Any attempt to impeach George Bush and/or Dick Cheney would obviously need the support of Rep. John Conyers, given that he’s Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. (If you’ve forgotten since the exciting days of the Clenis, articles of impeachment are considered in the Judiciary Committee first, and then if approved go to the full House for a vote. If a majority support any of the articles, the official is impeached—the equivalent of an indictment. The articles are then sent to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is needed to convict and remove the official from office. Nixon never even made it to impeachment; just having three articles of impeachment approved by the Judiciary Committee was enough to get him to resign.)
But frustratingly for those (of us) who believe we desperately need to ITMFA, Conyers has been unwilling to come out in favor of impeachment. Whether this has been because of pressure from the Congressional leadership or reasons of his own, it’s meant that impeachment has been essentially dead in the water. By contrast, if Conyers changed his mind, it would make impeachment a serious possibility.
So…I’m pleased to pass along this absolutely completely unverified rumor from the comments section of DailyKos yesterday morning. I doubt this is accurate, and in any case we’ll probably know one way or another for sure tomorrow. But given this country was founded in a burst of possibly unwarranted optimism about human capability, I don’t see any harm in believing this for at least a few hours:
I’m not sure if this is correct place, but the aide I just spoke to in Congressman Conyer’s office told me that Rep. Conyers is now in support for Impeachment.
I asked her what Rep. Conyers’ stance is concerning Impeachment of president george w. bush and vice president richard b. cheney and she said and I’m quoting:
“Congressman Conyers supports Impeachment of the President and Vice-President.”
I’m not sure if this is going to actually mean anything, but this is what I was just told by Conyers’ office less than 5 minutes ago.
I also asked her if I could quote her and she said “yes”. Let us hope this is a good sign.
Happy July 4th!