No immunity for Bush and Cheney

By Bill Press

On the question of whether George Bush and Dick Cheney should be held legally responsible for crimes committed while in the White House, Barack Obama and John Conyers are playing good cop, bad cop.

Appearing on my radio show in his role as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Conyers made it clear that he believed Bush and Cheney had broken the law – in wiretapping, torture, detention and other practices – and must be held accountable.

“I don’t want to get too speculative on that, because it’s still under review,” Conyers told me. “Now, remember, violation of the federal criminal code doesn’t end because you leave office. … Leaving office doesn’t free you up from what you may have done wrong. Anyone that leaves office, including the president – there’s the World Court, they have tribunals. This thing is not over with. As they say: Stay tuned.”

However, just two days later, asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate the crimes of the Bush administration, Barack Obama seemed much more reluctant. “Obviously, we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” said the president-elect. “On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

Even if they don’t agree on whether to prosecute, one thing Obama and Conyers do agree on: There’s no doubt Bush and Cheney broke the law, in several areas. Within days of Sept. 11, Bush gave orders for the NSA to tap the phones of American citizens without getting a warrant from the FISA court. That was clearly against the law, and Bush and Cheney knew it.

When Ambassador Joe Wilson embarrassed Bush by exposing the lies he told about Iraq’s seeking to purchase yellowcake uranium in Niger, the Bush White House retaliated by unmasking his wife’s identify as an undercover CIA agent. That was clearly against the law, and Bush and Cheney knew it.

When the first “terrorist suspects” were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they were brought to Guantanamo Bay, where some of them were tortured. The use of torture, in fact, has now been confirmed by Susan Crawford, the top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial. Torturing prisoners of war – even if it’s called “enhanced interrogation techniques” – is clearly against both U.S. law and international law, and Bush and Cheney knew it.

And the list goes on. Clearly, George Bush and Dick Cheney violated many of the laws they took an oath to uphold. The question is whether they should be prosecuted for their crimes or simply allowed to walk away.

The answer, I believe, depends on whether we believe in the rule of law or not. If we do, there’s no choice: The Justice Department must prosecute. Otherwise, we send the dangerous message that, once you achieve a certain level of political power in this country, you can operate outside the law with impunity.

Certainly, we expect more of the United States of America. Just ask George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. “We have Third World countries that, when they found their leaders committed torture and war crimes, they prosecuted them,” he recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “But the most successful democracy in history is about to see war crimes committed and do nothing about it.” That, says Turley, would be “an indictment not just of George Bush and his administration. It’s the indictment of all of us if we walk away from a clear war crime.”

So, in the end, the real issue is not whether war crimes were committed. They were. Nor whether Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted for them. They should be. The real issue is whether Democrats have the intestinal fortitude to live up to the rule of law and let the Obama Justice Department enforce the law equally, across the board – even if it means hauling George Bush and Dick Cheney before a court of law.

In the end, there’s only one answer. Enforce the law. Let the chips fall where they may. Even Barack Obama understands that looking forward doesn’t mean we forget and forgive the sins of the past.

Bill Press

Bill Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a new book, "TOXIC TALK: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America's Airwaves." His website is billpress.com. Read more of Bill Press's articles here.