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Transcript of Constitutional attorney, Bruce
Fein from the Non-impeachment Judicial Committee
hearings, July 2008 on the definitive
impeachable offense:
Bruce Fein speaks:
"I'd just like to make one observation about the
idea of misleading Congress as an impeachable
offense
This is a quotation from James Iredell. (Now) He
was appointed by George Washington to be on the
first Supreme Court of the United States. He was
there, if you will, 'at the creation' -- to
borrow from Dean Atchison. He was speaking to
the North Carolina ratification convention.
"And this is what he said:
"'The President must certainly be punishable for
giving false information to the Senate. He is to
regulate all intercourse with foreign powers,
and it is his duty to impart to the Senate every
material intelligence he receives -- whether he
believes it or not. If it should appear that he
has not given them full information but has
concealed important intelligence which he ought
to have communicated, and by that means induced
them to enter into measures injurious to their
country in which they would not have consented
to had the true state of things been disclosed
to them -- in this case, yes, isn't that clearly
an impeachable offense?'
"So, the founding fathers understood exactly the
situation that has been alleged in this case --
not necessarily that President Bush lied, it's
clear that he didn't give the full slate of
information to the Congress that was available
regarding weapons of mass destruction, collusion
between Saddam and Al-Quada, or otherwise. And
this is, as the Supreme Court has said, a
virtual definitive interpretation of an
impeachable offense, because it was made by
someone who was there at the time, participated
in the convention and ratification. It's not
something that's concocted after the fact."
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