Impeach Obama

Please take a moment to send a letter to the chairmen of the House Judicary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith, asking him to begin Impeachment proceedings against President Obama.

We provide the letter below as a template that may be useful in drafting your own personalized message.

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Subject:

Your Letter:

Dear Chairman Smith,

In little more than two years President Barack Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution by:

1) Ordering military attacks on sovereign nations without Congressional authorization.

2) Issuing Executive Orders for the extra-judicial assassination of U.S. citizens in violation of guarantees of due process.

3) Presiding over military, paramilitary and intelligence service use of torture in violation of prohibitions against cruel & unusual treatment.

4) Ordering and attempting to assassinate foreign heads of state.

5) Obstructing justice by failing or refusing to investigate credible allegations of torture brought against the previous administration.

President Obama represents a long line of Presidents who have taken extraordinary liberty in ignoring the limits the Constitution places on military action. As you are keenly aware, the power to declare war rests solely with Congress. Yet despite the trillions of dollars the United States has spent prosecuting military actions since World War II, not one of those actions was legally authorized per the mandates of the Constitution.Mr. Obama has secretly deployed U.S. special forces in over 75 countries worldwide.

Regrettably, the items listed above comprise a compelling argument for impeaching President Obama. The first four items above apply to Mr. Obama himself, with substantial supporting evidence, while the last applies to alleged crimes that occurred during the presidency of George W. Bush that Mr. Obama has neglected prosecuting.

The founders understood the need to disburse concentrated power and divided layers of restrictions on power between the three branches of government. A review of U.S. military engagements since WWII shows that every president since FDR has exceeded their Constitutional mandates—with Congress' unofficial cooperation. But Presidents Bush and Obama went far beyond their predecessors with Obama's excesses even worse than Mr. Bush's.

Mr. Obama's unprovoked assault on Libya is where a line needs to be drawn to constrain executive overreach. As the founders understood: give  presidents an inch and they will take a mile.

Congress is not without blame. By appropriating astronomical amounts of money to the so-called 'war on terror'—approaching 4 trillion dollars since the September 11th attacks—Congress has put the cost of executive overreach on the American public's credit card without taking the responsibility of declaring war. Congress has been astute in grandstanding, maneuvering and laying blame, but short on officially declaring itself on matters of life and death.

Last month Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department's review of over 100 previously dismissed claims of U.S. torture of detainees had yeilded but two cases meriting a full investigation. Everyone else, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenant—the high level officials who ordered the torture—go Scott Free.

The United Nations, General Barry McCaffrey, Human Rights Watch and many others have all documented U.S. torture. General Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib said: "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Mr. Holder says it is time to move forward, not look backward. But people cannot be tried for crimes they may commit. It is only possible to try people for crimes they did commit. So the Attorney General's position is not only nonsensical, it constitutes obstruction of justice.

Congress has been negligent in its oversight role for far too long. Our forebears understood the perils of concentrated power in an imperial presidency. Congress must send a strong message to President Obama, President Bush, all the presidents who come after them—and especially to the American people whose consent is the ultimate source of the government's power—that the days of Congress looking the other way while imperial presidents shred the Constitution are over.

I urge you to convene impeachment proceedings against President Obama and any and all other civil officers who participated in the alleged high crimes of this administration.

Very truly yours,

Lamar Smith

US Judiciary Committee