[Dialogue] Statement by Elizabeth Holtzman on Granting Immunity to President Bush Under the Military Tribunals Law

[Harry Wainwright]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 17, 2006
3:07 PM

CONTACT: Elizabeth Holtzman
Stephen Kent for The Hon. Elizabeth Holtzman
845-758-0097, or skent at kentcom.com

Statement by Elizabeth Holtzman on Granting Immunity to President Bush Under
the Military Tribunals Law

NEW YORK - October 17 - The following is a statement by The Hon. Elizabeth
Holtzman about President Bush signing the military tribunals bill into law
today. The new law not only guts detainee protections of the War Crimes Act
and Geneva Conventions, but perhaps most significantly and least well known,
grants a stealth pardon for President Bush and high cabinet officials by
quietly conferring on them immunity from prosecution for detainee abuse
crimes like the ones committed at Abu Ghraib, retroactive to 9/11/01. 

Holtzman is a former four-term Congresswoman from New York who served on the
House Judiciary Committee during Nixon's impeachment. She co-authored the
1973 special prosecutor statute, and has co-written a new book (with Cynthia
L. Cooper) analyzing illegal, unconstitutional and/or impeachable actions of
the current administration, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush" (
http://www.impeachbushbook.com <http://www.impeachbushbook.com/>   ). Her
recent op-ed analyzing under the new military tribunals law grant of
immunity to President Bush is posted here. 

----- 

Statement by Elizabeth Holtzman on Granting Immunity to President Bush Under
the Military Tribunals Law 

"Today will go down in the annals of infamy. By signing the military
tribunals bill into law, President Bush has taken this country down a long
dark road of shame. 

"The bill countenances abuse of detainees in defiance of the Geneva
Conventions and the country's past moral values and it suspends habeas
corpus in defiance of the constitution. As bad as these features is the
bill's grant of a pardon to President Bush and his top Cabinet officials for
any crimes they may have committed under the War Crimes Act of 1996. 

"When a president violates the country's criminal laws and then gets a
secret grant of immunity for those crimes, he makes a mockery of the rule of
law. Then all lawlessness is permissible. 

"This provision in the bill creates a culture of impunity for torture and
abuse of detainees. It was slipped into the bill in secret, without hearings
or debate. Most members of Congress, most reporters and most Americans have
no idea that this has happened. 

"By doing this the President has stuck a horrific blow at our basic
democratic values and our constitutional system. 

"Instead of pardoning himself with the complicity of Congress, the President
should be making public what acts of prisoner abuse he authorized the CIA to
undertake or what acts of theirs he ratified." 

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