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doing. This really sucks for those of us who are FOR censure AND supporting the growing impeachment case.
Snip...
QUESTION: Senator, this resolution, if it were passed, would
have no legal effect.
FEINGOLD: No.
QUESTION: So the only thing that would affect the NSA program,
if it's illegal, is to cut off the funding? You don't support that,
do you?
FEINGOLD: Well, there are several things that could affect the
program. First of all, one would hope, if this passes, that the
president would acknowledge what Congress has said and would bring the
program within FISA, which is what he should do.
Another approach, of course, is the legal system, is hoping that
we could get some kind of a court order and a response in the legal
system ordering the president to come within the law.
So I don't think that necessarily the idea of cutting off funding
-- even cutting off funding, how are you going to enforce that? If
the president has inherent power, he'll just shift some money around.
He'll just keep doing it. I mean, that's the problem with this
doctrine. If the president isn't going to acknowledge that a law we
passed, such as FISA, binds him, why should the cutting off of funding
affect him?
QUESTION: Senator, for those who are your critics who would
liken this or they talk about your central resolution in the same
breath that they talk about impeachment, and just say this is nothing
but one step ahead of impeachment. How do you counter that,
especially when they're using it as a weapon before the midterms to
say: The Democrats get in power, you're going to see impeachment.
FEINGOLD: Clearly, I chose to pursue censure rather than
impeachment, certainly at this point, because I believe at this point
it's a way to help us positively resolve this issue.
In other words, without getting the country in the middle of a
huge problem, like we had with the attempted Clinton impeachment, we
have a passing of a resolution of censure, and hopefully the president
would acknowledge it and say that he maybe went too far, and we would
be able to move forward and stop worrying about this and get a pledge
from the president that he's going to come within the law or make
proposals to change the law to allow it.
I think this actually is in the area of an impeachable offense.
I think it is right in the strike zone of what the founding fathers
thought about when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.
But the Constitution does not require us to go down that road,
and I hope that in a sense I'm a voice of moderation on this point,
where I'm saying it may not be good for the country to do this, it may
not be good for the country in a time of war to try to remove the
president from office, even though he's surely done something wrong.
But what we can't do is just ignore the wrongful conduct. So
this is a reasonable road. And anybody who argues this is a sort of
prelude to impeachment forgets the history of the Clinton impeachment,
where censure was offered by some, especially Democrats. Senator
Feinstein offered a censure resolution of President Clinton after the
impeachment trial as an alternative because impeachment was regarded
by many as too drastic of a step.
Snip...
QUESTION: Do you see any chance whatsoever that your resolution
would be passed by this Republican Senate?
FEINGOLD: I'd be pretty surprised. But this president,
presumably, will be president for several years. And it is very
possible that others will later on control the Congress. And this is
something that could be examined at different points.
If the president changes course and indicates that he understands
that this was not lawful and that he should not have done it, then it
becomes less important.
But if he continues to assert not only this but other extreme
executive power doctrines, it will continue to be important to push
back and to ask the president to return to the law.
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