Dems Tap Patrick Fitzgerald for Impeachment Pro

Reprinted from NewsMax.com
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/10/22/234208.shtml

Saturday, Oct. 22, 2005 11:40 p.m. EDT

Dems Tap Patrick Fitzgerald for Impeachment Probe

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are so pleased with reports that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict senior White House officials that they want him to lead an impeachment investigation into whether President Bush lied to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg,” House Judiciary Democrat Jerrold Nadler complains in a message posted to his web site.

In a letter asking the Justice Department to expand the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation, Nadler says: "We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level [and] wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security.”

If there is evidence that Bush or Cheney authorized aides to deliberately mislead lawmakers, Nadler told Congressional Quarterly: "That would be an impeachable offense.'"

The Manhattan Democrat is asking Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum to direct Fitzgerald to probe efforts by the White House to discredit critics of the Iraq war like former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Nadler wants Fitzgerald to determine whether attacks on Wilson were part of a "broader conspiracy knowingly to mislead Congress into authorizing a war."

Even before leaks from Fitzgerald's investigation indicated he planned indictments, Rep. Maurice Hinchey let slip the Democrats' plan to impeach Bush for alleged Iraq war lies.

In quotes picked up by the Ithaca Journal, Hinchey said in August: "My greatest hope is that all of these things will be revealed, they will be revealed in a very direct and legal context, and that in 2006 a Democratic majority will be elected to the House of Representatives, and in February of [2007] impeachment proceedings will begin."

21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent: http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal

Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal