Alternative Coverage of AG Ashcroft's Congressional Testimony

What You Should Have Read

By A Well-Informed Observer

WASHINGTON (Dec. 6) -- In an appearance today before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Attorney General John Ashcroft came very close to accusing George W. Bush of treason (which is an impeachable offense) and obstructing anti-terrorism efforts by the FBI. In particular, Mr Ashcroft accused Mr Bush of aiding terrorists, giving ammunition to America's enemies, and encouraging the 5,000 foreigners being invited for voluntary interviews to remain silent during questioning. In a city where observers could not recall the last time internal dissent rose even to the relatively low level of a resignation on principle by a Cabinet member, Mr Ashcroft's remarks were perhaps unprecedented.

There was no response from Mr Bush to Mr Ashcroft's remarks. In a sign of the growing internal dissent, Mr Bush's press secretary indicated the press secretary approved of Mr Ashcroft's remarks.

No resolution seeking the impeachment of Mr Bush has been submitted in the House. Mr Bush has not requested Mr Ashcroft's resignation nor has Ashcroft requested Bush's.

Mr Ashcroft's testimony followed two other unprecedented events. First, notwithstanding his January promise to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, Mr Bush agreed that Articles I and III and the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution could all be ignored in peacetime. Since December 1941, no President has sought, and no Congress has passed, a declaration of war. Next came Mr Bush's order allowing about twenty million non-citizens present in the United States and about 4 billion non-citizens outside the United States to be tried before military tribunals and thus treated differently than U.S. citizens.

In an apparent reference to Mr Bush's order, Mr Ashcroft testified:

"To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

Mr Ashcroft's expressed the view that Mr Bush (whose order pitted citizens against non-citizens) aided terrorists and encouraged people of good will (those being interviewed by the FBI) to remain silent. Despite this, no Senator inquired as to whether congressional action was needed to stop what Mr Ashcroft apparently viewed as Mr Bush's interference with the FBI investigation.

Mr Ashcroft's inference was clear and thus no clarifying question was necessary from the Senators. The reference to giving "ammunition to America's enemies" obviously referred to the long-standing policy endorsed by both Mr Bush's party and the last two elected presidents from his party (Messrs. Reagan and George H.W. Bush). They reportedly participated in the sale of arms to the terrorist nation of Iran during the so-called Iran-Contra affair (as previously reported, the sales were in return for Iran's agreement to keep many American citizens in captivity in Teheran until a few minutes after Mr Reagan took office in 1980). After losing the election in 1992, Mr George H. W. Bush ratified his party's policy of selling arms to terrorists by pardoning Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger who was in a position to provide testimony supporting the indictment of both Messrs. Reagan and G.H.W. Bush.

Along the same lines, Mr George W. Bush recently knowingly violated and obstructed a law requiring Presidential papers to be released twelve years after the President involved leaves office. It is not yet definitively known whether this move was related to his knowledge of inconvenient information contained in papers from the Reagan Administration which, by statute, were to be released earlier this year. The reported action by the party or its nominees during the 1980 election was merely a continuation of the policy set by the nominee of Mr Bush's party in 1968. They encouraged the South Vietnamese to refrain from reaching a peace agreement with North Vietnam prior to the election in 1968, thus resulting in the later deaths of thousands of additional brave, young American soldiers and sailors. In 1968, knowledgeable observers thought that Mr Bush's party's nominee's razor thin margin at the polls would have been obliterated if a peace agreement had been announced in the weeks before the 1968 election. Only the nominee's extreme actions as a radical subversive in opposition to the foreign policy of the United States Government at a time of armed conflict insured his election. Determining what, if any laws such an act might break is left as an exercise to the reader.

The "president" is engaged in an ongoing effort to ignore Article I of the Constitution (providing a Congress and giving it certain powers) and Article III (establishing a Supreme Court and giving certain powers to it and the federal judiciary) as well as a majority of the Bill of Rights. At the same time, the Attorney General indicated his actions were constitutional. In fact, he strongly defended the Second Amendment at the hearing. In a bow to Mr Bush, the Attorney General studiously voided any support for the First (freedom of religion and speech), Fourth (freedom from unreasonable search and seizure), Fifth (guaranteed due process), Sixth (right to the effective assistance of counsel), Seventh (right to a jury trial by one's peers), or Eighth Amendments (freedom from cruel and unusual punishment).

The Second Amendment provides that: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Federal law requires background checks through the National Instant Check system prior to buying guns. On the morning of the hearing, The New York Times reported that Mr Ashcroft's Justice Department refused to allow the FBI to check data in the NIC system. The FBI's goal was to determine whether any of the 1,200 or so suspected terrorists detained following the wholly avoidable attacks of September 11 tried to buy guns. Mr Ashcroft testified that as a matter of law he could not allow the NIC data to be used by the FBI investigators.

In a background briefing today, senior Justice Department and FBI officials admitted that only regulations signed by the previous Attorney General and authorized by statute prevented use of the NIC data for investigative purposes. Mr Ashcroft was free to change the regulations with a stroke of his pen. Mr Ashcroft did not share this information with the Senate during his testimony. At the background briefing, the officials indicated that changing the law or the regulations was not viewed as a vital issue. In other words, keeping guns out of the hands of the 1,200 suspected terrorists (many of whom have been released from custody) was not of vital concern to Mr Ashcroft, the Justice Department, the FBI, or the United States Government. The briefing officials did not address the issue of how much damage they thought 1,200 or so fully armed terrorists could cause. After all, 19 terrorists without guns managed to murder about 4,000 people, crash 4 jetliners, totally destroy two of the world's tallest buildings, and cause both the severe erosion of the Bill of Rights and United States allies' respect for and cooperation with the American judicial system.

At the hearing, Mr Ashcroft was not asked why he did not revoke the regulations issued by the previous Attorney General. In response to a Senatorial question as to why he was "handcuffing the FBI", Mr Ashcroft refused to support a change in the law or regulations which would take the handcuffs off the FBI in its effort to determine whether suspected terrorists tried to buy or actually bought guns. During his spirited defense of the suspected terrorists' Second Amendment rights, Mr Ashcroft did not offer an opinion about whether he favored having the 1,200 or more potentially armed terrorists form their own militia or would rather have them join established National Guard units. It was expected that in light of the use of the National Guard to protect airports and airplanes Mr Ashcroft would be asked which airports and airplanes would be protected by either independent well-regulated militia units comprised of armed terrorists or National Guard units into which armed terrorists were integrated. No Senator asked such a question.

It is thought that the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI generally travel on a government plane rather than a commercial airliner.