Where is the accountability?

[laurion]

Came across http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4056228.html today.

So if the Justice Department is investigating Bush (ok, not him per se, but certainly his administration, and possibly him as part of it), and he has the power to deny access to the investigators, who has the power to hold him accountable? And I bring this up not only because I question our current president regularly, but because what's to stop any president from doing this, regardless of ideology?

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Comments

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Well, there's impeachment. No, wait, that's only used for blow jobs.

There is the legislative or judicial processes. No, wait...

Last week, Specter [Administration Bitch-PA] and the administration agreed on a proposal that would allow Bush to submit the program to the government's secret terrorism and intelligence court for review of its legality.

*snort* If by, "proposal" you mean "capitulation". What is not said is that the "proposal" would consolidate all of the pending lawsuits currently against the administration with respect to this program into one big case that could be but need not be submitted to the FISA court. (And whose decision would that be? One guess.)

The only way to slow, if not stop it, is the light of day, via the fourth estate, and the willingness of his enablers to stop and say, no, you actually can't do that Mr. President. Hard to say whether it will happen or not but Specter's "proposal" is getting some flack on the Hill right now so it may not sail through.

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

Well, in principle, he's not supposed to be able to do that. Of course, I'm reasonably sure that there's nothing in the Constitution that says he's got the power to classify anything secret, either.

In theory, Congress is supposed to be able to compel his compliance to their laws, and the courts are supposed to be able to require that he, and his administration in general, submit documents under subpeona.

Trouble is, the Congress is also Republican and not particularly interested in reining him in, and the courts, at best, take a long time. The fact that the past 3 Republican presidents (Bush the current included) have been padding the courts with right-wing idealogues doesn't help...