One Utah

Thanks, Raw Story. The House Judiciary Committee has released a witness list for its hearing on the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

Late Thursday afternoon, the committee released the full witness list, broken down into two panels.

Panel One

The Honorable Dennis Kucinich, Representative from Ohio
The Honorable Maurice Hinchey, Representative from New York
The Honorable Walter Jones, Representative from North Carolina
The Honorable Brad Miller, Representative from North Carolina

Panel Two

The Honorable Elizabeth Holtzman, Former Representative from New York
The Honorable Bob Barr, Former Representative from Georgia, 2008 Libertarian Nominee for President
The Honorable Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson, Founder and President, High Roads for Human Rights
Stephen Presser, Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History, Northwestern University School of Law
Bruce Fein, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 1981-82, Chairman, American Freedom Agenda
Vincent Bugliosi, Author and former Los Angeles County Prosecutor
Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law
Elliott Adams, President of the Board, Veterans for Peace
Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

See below for hearing updates…

Conyers (D-MI) previously laid out six areas the hearing would explore:

(1) improper politicization of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys offices, including potential misuse of authority with regard to election and voting controversies;

(2) misuse of executive branch authority and the adoption and implementation of the so-called unitary executive theory, including in the areas of presidential signing statements and regulatory authority;

(3) misuse of investigatory and detention authority with regard to U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, including questions regarding the legality of the administration’s surveillance, detention, interrogation, and rendition programs;

(4) manipulation of intelligence and misuse of war powers, including possible misrepresentations to Congress related thereto;

(5) improper retaliation against administration critics, including disclosing information concerning CIA operative Valerie Plame, and obstruction of justice related thereto; and

(6) misuse of authority in denying Congress and the American people the ability to oversee and scrutinize conduct within the administration, including through the use of various asserted privileges and immunities.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday on Capitol Hill.

It looks to me that none of the witnesses are likely to provide inside information about how the Bush administration lied to Congress to obtain authorization for the invasion of Iraq.

UPDATE:
Glenn Greenwald opines:

[T]he Kucinich impeachment hearing is like a parade of those whom the Beltway class mocks as Shrill, Unserious losers and Leftist radicals — people who actually use overly excitable words like “crimes” and “prosecutions” when talking about our leaders or who, like the ACLU, actually object that most of what our Government does occurs in total secrecy. Serious, responsible Beltway establishment leaders know that courtrooms and prosecutions are only for the common people and — for our own good — our leaders cannot, must not and should not be exposed to any of that, and must continue to be able to shield what they do from public scrutiny.

What we need is the equivalent of the 1973-74 Senate Watergate Committee, a bipartisan fact-finding entity prepared to uncover every Bush administration crime by grilling the insiders who know what happened. Instead, we have this “parade” of well-meaning but political witnesses.

UPDATE: Raw Story reports that few members of the Judiciary Committee or witnesses dare to utter the dreaded word “impeachment” because members were cautioned to abide by the Rules of the House, which prohibit lawmakers from “impugning” the president’s character during official debate. Apparently, under the rules the Republicans can call an immediate halt to the proceedings if anyone says the “secret word.”

UPDATE: I suppose this hearing is officially a non-event, because none of the related DailyKos posts made the rec list. If the DailyKos community isn’t very interested in impeachment, then it truly is a dead issue.

This entry was posted Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Crimes, Global Warming, Impeachment, Iraq, National Politics, Society, The Constitution, Torture, Utah Politics, War, Wiretapping. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.