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Conyers Demands Answers on Libby Commutation    [

    Poll: Impeachment Talk Gains Steam After Libby Move
    The Boston Herald

    Sunday 08 July 2007

    A bad week for President Bush may foreshadow a dismal political season, as the president's poll numbers plummet, Republicans abandon his Iraq policy and he faces a nascent censure and impeachment movement.

    A new survey by the American Research Group found that only 31 percent of respondents approve of the president's commutation of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence. The study by the private New Hampshire-based polling company canvassed 1,100 Republicans, Democrats and Independents from July 3-5, finding 64 percent disapproved of the commutation and 5 percent were undecided.

    The president commuted the sentence Monday, saying the 2 years imposed last month on Libby, who was found guilty of perjury and obstructing justice in a case linked to the Iraq war, was "excessive."

    The commutation has sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill.

    Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who has drafted a resolution to censure Bush, said the president's "intervention is an unconscionable abuse of authority by George W. Bush, and Congress must step forward and express the disgust that Americans rightfully feel toward this contemptible decision."

    Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has scheduled hearings Wednesday on the commutation. The hearings will include pardons made by Clinton, former President Bush and possibly other past presidents.

    Those hearings may be the least of the White House's problems.

    The ARG poll found a remarkable 45 percent in favor of the U.S. House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush.

    In Los Angeles, a storefront "impeachment headquarters" emblazoned with American flags opened July 4. Activists who gathered to open the center accuse the Bush administration of condoning torture, spying on Americans and misleading citizens about the war in Iraq. They also were angry at the president's decision to commute Libby's sentence.

    "Isn't it ironic that Paris Hilton will spend more days in jail than Libby?" said Byron De Lear, a Green Party activist.

    The White House declined to comment on the impeachment poll, the latest bad news for a president who has seen his public opinion standings dragged to record lows by the unpopular war in Iraq. A Newsweek poll puts Bush's approval rating at 26 percent.

    In the past two weeks, three Republicans - Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio and Pete Domenici of New Mexico - have announced they can no longer support Bush's Iraq war strategy and have called on the president to start reducing the military's role there.

    "I have carefully studied the Iraq situation and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward," Domenici told reporters. Domenici has embraced a bill that would put U.S. troops on track to leave by the end of March 2008.

    A spokesman for the White House, Tony Fratto, said that position amounts to the same one sought by the Democrats, "which is, in fact, a precipitous withdrawal."

    "We think that's absolutely the wrong way to go," Fratto said Friday. "It would be dangerous."

    Four other GOP senators have signed on to Salazar's legislation: Domenici, Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

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    Conyers Demands Answers on Libby Commutation
    By Chris Good
    The Hill

    Sunday 08 July 2007

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) urged President Bush Sunday to waive executive privilege and let his lawyers testify in Congress on the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence.

    "We're asking him to waive executive privilege and allow his pardon lawyers or other experts, whom it appears he did not consult, explain this in a little more detail," Conyers said.

    The lawmaker has scheduled a committee hearing for Wednesday to look into presidential powers with regard to pardons and commuting sentences.

    With regard to Libby, Conyers said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that "the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House.

    "This is why we've written the president, inviting him to do what President Clinton did, and namely to bring forward any of his pardon lawyers or anyone that can put a clear light on this and put this kind of feeling, that is fairly general, to rest," he added.

    Bush can deny the request under the constitutional authority of executive privilege, which allows a president to withhold information from Congress and the courts if providing it will obstruct the government's administrative functions. Bush has used that same authority to withhold documents from Congress in its ongoing investigation of the U.S. attorney firings.

    The White House is expected to deny Conyers' latest request for documents Monday.