlawful acts by aiding and abetting a scheme 
     to use computerized hang-up calls to jam phone lines set up 
     by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester 
     firefighters' union on Election Day;
       B. An investigation by the Democratic staff of the House 
     Judiciary Committee into the voting procedures in Ohio during 
     the 2004 election found ``widespread instances of 
     intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting 
     Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, 
     Due Process and the Ohio right to vote;''
       C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees 
     that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment in a 
     federal, state, or local election in stating that: ``No State 
     shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
     privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 
     nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or 
     property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person 
     within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'' 
     However, during and at various times of the year 2004, John 
     Kenneth Blackwell, then serving as the Secretary of State for 
     the State of Ohio and also serving simultaneously as Co-
     Chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush in the 
     State of Ohio, did, at the direction of the White House under 
     the administration of George W. Bush, along with other agents 
     both known and unknown, commit unlawful acts in violation of 
     the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the 
     United States Constitution by failing to protect the voting 
     rights of African-American citizens in Ohio and further, John 
     Kenneth Blackwell did disenfranchise African-American voters 
     under color of law, by
       (i) Willfully denying certain neighborhoods in the cities 
     of Cleveland, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, along with other urban 
     areas in the State of Ohio, an adequate number of electronic 
     voting machines and provisional paper ballots, thereby 
     unlawfully impeding duly registered voters from the act of 
     voting and thus violating the civil rights of an unknown 
     number of United States citizens.
       a. In Franklin County, George W. Bush and his agent, Ohio 
     Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the 
     Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, failed to protect the 
     rights of African-American voters by not properly 
     investigating the withholding of 125 electronic voting 
     machines assigned to the city of Columbus.
       b. Forty-two African-American precincts in Columbus were 
     each missing one voting machine that had been present in the 
     2004 primary.
       c. African-American voters in the city of Columbus were 
     forced to wait three to seven hours to vote in the 2004 
     presidential election.
       (ii) Willfully issuing unclear and conflicting rules 
     regarding the methods and manner of becoming a legally 
     registered voter in the State of Ohio, and willfully issuing 
     unclear and unnecessary edicts regarding the weight of paper 
     registration forms legally acceptable to the State of Ohio, 
     thereby creating confusion for both voters and voting 
     officials and thus impeding the right of an unknown number of 
     United States citizens to register and vote.
       a. Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell directed 
     through Advisory 2004-31 that voter registration forms, which 
     were greatest in urban minority areas, should not be accepted 
     and should be returned unless submitted on 80 bond paper 
     weight. Blackwell's own office was found to be using 60 bond 
     paper weight.
       (iii) Willfully permitted and encouraged election officials 
     in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive 
     partisan purge of registered voter rolls, eventually 
     expunging more than 300,000 voters, many of whom were duly 
     registered voters, and who were thus deprived of their 
     constitutional right to vote;
       a. Between the 2000 and 2004 Ohio presidential elections, 
     24.93% of the voters in the city of Cleveland, a city with a 
     majority of African American citizens, were purged from the 
     voting rolls.
       b. In that same period, the Ohio county of Miami, with 
     census data indicating a 98% Caucasian population, refused to 
     purge any voters from its rolls. Miami County ``merged'' 
     voters from other surrounding counties into its voting rolls 
     and even allowed voters from other states to vote.
       c. In Toledo, Ohio, an urban city with a high African-
     American concentration, 28,000 voters were purged from the 
     voting rolls in August of 2004, just prior to the 
     presidential election. This purge was conducted under the 
     control and direction of George W. Bush's agent, Ohio 
     Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell outside of the 
     regularly established cycle of purging voters in odd-numbered 
     years.
       (iv) Willfully allowing Ohio Secretary of State John 
     Kenneth Blackwell, acting under color of law and as an agent 
     of George W. Bush, to issue a directive that no votes would 
     be counted unless cast in the right precinct, reversing 
     Ohio's long-standing practice of counting votes for president 
     if cast in the right county.
       (v) Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State 
     John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-
     election Campaign, to do nothing to assure the voting rights 
     of 10,000 people in the city of Cleveland when a computer 
     error by the private vendor Diebold Election Systems, Inc. 
     incorrectly disenfranchised 10,000 voters
       (vi) Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State 
     John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-
     election Campaign, to ensure that uncounted and provisional 
     ballots in Ohio's 2004 presidential election would be 
     disproportionately concentrated in urban African-American 
     districts.
       a. In Ohio's Lucas County, which includes Toledo, 3,122 or 
     41.13% of the provisional ballots went uncounted under the 
     direction of George W. Bush's agent, the Secretary of State 
     of Ohio, John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the Committee to 
     Re-Elect Bush/Cheney in Ohio.
       b. In Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, 
     8,559 or 32.82% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.
       c. In Ohio's Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, 
     3,529 or 24.23% of the provisional ballots went uncounted.
       d. Statewide, the provisional ballot rejection rate was 9% 
     as compared to the greater figures in the urban areas.
       D. The Department of Justice, charged with enforcing the 
     Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th Amendment's Equal 
     Protection Clause, and other voting rights laws in the United 
     States of America, under the direction and Administration of 
     George W. Bush did willfully and purposely obstruct and 
     stonewall legitimate criminal investigations into myriad 
     cases of reported electoral fraud and suppression in the 
     state of Ohio. Such activities, carried out by the department 
     on behalf of George W. Bush in counties such as Franklin and 
     Knox by persons such as John K. Tanner and others, were meant 
     to confound and whitewash legitimate legal criminal 
     investigations into the suppression of massive numbers of 
     legally registered voters and the removal of their right to 
     cast a ballot fairly and freely in the state of Ohio, which 
     was crucial to the certified electoral victory of George W. 
     Bush in 2004.
       E. On or about November 1, 2006, members of the United 
     States Department of Justice, under the control and direction 
     of the Administration of George W. Bush, brought indictments 
     for voter registration fraud within days of an election, in 
     order to directly effect the outcome of that election for 
     partisan purposes, and in doing so, thereby violated the 
     Justice Department's own rules against filing election-
     related indictments close to an election;
       F. Emails have been obtained showing that the Republican 
     National Committee and members of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., did, 
     at the direction of the White House under the administration 
     of George W. Bush, engage in voter suppression in five states 
     by a method know as ``vote caging,'' an illegal voter 
     suppression technique;
       G. Agents of George W. Bush, including Mark F. ``Thor'' 
     Hearne, the national general counsel of Bush/Cheney '04, 
     Inc., did, at the behest of George W. Bush, as members of a 
     criminal front group, distribute known false information and 
     propaganda in the hopes of forwarding legislation and other 
     actions that would result in the disenfranchisement of 
     Democratic voters for partisan purposes. The scheme, run 
     under the auspices of an organization known as ``The American 
     Center for Voting Rights'' (ACVR), was funded by agents of 
     George W. Bush in violation of laws governing tax exempt 
     501(c)3 organizations and in violation of federal laws 
     forbidding the distribution of such propaganda by the federal 
     government and agents working on its behalf.
       H. Members of the United States Department of Justice, 
     under the control and direction of the Administration of 
     George W. Bush, did, for partisan reasons, illegally and with 
     malice aforethought block career attorneys and other 
     officials in the Department of Justice from filing three 
     lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating 
     the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities, 
     according to seven former senior United States Justice 
     Department employees.

[[Page H5104]]

       I. Members of the United States Department of Justice, 
     under the control and direction of the Administration of 
     George W. Bush, did illegally and with malice aforethought 
     derail at least two investigations into possible voter 
     discrimination, according to a letter sent to the Senate 
     Rules and Administration Committee and written by former 
     employees of the United States Department of Justice, Voting 
     Rights Section.
       J. Members of the United States Election Assistance 
     Commission (EAC), under the control and direction of the 
     Administration of George W. Bush, have purposefully and 
     willfully misled the public, in violation of several laws, 
     by;
       (i) Withholding from the public and then altering a legally 
     mandated report on the true measure and threat of Voter 
     Fraud, as commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006, 
     prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but withheld from 
     release prior to that election when its information would 
     have been useful in the administration of elections across 
     the country, because the results of the statutorily required 
     and tax-payer funded report did not conform with the illegal, 
     partisan propaganda efforts and politicized agenda of the 
     Bush Administration;
       (ii) Withholding from the public a legally mandated report 
     on the disenfranchising effect of Photo Identification laws 
     at the polling place, shown to disproportionately 
     disenfranchise voters not of George W. Bush's political 
     party. The report was commissioned by the EAC and completed 
     in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but 
     withheld from release prior to that election when its 
     information would have been useful in the administration of 
     elections across the country
       (iii) Withholding from the public a legally mandated report 
     on the effectiveness of Provisional Voting as commissioned by 
     the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-
     term election, but withheld from release prior to that 
     election when its information would have been useful in the 
     administration of elections across the country, and keeping 
     that report unreleased for more than a year until it was 
     revealed by independent media outlets.
       For directly harming the rights and manner of suffrage, for 
     suffering to make them secret and unknowable, for overseeing 
     and participating in the disenfranchisement of legal voters, 
     for instituting debates and doubts about the true nature of 
     elections, all against the will and consent of local voters 
     affected, and forced through threats of litigation by agents 
     and agencies overseen by George W. Bush, the actions of Mr. 
     Bush to do the opposite of securing and guaranteeing the 
     right of the people to alter or abolish their government via 
     the electoral process, being a violation of an inalienable 
     right, and an immediate threat to Liberty.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


ARTICLE XXX.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN AN ATTEMPT 
                          TO DESTROY MEDICARE

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, pursued policies which deliberately drained the 
     fiscal resources of Medicare by forcing it to compete with 
     subsidized private insurance plans which are allowed to 
     arbitrarily select or not select those they will cover; 
     failing to provide reasonable levels of reimbursements to 
     Medicare providers, thereby discouraging providers from 
     participating in the program, and designing a Medicare Part D 
     benefit without cost controls which allowed pharmaceutical 
     companies to gouge the American taxpayers for the price of 
     prescription drugs.
       The President created, manipulated, and disseminated 
     information given to the citizens and Congress of the United 
     States in support of his prescription drug plan for Medicare 
     that enriched drug companies while failing to save 
     beneficiaries sufficient money on their prescription drugs. 
     He misled Congress and the American people into thinking the 
     cost of the benefit was $400 billion. It was widely 
     understood that if the cost exceeded that amount, the bill 
     would not pass due to concerns about fiscal irresponsibility.
       A Medicare Actuary who possessed information regarding the 
     true cost of the plan, $539 billion, was instructed by the 
     Medicare Administrator to deny Congressional requests for it. 
     The Actuary was threatened with sanctions if the information 
     was disclosed to Congress, which, unaware of the information, 
     approved the bill. Despite the fact that official cost 
     estimates far exceeded $400 billion, President Bush offered 
     assurances to Congress that the cost was $400 billion, when 
     his office had information to the contrary. In the House of 
     Representatives, the bill passed by a single vote and the 
     Conference Report passed by only 5 votes. The White House 
     knew the actual cost of the drug benefit was high enough to 
     prevent its passage. Yet the White House concealed the truth 
     and impeded an investigation into its culpability.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


 Article XXXI.--KATRINA: FAILURE TO PLAN FOR THE PREDICTED DISASTER OF 
       HURRICANE KATRINA, FAILURE TO RESPOND TO A CIVIL EMERGENCY

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, failed to take sufficient action 
     to protect life and property prior to and in the face of 
     Hurricane Katrina in 2005, given decades of foreknowledge of 
     the dangers of storms to New Orleans and specific forewarning 
     in the days prior to the storm. The President failed to 
     prepare for predictable and predicted disasters, failed to 
     respond to an immediate need of which he was informed, and 
     has subsequently failed to rebuild the section of our nation 
     that was destroyed.
       Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,282 people, with 2 
     million more displaced. 302,000 housing units were destroyed 
     or damaged by the hurricane, 71% of these were low-income 
     units. More than 500 sewage plants were destroyed, more than 
     170 point-source leakages of gasoline, oil, or natural gas, 
     more than 2000 gas stations submerged, several chemical 
     plants, 8 oil refineries, and a superfund site was submerged. 
     8 million gallons of oil were spilled. Toxic materials seeped 
     into floodwaters and spread through much of the city and 
     surrounding areas.
       The predictable increased strength of hurricanes such as 
     Katrina has been identified by scientists for years, and yet 
     the Bush Administration has denied this science and 
     restricted such information from official reports, 
     publications, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Agency's website. Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, 
     wrote in 2006 that ``hurricane intensity has increased with 
     oceanic surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The 
     physics of hurricane intensity growth . . . has clarified and 
     explained the thermodynamic basis for these observations. 
     [Kerry] Emanuel has tested this relationship and presented 
     convincing evidence.''
       FEMA's 2001 list of the top three most likely and most 
     devastating disasters were a San Francisco earthquake, a 
     terrorist attack on New York, and a Category 4 hurricane 
     hitting New Orleans, with New Orleans being the number one 
     item on that list. FEMA conducted a five-day hurricane 
     simulation exercise in 2004, ``Hurricane Pam,'' mimicking a 
     Katrina-like event. This exercise combined the National 
     Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU 
     Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies, 
     resulting in the development of emergency response plans. The 
     exercise demonstrated, among other things, that thousands of 
     mainly indigent New Orleans residents would be unable to 
     evacuate on their own. They would need substantial government 
     assistance. These plans, however, were not implemented in 
     part due to the President's slashing of funds for protection. 
     In the year before Hurricane Katrina hit, the President 
     continued to cut budgets and deny grants to the Gulf Coast. 
     In June of 2004 the Army Corps of Engineers levee budget for 
     New Orleans was cut, and it was cut again in June of 2005, 
     this time by $71.2 million or a whopping 44% of the budget. 
     As a result, ACE was forced to suspend any repair work on the 
     levees. In 2004 FEMA denied a Louisiana disaster mitigation 
     grant request.
       The President was given multiple warnings that Hurricane 
     Katrina had a high likelihood of causing serious damage to 
     New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. At 10 AM on Sunday 28 August 
     2005, the day before the storm hit, the National Weather 
     Service published an alert titled ``DEVASTATING DAMAGE 
     EXPECTED.'' Printed in all capital letters, the alert stated 
     that ``MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS . . . 
     PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES 
     WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. . . . POWER OUTAGES WILL 
     LAST FOR WEEKS. . . . WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN 
     SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.''
       The Homeland Security Department also briefed the President 
     on the scenario, warning of levee breaches and severe 
     flooding. According to the New York Times, ``a Homeland 
     Security Department report submitted to the White House at 
     1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, `Any 
     storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe 
     flooding and/or levee breaching.' '' These warnings clearly 
     contradict the statements made by President Bush immediately 
     after the storm that such devastation could

[[Page H5105]]

     not have been predicted. On 1 September 2005 the President 
     said ``I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the 
     levees.''
       The President's response to Katrina via FEMA and DHS was 
     criminally delayed, indifferent, and inept. The only FEMA 
     employee posted in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of 
     Hurricane Katrina, Marty Bahamonde, emailed head of FEMA 
     Michael Brown from his Blackberry device on August 31, 2005 
     regarding the conditions. The email was urgent and detailed 
     and indicated that ``The situation is past critical . . . 
     Estimates are many will die within hours.'' Brown's reply was 
     emblematic of the administration's entire response to the 
     catastrophe: ``Thanks for the update. Anything specific I 
     need to do or tweak?'' The Secretary of Homeland Security, 
     Michael Chertoff, did not declare an emergency, did not 
     mobilize the federal resources, and seemed to not even know 
     what was happening on the ground until reporters told him.
       On Friday August 26, 2005, Governor Kathleen Blanco 
     declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana and Governor Haley 
     Barbour of Mississippi followed suit the next day. Also on 
     that Saturday, Governor Blanco asked the President to declare 
     a Federal State of Emergency, and on 28 August 2005, the 
     Sunday before the storm hit, Mayor Nagin declared a State of 
     Emergency in New Orleans. This shows that the local 
     authorities, responding to federal warnings, knew how bad the 
     destruction was going to be and anticipated being 
     overwhelmed. Failure to act under these circumstances 
     demonstrates gross negligence.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional 
     government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice 
     and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
     States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, 
     is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


     ARTICLE XXXII.--MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 
  SYSTEMATICALLY UNDERMINING EFFORTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, ignored the peril to life and property posed by 
     global climate change, manipulated scientific information and 
     mishandled protective policy, constituting nonfeasance and 
     malfeasance in office, abuse of power, dereliction of duty, 
     and deception of Congress and the American people.
       President Bush knew the expected effects of climate change 
     and the role of human activities in driving climate change. 
     This knowledge preceded his first Presidential term.
       1. During his 2000 Presidential campaign, he promised to 
     regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
       2. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
     a global body of hundreds of the world's foremost experts on 
     climate change, concluded that ``most of observed warming 
     over last 50 years (is) likely due to increases in greenhouse 
     gas concentrations due to human activities.'' The Third 
     Assessment Report projected several effects of climate change 
     such as continued ``widespread retreat'' of glaciers, an 
     ``increase threats to human health, particularly in lower 
     income populations, predominantly within tropical/subtropical 
     countries,'' and ``water shortages.''
       3. The grave danger to national security posed by global 
     climate change was recognized by the Pentagon's Defense 
     Advanced Planning Research Projects Agency in October of 
     2003. An agency-commissioned report ``explores how such an 
     abrupt climate change scenario could potentially de-stabilize 
     the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes, 
     battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as: 1) 
     Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural 
     production 2) Decreased availability and quality of fresh 
     water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters, 
     causing more frequent floods and droughts 3) Disrupted access 
     to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess.''
       4. A December 2004 paper in Science reviewed 928 studies 
     published in peer reviewed journals to determine the number 
     providing evidence against the existence of a link between 
     anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and climate change. 
     ``Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus 
     position.''
       5. The November 2007 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate 
     Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report showed that global 
     anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses have increased 
     70% between 1970 and 2004, and anthropogenic emissions are 
     very likely the cause of global climate change. The report 
     concluded that global climate change could cause the 
     extinction of 20 to 30 percent of species in unique 
     ecosystems such as the polar areas and biodiversity hotspots, 
     increase extreme weather events especially in the developing 
     world, and have adverse effects on food production and fresh 
     water availability.
       The President has done little to address this most serious 
     of problems, thus constituting an abuse of power and criminal 
     neglect. He has also actively endeavored to undermine efforts 
     by the federal government, states, and other nations to take 
     action on their own.
       1. In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S. would 
     not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an 
     international effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. The United 
     States is the only industrialized nation that has failed to 
     ratify the accord.
       2. In March of 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to 
     EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson: ``In August 2003, the Bush 
     Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2 emissions 
     from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2 was not a pollutant 
     under the Clean Air Act. In April 2007, the U.S. Supreme 
     Court overruled that determination in Massachusetts v. EPA. 
     The Supreme Court wrote that `If EPA makes a finding of 
     endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to 
     regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new 
     motor vehicles.' The EPA then conducted an extensive 
     investigation involving 60-70 staff who concluded that `CO2 
     emissions endanger both human health and welfare.' These 
     findings were submitted to the White House, after which work 
     on the findings and the required regulations was halted.''
       3. A Memo to Members of the Committee on Oversight and 
     Government Reform on May 19, 2008 stated ``The record before 
     the Committee shows: (1) the career staff at EPA unanimously 
     supported granting California's petition (to be allowed to 
     regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, 
     consistent with California state law); (2) Stephen Johnson, 
     the Administrator of EPA, also supported granting 
     California's petition at least in part; and (3) Administrator 
     Johnson reversed his position after communications with 
     officials in the White House.''
       The President has suppressed the release of scientific 
     information related to global climate change, an action which 
     undermines Congress' ability to legislate and provide 
     oversight, and which has thwarted efforts to prevent global 
     climate change despite the serious threat that it poses.
       1. In February, 2001, ExxonMobil wrote a memo to the White 
     House outlining ways to influence the outcome of the Third 
     Assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
     Change. The memo opposed the reelection of Dr. Robert Watson 
     as the IPCC Chair. The White House then supported an 
     opposition candidate, who was subsequently elected to replace 
     Dr. Watson.
       2. The New York Times on January 29, 2006, reported that 
     James Hansen, NASA's senior climate scientist was warned of 
     ``dire consequences'' if he continued to speak out about 
     global climate change and the need for reducing emissions of 
     associated gasses. The Times also reported that: ``At climate 
     laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely 
     took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only 
     if the interview is approved by administration officials in 
     Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is 
     present or on the phone.''
       3. In December of 2007, the House Committee on Oversight 
     and Government Reform issued a report based on 16 months of 
     investigation and 27,000 pages of documentation. According to 
     the summary: ``The evidence before the Committee leads to one 
     inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged 
     in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science 
     and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of 
     global warming.'' The report described how the White House 
     appointed former petroleum industry lobbyist Phil Cooney as 
     head of the Council on Environmental Quality. The report 
     states ``There was a systematic White House effort to 
     minimize the significance of climate change by editing 
     climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney and 
     other CEQ officials made at least 294 edits to the 
     Administration's Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science 
     Program to exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties 
     or to de-emphasize or diminish the importance of the human 
     role in global warming.''
       4. On April 23, 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote a 
     letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L Johnson. In it he 
     reported: ``Almost 1,600 EPA scientists completed the Union 
     of Concerned Scientists survey questionnaire. Over 22 percent 
     of these scientists reported that `selective or incomplete 
     use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome' 
     occurred `frequently' or `occasionally' at EPA. Ninety-four 
     EPA scientists reported being frequently or occasionally 
     directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical 
     information from an EPA scientific document. Nearly 200 EPA 
     scientists said that they have frequently or occasionally 
     been in situations in which scientists have actively objected 
     to, resigned from or removed themselves from a project 
     because of pressure to change scientific findings.''
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President 
     and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice 
     of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of 
     the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George 
     W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense 
     warranting removal from office.

[[Page H5106]]

Article XXXIII.--REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL 
INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE US, PRIOR TO 
                                  911

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, failed in his Constitutional duties to take proper 
     steps to protect the nation prior to September 11, 2001.
       The White House's top counter-terrorism adviser, Richard A. 
     Clarke, has testified that from the beginning of George W. 
     Bush's presidency until September 11, 2001, Clarke attempted 
     unsuccessfully to persuade President Bush to take steps to 
     protect the nation against terrorism. Clarke sent a 
     memorandum to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice 
     on January 24, 2001, ``urgently'' but unsuccessfully 
     requesting ``a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the 
     impending al Qaeda attack.''
       In April 2001, Clarke was finally granted a meeting, but 
     only with second-in-command department representatives, 
     including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who 
     made light of Clarke's concerns.
       Clarke confirms that in June, July, and August 2001, the 
     Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned the president in 
     daily briefings of unprecedented indications that a major al 
     Qaeda attack was going to happen against the United States 
     somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. Yet, 
     Clarke was still unable to convene a cabinet-level meeting to 
     address the issue.
       Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met with 
     the president 40 times to warn him that a major al-Qaeda 
     attack was going to take place, and that in response the 
     president did not convene any meetings of top officials. At 
     such meetings, the FBI could have shared information on 
     possible terrorists enrolled at flight schools. Among the 
     many preventive steps that could have been taken, the Federal 
     Aviation Administration, airlines, and airports might have 
     been put on full alert.
       According to Condoleezza Rice, the first and only cabinet-
     level meeting prior to 9/11 to discuss the threat of 
     terrorist attacks took place on September 4, 2001, one week 
     before the attacks in New York and Washington.
       On August 6, 2001, President Bush was presented a 
     President's Daily Brief (PDB) article titled ``Bin Laden 
     Determined to Strike in U.S.'' The lead sentence of that PDB 
     article indicated that Bin Laden and his followers wanted to 
     ``follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi 
     Yousef and `bring the fighting to America.' '' The article 
     warned: ``Al-Qa'ida members--including some who are US 
     citizens--have resided in or traveled to the US for years, 
     and the group apparently maintains a support structure that 
     could aid attacks.''
       The article cited a ``more sensational threat reporting 
     that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft,'' but 
     indicated that the CIA had not been able to corroborate such 
     reporting. The PDB item included information from the FBI 
     indicating ``patterns of suspicious activity in this country 
     consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of 
     attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings 
     in New York.'' The article also noted that the CIA and FBI 
     were investigating ``a call to our embassy in the UAE in May 
     saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US 
     planning attacks with explosives.''
       The president spent the rest of August 6, and almost all 
     the rest of August 2001 on vacation. There is no evidence 
     that he called any meetings of his advisers to discuss this 
     alarming report. When the title and substance of this PDB 
     article were later reported in the press, then-National 
     Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice began a sustained campaign 
     to play down its significance, until the actual text was 
     eventually released by the White House.
       New York Times writer Douglas Jehl, put it this way: ``In a 
     single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing 
     delivered to President Bush in August 2001 spells out the 
     who, hints at the what and points towards the where of the 
     terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36 
     days later.''
       Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint congressional 
     committee investigating the performance of the US 
     intelligence community before September 11, 2001, reported in 
     mid-September 2002 that intelligence reports a year earlier 
     ``reiterated a consistent and constant theme: Osama bin 
     Laden's intent to launch terrorist attacks inside the United 
     States.''
       That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before 
     September 11, an intelligence briefing for ``senior 
     government officials'' predicted a terrorist attack with 
     these words: ``The attack will be spectacular and designed to 
     inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. 
     Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with 
     little or no warning.''
       Given the White House's insistence on secrecy with regard 
     to what intelligence was given to President Bush, the joint-
     inquiry report does not divulge whether he took part in that 
     briefing. Even if he did not, it strains credulity to suppose 
     that those ``senior government officials'' would have kept 
     its alarming substance from the president.
       Again, there is no evidence that the president held any 
     meetings or took any action to deal with the threats of such 
     attacks.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as 
     President, and subversive of constitutional government, to 
     the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the 
     manifest injury of the people of the United States. 
     Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is 
     guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


   article xxxiv.--obstruction of investigation into the attacks of 
                           september 11, 2001

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, obstructed investigations into the attacks on the 
     World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
       Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice 
     President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all 
     proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed. 
     Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to renege on 
     his public promise on September 23 that a ``White Paper'' 
     would be issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two 
     weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for his 
     ``unfortunate choice of words,'' and explained that Americans 
     would have to rely on ``information coming out in the press 
     and in other ways.''
       On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central 
     Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia, 
     stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and 
     said: ``My report to the nation is, we've got the best 
     intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women 
     of the C.I.A.'' George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed 
     not to have visited the president personally between the 
     start of Bush's long Crawford vacation and September 11, 
     2001.
       Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, 
     Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy 
     Roemer by referring to the president's vacation (July 29-
     August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not see the 
     president at all in August 2001. ``You never talked with 
     him?'' Roemer asked. ``No,'' Tenet replied, explaining that 
     for much of August he too was ``on leave.'' An Agency 
     spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had 
     misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed Bush on August 17 and 
     31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took 
     place after the president had returned to Washington, and 
     played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.
       In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet 
     refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit to 
     Crawford as a follow-up to the ``Bin Laden Determined to 
     Strike in the US'' article in the CIA-prepared President's 
     Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a 
     Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB 
     open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is the 
     same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by 
     telling the CIA briefer, ``All right, you've covered your ass 
     now.'' (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). 
     In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes: ``A few weeks 
     after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to 
     Crawford to make sure that the president stayed current on 
     events.''
       A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a 
     week later, on August 24. According to the August 25, 2001, 
     release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to 
     Crawford on August 25, told them: ``George Tenet and I, 
     yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of 
     the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went 
     right up the canyon.''
       In early February 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned 
     then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if Congress went 
     ahead with an investigation, administration officials might 
     not show up to testify. As pressure grew for an 
     investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the 
     establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a 
     ``Joint Inquiry.'' Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the 
     Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry's final public hearing in 
     mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: ``I need to 
     report that, according to the White House and the Director of 
     Central Intelligence, the president's knowledge of 
     intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains 
     classified, even when the substance of the intelligence 
     information has been declassified.''
       The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as 
     the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27, 2002, 
     following the passage of congressional legislation signed 
     into law by President Bush. The President was asked to 
     testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except 
     for one hour in private with only two Commission members, 
     with no oath administered,

[[Page H5107]]

     with no recording or note taking, and with the Vice President 
     at his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written 
     that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was 
     underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive proper 
     cooperation and access to information.
       A December 2007 review of classified documents by former 
     members of the Commission found that the commission had made 
     repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 
     for documents and other information about the interrogation 
     of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a top 
     C.I.A. official that the agency had ``produced or made 
     available for review'' everything that had been requested.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as 
     President, and subversive of constitutional government, to 
     the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the 
     manifest injury of the people of the United States. 
     Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is 
     guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.


     Article xxxv.--endangering the health of 9/11 first responders

       In his conduct while President of the United States, George 
     W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to 
     faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
     States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in 
     violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, 
     Section 3 of the Constitution ``to take care that the laws be 
     faithfully executed'', has both personally and acting through 
     his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice 
     President, recklessly endangered the health of first 
     responders, residents, and workers at and near the former 
     location of the World Trade Center in New York City.
       The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection 
     Agency (EPA) August 21, 2003, report numbered 2003-P-00012 
     and entitled ``EPA's Response to the World Trade Center 
     Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement,'' 
     includes the following findings:
       ``[W]hen EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air 
     was `safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and 
     analyses to make such a blanket statement. At that time, air 
     monitoring data was lacking for several pollutants of 
     concern, including particulate matter and polychlorinated 
     biphenyls (PCBs). Furthermore, The White House Council on 
     Environmental Quality (CEQ) influenced, through the 
     collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated 
     to the public through its early press releases when it 
     convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete 
     cautionary ones.
       ``As a result of the White House CEQ's influence, guidance 
     for cleaning indoor spaces and information about the 
     potential health effects from WTC debris were not included 
     in EPA-issued press releases. In addition, based on CEQ's 
     influence, reassuring information was added to at least 
     one press release and cautionary information was deleted 
     from EPA's draft version of that press release . . . The 
     White House's role in EPA's public communications about 
     WTC environmental conditions was described in a September 
     12, 2001, e-mail from the EPA Deputy Administrator's Chief 
     of Staff to senior EPA officials:
       `` `All statements to the media should be cleared through 
     the NSC [National Security Council] before they are 
     released.'
       ``According to the EPA Chief of Staff, one particular CEQ 
     official was designated to work with EPA to ensure that 
     clearance was obtained through NSC. The Associate 
     Administrator for the EPA Office of Communications, 
     Education, and Media Relations (OCEMR) said that no press 
     release could be issued for a 3- to 4-week period after 
     September 11 without approval from the CEQ contact.''
       Acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko, who sat in on 
     EPA meetings with the White House, has said in an interview 
     that the White House played a coordinating role. The National 
     Security Council played the key role, filtering incoming data 
     on ground zero air and water, Horinko said: ``I think that 
     the thinking was, these are experts in WMD (weapons of mass 
     destruction), so they should have the coordinating role.''
       In the cleanup of the Pentagon following September 11, 
     2001, Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws were 
     enforced, and no workers became ill. At the World Trade 
     Center site, the same laws were not enforced.
       In the years since the release of the EPA Inspector 
     General's above-cited report, the Bush Administration has 
     still not effected a clean-up of the indoor air in apartments 
     and workspaces near the site.
       Screenings conducted at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and 
     released in the September 10, 2004, Morbidity and Mortality 
     Weekly Report (MMWR) of the federal Centers For Disease 
     Control and Prevention (CDC), produced the following results:
       ``Both upper and lower respiratory problems and mental 
     health difficulties are widespread among rescue and recovery 
     workers who dug through the ruins of the World Trade Center 
     in the days following its destruction in the attack of 
     September 11, 2001.
       ``An analysis of the screenings of 1,138 workers and 
     volunteers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster 
     found that nearly three-quarters of them experienced new or 
     worsened upper respiratory problems at some point while 
     working at Ground Zero. And half of those examined had upper 
     and/or lower respiratory symptoms that persisted up to the 
     time of their examinations, an average of eight months after 
     their WTC efforts ended.''
       A larger study released in 2006 found that roughly 70 
     percent of nearly 10,000 workers tested at Mount Sinai from 
     2002 to 2004 reported that they had new or substantially 
     worsened respiratory problems while or after working at 
     ground zero. This study showed that many of the respiratory 
     ailments, including sinusitis and asthma, and 
     gastrointestinal problems related to them, initially reported 
     by ground zero workers persisted or grew worse over time. 
     Most of the ground zero workers in the study who reported 
     trouble breathing while working there were still having those 
     problems two and a half years later, an indication of chronic 
     illness unlikely to improve over time.
       In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. 
     Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as 
     President, and subversive of constitutional government, to 
     the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the 
     manifest injury of the people of the United States. 
     Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is 
     guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from 
     office.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ellison). Under rule IX, a resolution 
offered from the floor by a Member other than the majority leader or 
the minority leader as a question of the privileges of the House has 
immediate precedence only at a time designated by the Chair within 2 
legislative days after the resolution is properly noticed.
  Pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the 
gentleman from Ohio will appear in the Record at this point.
  The Chair will not, at this point, determine whether the resolution 
constitutes a question of privilege. That determination will be made at 
the time designated for the consideration of the resolution.

                          ____________________