Podesta Calls for Impeachment of Jay Bybee
Today on CNN, and in a letter to John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, CAPAF President and CEO John Conyers called for the impeachment of Jay Bybee:
The one thing I disagree with you and David [Gergen] about is I do think there’s a distinction between going back and prosecuting in criminal courts the actors who were involved in these memos and letting Judge Bybee continue to sit on a court one step removed from the Supreme Court. He’s acting and listening to cases, making judgments of others, and we know he authorized things that were illegal under U.S. law and violated the U.S. obligations under international treaties.
If he would do the right thing, he should just simply resign. If he doesn’t, I think this is one matter where he continues to sit — he doesn’t have the moral or legal authority to continue to do that. And I think a simple matter would be to remove him from office.
The full text of the letter will go below the fold. But it’s worth observing that while removing Bybee from office would be a serious and important statement of principle about the wrongness of his actions, it’s also hardly the most terrible punishment in the world. Lots of people get along in life just fine without enjoying lifetime appointments to the federal bench. So for those full of Broderish concern that we not be unduly vengeful and vindictive, it’s not like anything that would shock the conscience is being contemplated for Bybee. We’d just be saying that people who have a record of failing to discharge their duty to the law and to the constitution can’t be judges.
Letter below:
Dear Chairman Conyers,
I am writing to ask you to consider holding impeachment hearings against 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, should he decide not to voluntarily resign.
As you are well aware, Judge Bybee is the only architect of the Bush administration’s torture program to currently hold public office.
A legal memorandum signed by Judge Bybee when he was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel and recently released by the Obama administration approved the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading techniques, including waterboarding, slamming a detainee into a wall, depriving a detainee of sleep for up to eleven days at a time, and trapping a prisoner in a “confinement box” with insects in order to induce terror. The techniques endorsed by Judge Bybee’s memoranda violated U.S. law and our commitments under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
On March 13, 2003, Judge Bybee was confirmed by a 74-19 vote in the Senate. During his Senate hearings, Mr. Bybee stonewalled the Judiciary Committee when asked about his role in national security matters. He said at the time, “As an attorney at the Department of Justice, I am obliged to keep confidential the legal advice that I provide to others in the executive branch.” A number of Senators have now acknowledged that, had they known then what they now know, Judge Bybee would not have been confirmed.
Jay Bybee currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals, one level removed from the U.S. Supreme Court. He has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. Yet, having issued opinions that violate the Constitution and concealed relevant aspects of his legal views and professional conduct from the Senate, Bybee has neither the legal nor moral authority to sit in judgment of others.
My organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, has collected signatures from approximately 20,000 Americans (see attached) who have expressed their deep-felt and sincere desire to see that Judge Bybee is held to account for authorizing torture. It is unacceptable to allow him to continue to serve in his current role. Judge Bybee should resign, but if he fails to do so, I urge you to begin impeachment proceedings against him.
Sincerely,
John Podesta
President and CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund
30 Responses to “Podesta Calls for Impeachment of Jay Bybee”
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April 26th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Re: We’d just be saying that people who have a record of failing to discharge their duty to the law and to the constitution can’t be judges.
Pity you didn’t apply this reasoning to the late and unlamented Harry Blackmun, who had a penchant for pulling emanations and penumbras out of his @$$ like a poorly trained chimpanzee.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I know you have a glorious tradition of typos, but don’t you think calling the boss by the name of a different person is going a bit far ?
Or has Conyers given up on the Judiciary committee and gone for *real* power ?
April 26th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
@hector
Please, there is a HUGE distinction between “failing to discharge [his] duty to the law and Constitution” and just ripping the document to shreds.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Hector’s a pick-the-authority-who-agrees-with-you kind of guy, constantly celebrating the cornucopia of evidence in the world.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Matt, even you need to clean up this typo:
“CAPAF President and CEO John Conyers called for the impeachment of Jay Bybee”
you just told us it was john **podesta** who called for it.
not john **conyers**.
i know you like to write fast and never look back, but this is a real, substantive screw-up. please change it.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Why is John Conyers writing letters to himself? Doesn’t he have any real friends?
April 26th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
It’s worth noting that the apologists for Bybee have said that he now regrets the memo. And they also said that he never even wanted the job at OLC. Instead he wanted the job he now has, Ninth District Court judge. Gonzoles gave him the OLC job as a temporary position until a judge position opened up. So one might argue that Bybee went along with torture simply because he wanted to get that judge job.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Man this John Conyers is everywhere. Next he’ll be sending a request to John Conyers, the President of the US.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
He’ll make more money if he’s impeached. He’ll go to work at some big firm, do appellate work for the coal and oil industries, give speeches about tort reform, etc. He should be impeached and disbarred. That would be the proper punishment.
Clinton was impeached and disbarred. Bybee did a whole lot worse than Clinton. This is where the Democrats and their talking heads are not being aggressive enough to force the Lindsey Graghm of the world to say what Clinton did was soooo sooo heinous and indefensible that it merited impeachment, but writing an apologia from criminally sanctionable conduct is a mere indiscretion.
They are not pushing the Republicans back on their heels enough. Force them to defend Bybee, while ramming health care down their throats.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Jennifer, STFU and leave Yglesias alone.
The kid does good work.
Third Way is so six months ago.
And by the way, it’s time for you to earn your salary — and you know I don’t pay you to micro-manage Yglesias.
That’s right, Jennifer.
Now.
Get down on your knees…
…and…
…suck.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ooh, that was nice, Jennifer.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
…but not nice enough.
You’ve become an annoyance, Ms. Palmieri — you’re fired.
April 26th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
The last few comments are way out of bounds. Sexist and dumb. Is there anything MY can do just to get rid of them? Really.
April 26th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
yes–please delete comments 10-14. they are just sexist filth. not funny, not clever, just standard right-wing hatred of women.
April 26th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
This is really the test. If Matt can’t even keep libelous pornography out of the comments, there is simply no reason to read the comments.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Not only is impeachment not that big of a punishment, it likely doesn’t go nearly far enough. I almost guarantee that some wacky right-wing think tank will immediately offer him a very cushy ‘consultant’ position.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
actually, tomemos, that strikes me as pretty much of a non sequitur.
if there is a reason to read my’s comments, it is because some of the commenters say useful things sometimes. the fact that other commenters sometimes say stupid ugly things is tiresome, it’s true, but not all that surprising.
yglesias is smart and liberal, and he has attracted some paid republican operatives who troll his site. their presence certainly decreases the signal-to-noise ratio, but it does not mean there is “no reason to read the comments.” they are already here, even before this particular attack on matt’s boss.
i can’t really see why you have an interest in turning this minor skirmish into an ultimatum, but that seems like a strange stance to take.
sure, my should delete the comments. but he takes a laissez-faire approach to moderation, which is why we still see al, hector, mixner, and other blights here daily.
this is not a test. unless perhaps you want it to be one?
April 26th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
WTF?
April 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
You’re right, Kid Bitzer; “no reason” was the wrong phrase. What I meant to express is that the situation could get bad enough that the negatives of reading comments could outweigh the positives.
The resident cranks in the comments are not as bothersome to me—sometimes they’re even entertaining—as the spam comments in Cyrillic and such which make the comment section seem less like a colorful, rambunctious comment section and more like my spam folder.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
The worst thing about leaving Bybee on the bench is it really establishes judicial activism as the ruling law of the land. If torture is legal, anything is plausibly legal, in fact the “law” is simply a hurdle of words to be re-interpreted as the government currently sees fit.
This is what’s so terrible about the idea of “moving forward” without addressing those who broke the law (or improperly “legalized” lawbreaking, more specifically) is that then you move forward as a nation without a functioning rule of lay, at least insofar as it applies to members of the government and the ruling class.
Frankly it’s craven. A political and media ruled by cowards, look at how Rush makes the left cower and the right bend over and ask for more. Cause he’s a bully and Americans are cowards. Sure they’ll send an unarmed drone to kiill someone, but they won’t even keep track of the dead unless they’re Americans. Petty thieves and drug addicts can get life imprisonment. Federal judges who lie about what the law says, oh well, nothing to be done.
I torture goes largely unpunished even by those who broke their oaths of office to do it, it really is indicative of a society that is only paying lip service to the values it was founded on. On it’s face the idea that Bybee should remain a judge is absurd. In reality the idea that will ever face the music for his actions is the absurdity. How much more emblematic of the nation’s embrace of hypocrisy than that the author of memos legalizing torture is one of the country’s ultimate deciders on what the law means. Wow.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Impeachment would be the best thing that could possibly happen to Bybee career wise. He would be a conservative martyr. This is one of the greatest gigs in the world except maybe MLB long relief man. As a conservative martyr one is entitled to a lifetime of can’t miss inside business deal for you and your family. Cushy jobs singing to the choir and fawning deference from back benchers in perpetuity.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Re: sure, my should delete the comments. but he takes a laissez-faire approach to moderation, which is why we still see al, hector, mixner, and other blights here daily.
Excuse me, I may say things that are unpopular, as did Socrates in his day, but at least I don’t post graphic descriptions of blow-jobs. I hardly think that’s comparable.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Comparing yourself to Socrates isn’t worth a delete. It’s just funny. Glad you don’t post about blow jobs.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Hector, remember: they crucified Jesus. Just crank up the crazy and rip off the knob.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
As an aside, Conyers should be worried about his wife being indicted for soliciting bribes while President of the Detroit City Council, possibly the second most dysfunctional political unit in the country (the Detroit school board is #1).
And Podesta? A giant of integrity?
April 26th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Coneyrs’ wife is racist and likely corrupt; on the other hand, Conyers himself is one of the most respectable members of Congress. I don’t see why Conyers should worry about whatever his wife is doing. Unless he was her partner in crime, and my guess is: no, he wasn’t.
He just made a terrible choice when he chose his wife.
April 26th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Here is a priceless video: Conyers’ wife getting lectured by high school students, because she was immature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TvgtGlcdTE
Poor John Conyers.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:00 am
The Review Journal thinks it’s a joke to impeach him. I’m sure he has some friends in the editorial board.
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/43733752.html
April 27th, 2009 at 7:37 am
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April 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
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