President 2008 Watch: Senator Dick Durbin Says Feingold Censure Resolution “Cannot Be Ruled Out”
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis)(C) confers with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)(L) and minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) in Reid’s office on Capitol Hill in Washington March 13, 2006, following Feingold’s effort to censure U.S. President George W. Bush over domestic spying. The White House on Monday dismissed as politically motivated a Democratic senator’s attempt to censure President George W. Bush for ordering domestic eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
ASSociated Press: Sen. Durbin Says Censuring Bush Premature
A top Senate Democrat said Sunday that President Bush should be held responsible if he violated the law in authorizing the domestic spy program. But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said it is too early to tell if either censure or impeachment of Bush would be appropriate.
“I can’t rule anything out until the investigation is complete. I don’t want to prejudge it,” said Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat. “But if this president or any president violates the law, he has to be held accountable.”
Durbin’s colleague, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., last week introduced censure legislation, saying Bush violated the law in not fully informing Congress or getting approval from a secretive court to conduct the eavesdropping program. A censure resolution, if adopted, would amount to Congress scolding the president.
It sounds to Flap that Senator Durbin desires a full fledged debate on Senator Feingold’s resolution. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist has promised such.
“It’s valuable that Senator Feingold is moving us forward to finally be a catalyst to have the kind of hearings and the kind of deliberations as to what lies behind this warrantless wiretap situation,” said Durbin, calling the overall inquiries so far by the Republican-controlled Senate inadequate.
“We have a responsibility to ask the hard questions, to find out what the nature of the program is and whether the president violated the law,” Durbin said.
But, Senator, if you think the NSA Surveillance program is illegal then why have you NOT filed a lawsuit against the President to stop the program? Or don’t you really know?
Flap looks forward to your support of an up or down vote on Senator Feingold’s censure resolution.
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Michael Ramirez on Feingold’s Censure Resolution FLAP
President 2008 Watch: Feingold Accuses Democrats of COWERING – “RUN and HIDEâ€in Censure Flap
President 2008 Watch: Senator Bill Frist Dares Democrats Over Feingold Effort to Censure President Bush
President 2008 Watch: Democrats Distance Themselves from Feingold’s Bush Censure FLAP
President 2008 Watch: Senator Russ Feingold Wants President Bush Censured for NSA Surveillance
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