Moyers, Fein, and Nichols on Impeachment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttWBVU7XjFE]

The transcript of Bill Moyer’s discussion of impeachment is now available on line. Moyers discussed impeachment with Bruce Fein and John Nichols. Fein served in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan, is affiliated with think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and,writes a weekly column for The Washington Times and Politico.com. It is no surprise than John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, backs impeachment, but Bruce Fein also agreed.

While Fein supported Clinton’s impeachment, he found Bush’s crimes more worrisome:

I think Bush’s crimes are a little bit different. I think they’re a little bit more worrisome than Clinton’s…More worrisome than Clinton’s– because he is seeking more institutionally to cripple checks and balances and the authority of Congress and the judiciary to superintend his assertions of power. He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don’t have any right to know what he’s doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He’s claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.

Needless to say, a discussion which begins like this is worth reading in full, and the video is available here with an extended portion posted above.

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