Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes'

Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes'

by Nick Juliano
May 10, 2007

A former top State Department aide to Colin Powell said today that
President Bush and Vice President Cheney are more deserving of
impeachment than was Bill Clinton.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State
Colin Powell, said on the public radio program On Point Thursday that
"Bill Clinton's peccadilloes ... pale in significance" when compared
to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Bush and Cheney.

Wilkerson did not directly call on Congress to begin impeachment
hearings, and he brought up impeachment in response to a caller's
question. Early in the show, however, he observed, "This
administration doesn't know how to effect accountability, in my
opinion."

Wilkerson's comments were first reported by pro-impeachment Web site
AfterDowningStreet.org.

"The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and
precise -- it's high crimes and misdemeanors," he said. "You compare
Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George
Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or *** Cheney's high crimes and
misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."

Taking a historical view of impeachment, Wilkerson said he believed
the Founding Fathers would be surprised that more presidents had not
been impeached.

"I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you
or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in
Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have
said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some
*** out.'"Wilkerson said. "That's a form of accountability too.
It's ultimate accountability."

Asked about the high crimes of the current administration, Wilkerson
said the American public was duped into supporting a war in Iraq.

"I think we went into this war for specious reasons," he said. "I
think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into
the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the
American people and the leadership into war. That was a different time
in a different culture, in a different America. We're in a very
different place today and I think we essentially got goaded into the
war through some of the same means."
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