Dick Cheney Indicted
Posted on November 18th, 2008
by Daniel McCarthy |
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A Texas grand jury has indicted Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and a Lone Star state senator for crimes involving the abuse of prisoners here in the U.S. From what we hear, this concerns a practice that has been called “domestic rendition,” though it doesn’t have anything (directly) to do with the war on terror. A TAC writer has been following this story closely but wasn’t aware — until now — that Cheney and Gonzales were in the line of fire. They are.
We’ll have much more on this in days and weeks to come…
Update: Some details from CNN. Cheney’s ties to the story look, to my non-lawyerly eyes at least, pretty thin, though Cheney’s holdings in the Vanguard Group only scratch the surface of his connections to private-prison industry. We’ll see how things develop.
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Rumor has it the Bush team is going to try to claim that they’re shielded by executive privilege even after they leave office. I hope the Texas grand jury disabuses them of that notion quickly and soundly.
Now that I’ve got my normal comment out of the way, allow me to indulge my paranoid side:
Texas is one of the more Bush-friendly states left in our union. Is it possible that the Bush team has set up the most friendly scenario possible for themselves so that they can get an acquittal and then argue that any further indictments would be double jeopardy? I know very little about the law, so I could be all wet here, but past behavior seems to give this a probability higher than zero.
The news reports give us very little–how Gonzalez is implicated, other than being a generally reviled figure, is unclear. Regarding tying Cheney in to abuses at prisons run by companies he holds a stake in–I think I hear his Penguin-cackle all the way out here. Of course, they got Capone on tax evasion, you know.
“Domestic rendition” sounds like someone’s attempt to make federal detention–or ICE detention of illegal aliens–sound more sinister. In that region it might play well, tying this stuff in with Bush’s extra-constitutional excesses.
The eccentric and embattled Guerra gives off a serious Jim Garrison-vibe, TexMex style.
Buttressing my paranoid spiel from earlier:
The DA who’s running the grand jury is Democrat Juan Angel Guerra, a colorful character who just lost his re-election bid after a scandalous and controversy-filled term. On the seventh of this month, Judge Manuel Banales (a Rick Perry appointee) dropped four felony charges against him.
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/county_19679___article.html/willacy_district.html
Ten days after the charges are dropped, and a month and a half before he leaves office, Guerra’s grand jury delivers this. Is someone in the Bush camp calling in a favor? Guerra has a reputation as a horsetrader, so that’s a possibility.
This is a disgrace. This is why there is such a shortage of great leaders. They don’t want to get dragged through this kind of nonsense.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
[...] Texas Fred has more and so does The American Conservative [...]
Even a left-leaning citizen like me has to admit this case sounds awfully weak. But it also seems to have no ties to the much larger issues that could come back to haunt Cheney & Crew.
My guess is that this will be orchestrated to be laughed out of court (rightfully so) and the charges subsequently will be used to tamper down public opinion on more serious allegations later. That is, current administration members will be able to say, in effect, “See, the clowns are still trying to chase me down with their laughable charges.”
Cheney — and Gonzalez and others were indicted by a Grand Jury, not by the prosecutor.
Cheney is a lawless, Constitutional subversive, and an obvious big-oil crook. No matter what happens here, bush-liar will pardon all of his adminstration members of any crimes, perceived or real beofre January 20. But, this indictment does frost Cheney’s disgustingly corrupted career to the highest degree possible. But, bush-boy cannot pardon himself — and after he leaves office, the bet is bush will be arrested for a multitude of high crimes, most notably, murder.
Anyone read Vincent Bugliosi’s book entitled
“The Prosecution of G.W. Bush for Murder”?
He was the one who put Charles Manson and his “family”
away for life way back in 1970 for the Tate/La Bianca murders
in 1969 (a sentence they’re all still serving to this day).
He gave a two-hour retorical of his book on C-Span awhile back during which he guardedly mentioned his plans to
go foward with his plans for the same outlined in his book.
Bush won’t be completely shielded by executive privelage once he leaves office and becomes a public citizen again.
Until then he is protected by same.
It will interesting to see which way the chips fall by then….