|
STOPPING
A POLICE STATE: Francis
A. Boyle
Excerpts
of an interview with Professor Boyle,
University
of
Illinois
, Champaign-Urbana.
The interview was conducted
April 28, 2003
in the professor’s office. The
interview is part three of a series.
Transcript:
The
Federalist Society
“Justice
Rehnquist joined the Supreme Court before the founding of the
Federalist Society, but the four colleagues that he works with in
the 5-4 majority that we’ve seen now for several years – Scalia,
Thomas, Kennedy, O’Connor have been members of the Federalist
Society, appear at their functions, and work with them -- and he
works quite closely with those four Justices…This same 5-4
majority gave the Presidency to Bush in violation of the
Constitution and a
federal statute mandating that disputed elections get decided by
Congress – the House of Representatives.
“You
have to understand the agenda of the Federalist Society is to turn
the
United States
and the federal judiciary back to before Franklin Roosevelt and the
New Deal. That is how
reactionary the Federalist Society really is.
Ashcroft is a member. His
deputy Viet Dinh, who drafted Patriot
Act I and Patriot Act II is a prominent
member. White House
counsel Gonzales is a member. His
entire staff are members.
Most of the Bush federal judiciary appointees are members of
the Federalist Society…
“You
do not have to accept my word for that.
It was Lawrence Walsh who has also said the same thing.
Judge Walsh was independent counsel in the Iran/Contra
scandal, by appointment of the Reagan administration.
He’s a life-long Republican.
He worked for Dewey in
New York
. He then became deputy
attorney general for President Eisenhower, and then a federal
district judge, president of the American Bar Association.
Judge Walsh is a conservative, as traditionally defined, and
a conservative Republican. And
even he has publicly condemned the Federalist Society for trying to
turn the federal judiciary, and this country, back beyond Franklin
Roosevelt and the New Deal. I
think that gives you an idea of how radical these ideologues really
are, and how dangerous their philosophies and practices are.
And we are seeing this now – every day – in the Bush
administration, at the White House, at the Department of Justice,
and many of the other executive offices that have been populated by
Federalist Society Lawyers.”
International
Criminal Court
“Right
now a case is being prepared in the International Criminal Court in
the Hague
against Tony Blair and British government officials because
Britain
is a party to the
Rome
statute on the International Criminal Court.
The
US
is not. President
Clinton signed it. Bush
repudiated that immediately upon coming to power [and] has done
everything humanly possible to sabotage the International Criminal
Court. And the reason is obvious.
If you are contemplating an aggressive war against
Afghanistan
, and an aggressive war against
Iraq
, you do not want an International Criminal Court looking over your
shoulder. That being
said, I believe it would be possible to include President Bush, Vice
President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, certainly Deputy
Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, Tommy Franks and the others, in the
British complaint – as aiders and
abettors, conspirators, those who are complicit.
Basically you need to establish a nexus, and the nexus would
be:
Britain
is a party [of the ICC] and Bush et al. are aiders
and abettors, facilitators, co-conspirators. They’re complicit,
they’re accomplices...”
Impeachment
“Last
October, in light of the two horrendous speeches given by Vice
President Cheney calling for a preventive war against Iraq, I set up
a national campaign to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft
– and have been working on it ever since then…a group of 10
students here set up a committee.
We have a web page. We’ve
contacted just about every member of Congress – in support of my
draft bill of impeachment. Finally,
on March 11, 2003, Congressman John Conyers, ranking member of the
House judiciary committee, that has jurisdiction over any bill of
impeachment, called for a meeting in Washington, DC to discuss
introducing a draft bill of impeachment against President Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft.
“At
the meeting were 40 to 50 of his top advisors, most of whom were
lawyers. And
Congressman Conyers invited in myself and
former Attorney General Ramsey Clark to argue the case for
impeaching them all.
“Ramsey
also set up his campaign – I believe it was
January 17, 2003
. We are working
independently of each other, but in the same direction.
For two hours, Ramsey and I did the best we could (this was
before the war started) to put in a bill of impeachment right away.
Most of the lawyers and advisors there are affiliated with
the Democratic National Committee (I’m not.
I’m a political independent.) and they seemed to take the
position that it would be politically inexpedient for the Democratic
Party to put in a bill of impeachment at this time.
I didn’t argue that point.
It’s not for me to tell the Democrats how to get their
people elected. I just
argued the merits of the issue: violations of the Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, Human Rights, the UN Charter, international law,
etc.
“Today
there is now a second, revised draft bill of impeachment sitting on
Capitol Hill. It is
there. It is in circulation. What
we need now is pressure being brought to bear on member of Congress
to put this bill in – and to make it clear that this is not a
question of political expediency, rather
this is a question of our future republic.
“With
all the faults and imperfections and defects and indeed sometimes
the crimes this republic has committed, not only here internally –
African Americans, American Indians – but externally, we are still
the oldest republic in the world – but you are going to have to
act to keep it that way. Because
Bush and Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz want to turn this
into a police state at home and an empire abroad.
So I would encourage you all, contact members of Congress.
They have to listen to their constituents.
Tell them you want that bill in right away, and that you will
support them when they put that bill in.”
[filmmakers’
notebook #56]
|
|
