Thinkprogress:
Appearing on CNN's State of the Union this morning, Center for American Progress Action Fund President and CEO John Podesta called on Congress to commence impeachment hearings against Jay Bybee, should he decide not to voluntarily resign his seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Podesta said:
The one thing I disagree with you and David [Gergen] about is I do think there's a distinction between going back and prosecuting in criminal courts the actors who were involved in these memos and letting Judge Bybee continue to sit on a court one step removed from the Supreme Court. He's acting and listening to cases, making judgments of others, and we know he authorized things that were illegal under U.S. law and violated the U.S. obligations under international treaties.
If he would do the right thing, he should just simply resign. If he doesn't, I think this is one matter where he continues to sit -- he doesn't have the moral or legal authority to continue to do that. And I think a simple matter would be to remove him from office.
Podesta added that he suspects the White House doesn't agree with the call for impeaching Bybee. The other panelists -- David Gergen and former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein -- disagreed with the call for impeachment.
Also, Podesta delivered a letter this morning to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), laying out the case for impeaching Bybee.
The letter (pdf) informed Conyers that ThinkProgress has collected nearly 20,000 signatures from concerned citizens "who have expressed their deep-felt and sincere desire to see that Judge Bybee is held to account for authorizing torture." Podesta's letter affixed the names of everyone who signed our petition calling on Congress to begin impeachment hearings against Bybee. (It required 71 three-column double-sided pages.)
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