Dems Release Report Alleging White House Lawbreaking

By Justin Rood

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have released the final version of their report, "Constitution in Crisis," which details the many broken laws, misstatements and missteps they allege the Bush administration to have made. You can find it here.

We reported Monday on a draft summary of the document written by the top Judiciary Dem, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).

Earlier this week I had a chance to talk with Conyers about why he produced the report.

"We could get no response from the president" about their concerns over pre-war intelligence and the march to war in Iraq, he said. "Then we tried to get hearings in the Judiciary Committee," which met with a "no way" response, according to Conyers.

"We said, 'look, we'll do it ourselves'" -- compile a document that lists every instance of alleged wrongdong by the Bush administration's handling of intelligence, the war in Iraq, and retaliation against those who tried to speak out about it. "Every sentence, every allegation, every accusation that we have in this 371-page report has a citation or a reference to it of where we got it," Conyers explained, with a hint of pride at his staff's work.

"We're not trying to play Department of Justice or prosecutor. We're trying to put [these charges] on the record before too much other history blurs this," Conyers told me. "[We are] making sure that what we see as at least a couple dozen violations of federal statute do not go unnoticed. . . . We're trying to make sure that we have the fullest record of this, so that this won't be the work of industrious historians ten years from now."

If the Democrats take back the House, would this lead to impeachment?

"There's no way I can predict whether there will ultimately be an impeachment proceeding underway or not," Conyers replied. But with three months to go until the midterm elections, "to be putting together a list, an agenda for the Judiciary Committee. . . smacks me as being a little. . ." he didn't finish the sentence.