Impeachable

The writing in the New York Times today, Frank Bowman has an op-ed piece making the point I made a few weeks ago.

If Alberto Gonzales will not resign, Congress should impeach him. Article II of the Constitution grants Congress the power to impeach “the president, the vice president and all civil officers of the United States.” The phrase “civil officers” includes the members of the cabinet (one of whom, Secretary of War William Belknap, was impeached in 1876).

He further points out that impeachment does not require actual laws to have been violated, but is reserved for offenses so egregious and political that no one ever thought to specifically make those offenses illegal. And finally, for those who say "US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president,"

That the president has the constitutional power to [hire and fire appointees at will] does not mean he has the right to do them without explanation. Congress has the right to demand explanations for the president’s managerial choices, both to exercise its own oversight function and to inform the voters its members represent. The right of Congress to demand explanations imposes on the president, and on inferior executive officers who speak for him, the obligation to be truthful... he has no right to lie, either by affirmatively misrepresenting facts or by falsely claiming not to remember events. [My italics].

So let's hope Congress takes it's oversight role seriously, and sends the message to the DOJ that the time for playing games is over. Prevarication might be fine in politic, but when it comes to one's duties as a law officer for the US, there are serious consequences.

Whither impeachment?

The one question looming over the entire Gonzales hearing is what will happen to him? I noticed that in a article written by Richard Schmitt in today's LA Times makes the point that Gonzales can only be removed by resigning or being fired by the President:

It is far from certain that Gonzales will be forced to step aside. The hearing produced no evidence to support the most provocative claim of his critics — that the firings were orchestrated to affect public corruption cases in a way that would aid Republicans. And while some senators fumed about the lack of detail that Gonzales offered, Congress is powerless to remove him from office.

However, other newspapers including this Boston Globe editorial from 3 weeks ago make the point that he should be impeached, as any sitting cabinet member in theory can be. As the Globe says,

But can the House impeach the attorney general? The Constitution is clear that Congress may impeach "all civil officers of the United States." In our history, the House has impeached two presidents, and just one member of the Cabinet, William Belknap, secretary of war under president Ulysses S. Grant.

I am certainly no lawyer, but the Constitution states very simply:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Article II, Section 4.

Whether Gonzales' behavior is a "High Crime or Misdemeanor," I don't know. But it's pretty obvious that he falls under the category of a member of the Executive branch who can be impeached. In any case, it seems to me that the Globe has it right, which makes me wonder, why did Schmitt assert the opposite without acknowledging that the impeachability of a sitting AG is a debatable point? Poor research? Poor editorial control? A political agenda? This is an important point in the whole scandal, and the LA Times missed the mark.

What's up with Gonzales?

Today is the first day since Monday that the lead story when I turned on the radio wasn't about the tragedy at Virgina Tech. Instead, our nation's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, was trying to explain how he was both responsible for the attorney firing scandal and yet not to blame. Can you have it both ways? Mostly I was alarmed about how much information Gonzales "couldn't recall." Now I am a true believer that the nature of memory has changed in conjunction with our overprogrammed lives and technology that takes care of most mundane tasks. (I can't remember my best friend's phone number, for example.) However, it's beginning to seem like Gonzales is senile or something. I'm not sure that Gonzales is making a good case for himself by not recalling the intent of most of his public statements and/or actions taken over the past six months.

Edit: According to the LA Times on April 20, Gonzales claimed to be "unable to recall" over 50 times! Prevarication or early onset alzheimer's...?

Also, Talkingpointsmemo deserves props for breaking this story. It's too bad that the Pulitzer Board does not recognize exclusively online news coverage. The folks at TPM had the instincts and resources to bring to light a scandal that traditional media outlets missed. It's time to embrace our brave new technological world, people.