Activists Still Press For Impeachment

Law school dean to lead steering committee of legal experts after January 20

Local peace activists are making it clear that their quest to hold war crimes trials against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will not cease with the end of Bush’s second and final term.

“It's important all of us to know that regardless of 'time running out', this does not stop
groups nationwide working hard to hold Bush, et al, responsible for their crimes,” stated local World Can’t Wait! organizer Jack Nounan last week.

Nounan, a longtime anti-globalization activist who participated in the successful demonstrations against the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, has shifted his focus towards anti-war and pro-impeachment activism in the last few years. Nounnan is a former recipient of the Patriot Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Redwood Chapter of the ACLU, for his work in defending civil liberties on the North Coast.

Nounan went on in his release to state: “It's this determined part of our justice and peace movement watching their every move, to hold them accountable!”

To that end, Nounan and his World Can’t Wait affinity group are promoting a three-prong approach to continuing their quest to try Bush and Cheney for their alleged crimes of launching a war of aggression, engaging in torture and violating their oaths to defend the Constitution with the abrogation of civil liberties.

The first strategy underway is a Steering Committee led by Massachusetts law school dean Lawrence Velvel to pursue prosecution of Bush and “culpable high-ranking aides” after the end of the Bush/Cheney administration.

"If Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others are not prosecuted," Velvel stated in the release, "the future could be threatened by additional examples of Executive lawlessness by leaders who need fear no personal consequences for their actions, including more illegal wars such as Iraq."

The Steering Committee of the Justice Robert Jackson Conference On Prosecution Of High Level War Criminals plans to demand the immediate impeachment of George W. Bush if he issues any last minute pardons covering himself or any of his subordinates. They cite a Yale Law Journal item from 1996 to challenge the constitutionality of self-pardons.

“A self pardon by the President for himself or those who carried out his illegal orders to commit war crimes, said the Steering Committee of the Robert Jackson Conference, would make a mockery of the rule of law,” stated Velvel on behalf of the Steering Committee. “It would, in fact, largely put an end to the rule of law. It is frankly inconceivable, said the Steering Committee, that the framers, who sought the rule of law instead of kingly tyranny, could have intended this.”

The second strategy pursued by World Can’t Wait is that of direct street protest, to follow up a recent action by Veterans For Peace in demonstrating at the Justice Department on behalf of an indictment. Nounan and his group were responsible for the weekly protest at the Eureka district offices of Congressman Mike Thompson (D - St. Helena), which lasted over a year until Thompson relented and agreed to support an impeachment move -- although the measure Thompson co-sponsored was much more limited in its scope, and was only applicable against Cheney, not Bush.

Lastly, World Can’t Wait is attempting to enlist the support of any county District Attorney in the country who would agree to issue an indictment against Bush and Cheney. To that end, the Progressive Party candidate in Vermont this year, Charlotte Dennett, has promised to issue just such an indictment if she makes her long-shot campaign come true.

"Vermonters deserve an Attorney General who will prosecute those who break the law," said Dennett in the release. "Vermonters pay a huge amount of money and a disproportionate share of soldiers' lives in this illegal war. If our elected representatives will not act to hold President Bush accountable, it is up to us to use this final remaining tool."

Dennett has received support from pro-impeachment activists across the country, including Vincent Bugliosi, the legendary criminal prosecutor and bestselling author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, As a Los Angeles District Attorney, Bugliosi successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder convictions without a single loss. He is best known for prosecuting Charles Manson, an experience he memorialized in his book Helter Skelter.

"I have never received such a passionate response as I have to this book," Bugliosi said in the release. "Most Americans are deeply offended that George W. Bush has not been held accountable for his many crimes while in office, the most egregious of which is the murder of 4,000 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. My book lays out the framework of how he can be brought to justice in any state in this country, a framework which I hope will serve notice to future occupants in the White House."