Unaccountable Secret Government: Most Serious Constitutional Crisis in American History

Sherwood Ross
ANDOVER , MASS. (Sept. 13)--- President Bush’s conduct in office has precipitated a "most serious constitutional crisis," "one that has already transformed the U.S. from a constitutional republic to an elected monarchy," a noted political scientist told a conference on seeking prosecution of high Bush administration officials for war crimes. "We need to revers[e] a fifty-year trend towards unaccountable secret government, which can commit crimes with impunity," said Professor Christopher Pyle of Mount Holyoke College.

"Sending a clear signal to future Cabinet-level officials that ours is still a government under law, and that they had better obey the criminal law, no matter what their president and his legal lackeys say," is a matter of overwhelming importance, said Pyle.

Pyle spoke to 120 academics, constitutional scholars, public officials and political activists gathered in Andover , MA for the Justice Robert H. Jackson Conference on Planning For the Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals. Attendees were in consensus agreement that overwhelming evidence exists to bring legal actions against President Bush and other top members of his administration.

The consensus of attendees is President Bush’s attack on Iraq is a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and that he is culpable for this as well as for torture and abuse of war prisoners held by the U.S. military and the CIA.

Pyle said ideally the Justice Department should bring charges against Bush "if only to restore its integrity" (although many thought the DOJ unlikely to act because of its own culpability and partisanship). But there is nothing to "preclude the appointment of a non-partisan prosecutor with considerable independence, much as Attorney General Elliot Richardson did when he chose Archibald Cox to lead the Watergate team."

A special prosecutor could be chosen by the next Attorney General from among any number of "distinguished Republican attorneys," Pyle said. He added that if Congress and the Justice Department fail to act, state attorney generals might take action and that if no U.S. officials acted "the way is open for foreign trials."

Even if the next president and two-thirds of the Senate "do not ratify the Rome Statute and submit to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," said Pyle, "the next president could revoke the non-extradition agreements that John Bolton negotiated and allow the Justice Department to facilitate extradition proceedings on behalf of any European court with universal jurisdiction over war crimes.".

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