Nine Republicans choose America over Bush!

It has been reported in the Congressional Quarterly’s CQToday that nine Republicans broke rank yesterday and voted in favor of sending Representative Dennis Kucinich’s Article of Impeachment HR 1345 to the Judiciary (10 Republicans abstained). It is anticipated that Chairman John Conyers will now hold hearings on abuses of power by the Bush administration. The movement began to pick up steam when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi retreated from her “impeachment is off the table” position and stated that the Judiciary should look into the issues raised by the Kucinich article.

CQToday says that Conyers’ hearing would cover a variety of issues that have been under investigation for some time, including the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, the leak of the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson to the media, and the information fed to Congress to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The Kucinich Article of Impeachment focuses on the claim by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that there was a connection between Hussein and the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Kucinich promises that a surprise foreign official will testify at the hearing. Kucinich relies on many sources for his article, including the transcript of a July 23, 2002 meeting of Tony Blair’s senior ministers, now famously known as the Downing Street Memo. Among other things, the transcript states that the intelligence showed that the U.S. case for war was ‘thin’ at best. Iraq’s neighbors were not being threatened and that it’s WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

For the record, the nine Republicans who voted in favor of advancing Kucinich’s article are: Kevin Brady, TX; Wayne Gilchrest, MD; Walter B. Jones, NC (including Camp LeJeune); Dan Manzullo, IL; Tim Murphy, PA; Ron Paul, TX; Dave Reichert, WA; Christopher Shays, CT; and Mike Turner, OH.