The Impeachment Clock

As the Administration and the Republican Congress play cover-up over future illegal spying, the President's criminal activity over the past four years is still grounds for Impeachment. For the most recent legal analysis, see Ex-Justice Lawyer Rips Case for Spying from the Washington Post of Thursday, March 9.

David S. Kris, a former associate deputy attorney general who now works at Time Warner Inc., concludes that a National Security Agency domestic spying program is clearly covered by a 1978 law governing clandestine surveillance, according to a legal analysis and e-mails sent to current Justice officials.

Kris, who oversaw national security issues at Justice from 2000 until he left the department in 2003, also wrote that the Bush administration's contention that Congress had authorized the NSA program by approving the use of force against al-Qaeda was a "weak justification" unlikely to be supported by the courts.

Kris acknowledged in his paper that many facts about the program are not known, suggesting that he was not briefed on the NSA program despite his senior position at Justice during the first two years of its existence. But he says that many of the key arguments made by the Justice Department in favor of the program's legality do not hold up under scrutiny.

An illegal act plus a concerted effort to cover the trail equals a criminal conspiracy!