Congressman plans new impeachment articles against Gonzales

Michael Roston

Published: Tuesday August 7, 2007





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A freshman Democratic Congressmember from Tennessee is working with a former Reagan-era Justice Department lawyer to introduce Articles of Impeachment against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to a report in Monday's Commercial Appeal.

"In a telephone interview from Memphis on Monday, [Rep. Steve] Cohen said he and his staff are working with former Reagan Justice Department lawyer Bruce Fein to draw up articles of impeachment against Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales," wrote the paper's Bartholomew Sullivan.

Rep. Cohen, who was elected to his first term last November, did not say what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' his articles would accuse Gonzales of committing. But he did criticize Gonzales for approaching then-Attorney General John Ashcroft when he served as White House Counsel to overturn his deputy's ruling that a government spying program was not legal.

"It's a major part of our country's civil liberties, and principles, that we don't spy on our people," Sullivan reports Cohen saying.

Cohen's articles will be another entrant in expanding field of measures that Democratic Congressmembers are proposing to condemn the work of President George W. Bush's second Attorney General.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) recently introduced a measure that called on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether the Attorney General had committed any impeachable offenses.

Additionally, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) both introduced censure measures against the President, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Gonzales on Monday.

Also, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Artur Davis (D-AL) in May proposed a 'no confidence' motion against the Attorney General which has so far garnered 121 additional co-sponsors.

Cohen is a co-sponsor of all of these earlier measures. He also signed on to Rep. Dennis Kucinich's Article of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney.

Sullivan's full article in the Commercial Appeal can be read at this link.



