Count me in ...
We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.
Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth" commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.
If only because we must: "Expand the playing field, and do not let the White House be the most left-leaning force in the capital." "Don in Texas" also has the right idea:
Eric Holder, Esquire
Attorney General of the United States
U. S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
"For the good of the nation," Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his Watergate crimes and engendered the Iran-Contra scandal. "For the good of the nation," George H. W. Bush pardoned the Iran-Contra perpetrators and invited the criminality of the past eight years by the George W. Bush administration.
It is time to end this pernicious poisoning of American governance and to hold accountable those who have violated the laws of the United States.
In his stirring dissent in Olmstead v. U.S. , 277 U.S. 438 (1928), Justice Louis Brandeis declared:
“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. . . .”
The oath you took to defend our Constitution imposes upon you a paramount duty to restore the rule of law in America.
For the good of the nation, all of those in the Bush administration who committed crimes against the United States must be brought to justice without delay.
In the strongest possible terms, I urge you to appoint a Special Prosecutor at once to investigate and prosecute those against whom credible evidence of criminality exists.
I'd also like to see him for once be pushed in a direction he rather not go that is to the left of his comfort zone.