Rep. Conyers: Impeachment Is Not Off the Table

Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left at 6:35 AM on January 29, 2008.

Today at the Progressive Media Summit I managed to catch a conversation between Rob Kall of OpedEdNews and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on the potential impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. The video starts in the middle of a sentence, but other than that, it's pretty clear cut. It's an interesting dialogue in which Conyers goes back and forth on his own authority and ability to bring impeachment charges, his political arguments against it, and finally, his firm statement that Bush could do plenty to justify impeachment and that the option is not 'off the table'. You get to see a fascinating and very human interaction between a highly intelligent activist and a sitting Congressman with immense power who is vaguely irritated at having to answer questions, but also intensely interested in answering them.

The transcript is as follows:

John Conyers: Two impeachments rather than one. They've either got to be simultaneous or serie atum.

Rob Kall: Serie atum would be the way to do it. First Cheney, then Bush. History teaches us, let's start with Gonzales. We went to Gonzales, and he's gone. They went to Agnew, he left. Then they went to Nixon, and they started doing hearings on him. It never went to a vote in the Senate. And I don't think it ever would. All we need to do is get the hearings opened up where they can't say 'sorry, executive privilege, then you've got the tools, which is what Impeachment is, it's a tool.

John Conyers: You know who's been in more impeachment hearings than anybody in the House or Senate?

Rob Kall: You?

John Conyers: Right.

Rob Kall: And you wrote a book on impeaching Bush, too.

John Conyers: A couple, yes. Well there must be some compelling reason that I'm not doing it right now.

Rob Kall: Pelosi, Pelosi keeps coming to mind.

John Conyers: How could she stop, well, she could stop me because actually it goes through a special committee on the House, but, Pelosi can't stop me from anything, really.

Rob Kall: Really?

John Conyers: Yeah.

Rob Kall: So it's you stopping you, nobody else?

John Conyers: Well I don't know whose ever stopped me before, I don't know why Pelosi's going to stop me now.

Rob Kall: You know people say it's too late, and it's not too late for Bush to start another war, appoint another Supreme Court justice if something happened, and here we are stuck with him during the worst economic crisis...

John Conyers: Let me just say this to you because there may be some other people that want to talk to me. Let me tell you this. If we started an impeachment hearing that didn't succeed, guess what would happen. They would say that he's being demonized, that Conyers always, they campaigned against the Democrats taking over last year, wait a minute, they campaigned against the Democrats saying two things, Rangel will raise taxes if the Democrats ran and Conyers would impeach Bush. Now to come in on January 28th after having been impressed by your logic, Rob, and saying we're going after both these guys at once and if it doesn't, and I really smile at this one, and if it doesn't work at least you did it and taught them a lesson. Well they would take that and that would bleed right into the election of 2008 sure as we're standing here.

Rob Kall: You've got in your committee stuck there held back Dennis Kucinich's bill.

John Conyers: So what?

Rob Kall: I asked Dennis about it and you know what he said, I asked him about people not acting because they're afraid of the reaction of the Republicans, and his reply was 'that's no way to run a democracy'.

John Conyers: Well I see Dennis Kucinich way more than you and I know a lot about what he's doing and why he's doing it. I know about my dear friend Bob Wexler from Florida and that's their right and their authority, but I'm the chairman.

Rob Kall: Is there anything that could happen that would change your mind?

John Conyers: Sure. There are plenty of things that could happen. And it's not off the table.

Rob Kall: It's not? That's good to hear.

John Conyers: Well that's why we're talking.

Rob Kall: Thank you.

I found it interesting that Conyers semi-rejects impeachment because that's what the Republicans ran on in 2006. The Republicans lost in 2006. And in a democracy, that means the voters rejected the arguments of the GOP, including the arguments about Rangel raising taxes and Conyers beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush.

Other than that, the significant news is that Conyers believes he can begin impeachment proceedings against Bush if he feels it is warranted, and may do so if Bush transgresses a line that Conyers feels is inappropriate.

Tagged as: bush, impeachment, cheney, pelosi, kucinich, conyers, wexler

Matt Stoller is a political activist/blogger in DC, and was an editor at MyDD from November 2005 until June 2007. He also consults for the Sunlight Foundation, FreePress.net, and Working Assets as well as proactively networking other progressive bloggers/internet activists and progressive professionals.