Former Counsel to the President Writes on Impeachment

John Dean, former counsel to the president during the Nixon Administration writes a regular column for FindLaw and first mentioned the 'I' word in June 2003. In his latest column, he speaks of impeachment in terms of the latest revelations of warrantless spying on Americans:

There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons.

These parallel violations underscore the continuing, disturbing parallels between this Administration and the Nixon Administration - parallels I also discussed in a prior column.

Indeed, here, Bush may have outdone Nixon: Nixon's illegal surveillance was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope. First reports indicated that NSA was only monitoring foreign calls, originating either in the USA or abroad, and that no more than 500 calls were being covered at any given time. But later reports have suggested that NSA is "data mining" literally millions of calls - and has been given access by the telecommunications companies to "switching" stations through which foreign communications traffic flows.

Just recently, former senator, Tom Daschle, reminded us that Congress rejected Bush's call for broad spying powers within the US back in late 2001. Bush appears to have bypassed Congress, the body that makes the law in our country. It appears Bush has boundary issues.