Sam Husseini: You said that there are no grounds for impeachment against Donald Trump, but legal scholars from Catherine Ross at GW to Laurence Tribe at Harvard say there is. Laurence Tribe recently said, ‘Congress cannot give consent to a President’s violation of the domestic emoluments clause.’ Are you not giving such consent?
Nancy Pelosi: “We have to — the case is being made about the emoluments, and you have to have evidence, and the rest, but the case has not fully been made.
“The fact is, is that when I was Speaker, after we won in ’06, and in ’07 people wanted me to impeach President Bush because the war in Iraq. But there’s a big — I’ve never recovered with the left on this subject for not impeaching President Bush because of the war in Iraq. Well, you don’t impeach somebody because you don’t like their policies. When they break the law, that’s when you have grounds for impeachment. And at the time of the war I said, as a top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee: ‘The intelligence does not support the threat,’ and so did Senator Bob Graham.
“But the administration was making this strong case with the American people, and perhaps misrepresenting [to] the American people could be cause for impeachment. If so, there’s plenty of grounds right now with the current President, but it just, just isn’t the case. That doesn’t mean nobody’s listening to cases that are being made in a very scientific, methodical way, as to whether there are grounds for impeachment. But the fact is, is that many of, we’re trying to unite the country, and many of the president’s supporters are just not ready to accept the fact that their judgment might not have been so great in voting for him, and by the time the case is made perhaps they’ll be ready to accept that. It’s very hard, impeachment. It’s very hard.
***
Sam Husseini: You voted for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, claiming Iraq was vigorously pursuing nuclear weapons. Do you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons?[another question directed at Nancy Pelosi] …
SH: Senator Schumer — on Israel’s nukes — do you acknowledge —
Chuck Schumer: I didn’t get your question.
SH: Do you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?
CS: I’m not — you can — go read the newspapers about that. [walks away from podium]
SH: You can’t acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?
CS: It is a well known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Israeli government doesn’t officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where, etc.
SH: Should the U.S. government be forthright?
CS: Ok, that’s it.
Jeff Ballou (National Press Club President, news editor at Al Jazeera): Ok, we’ll move on.
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There are a number of problems with Schumer’s response.
Roger Mattson, author of Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel notes: “First Schumer tried to duck the question, then, trying to be forthright, he went further than anyone of his stature has gone before, at least to my knowledge. Too bad the moderator did not realize you were plowing new ground, or maybe he did realize that and cut [it] off intentionally.”
Another is that Israel does not simply not “officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where” — it refuses to acknowledge that they exist at all. This has been echoed by U.S. administration after U.S. administration which have refused to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal. See: The Absurd U.S. Stance on Israel’s Nukes: A Video Sampling of Denial.”
Grant Smith of Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy has noted: “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities’ forbids stating what 63.9 percent of Americans already know — that Israel has a nuclear arsenal.” See: “Israel Silently Lapping Field in “Mideast Nuclear Arms Race”
Smith suggests: “So a final question would be: ‘Since aid to non-NNPT countries is subject to the Arms Export Control Act sanctions, why do you keep passing it?'”
More coming on this issue.
