Vincent Bugliosi talks to Matt Palevsky
Story Transcript
Prosecuting Bush
Matt Palevsky talks to Vincent Bugliosi
MATTHEW PALEVSKY, JOURNALIST, TRNN: I’m in Denver outside the Democratic National Convention, standing right in front of the big tent. I’m standing with Vincent Bugliosi of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Now, there’s been outrage for over a year now, I mean, since the Iraq War, but increasingly so, about Bush’s decision to lead us into a war on what has been shown to be largely false evidence and what people think were lies. There’s a movement to impeach him, which has seemed to go nowhere. But you think we should take a different approach. Tell us about that.
VINCENT BUGLIOSI, AUTHOR: Well, impeachment is okay, but if he were impeached and removed from office, he’d still be a free man, able to drink his cup of coffee and orange juice in the morning, speak to standing ovations among the Republican faithful, be a free man, be able to travel widely, lead a life of privilege, belong to the country club. And if in fact he’s responsible for over one million human beings currently, as I’m talking to you, in a cold grave right now decomposing, he should not be permitted to lead that type of life. Now, in this book here, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, I present evidence that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that he took this nation to war on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore, under the law, he’s guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who have died so far in Iraq.
PALEVSKY: And there’s undoubtedly outrage—you’re not the only one—over the Bush presidency and the Iraq War. But what can really be achieved by writing a book like this? Could this ever really happen? Because it sounds—.
BUGLIOSI: I testified before Congress a couple of weeks ago, and at this stage of my career I don’t have time for fanciful reveries. I never in a million years would propose a prosecution against Bush for murder if I didn’t feel there was more than enough evidence to convict him and that I was standing on strong legal ground. I’m looking right now for a courageous prosecutor out in America, ’cause I’ve established jurisdiction on a local, state, and federal level to go after this guy. This is something that could happen. Well, and you’re talking about outrage. Where is that outrage? I’m at the convention here. What has happened to the soul of the Democratic Party that they’re not at this convention raging against this guy or even talking about the monumental crime he committed? What I’ve been talking to you about right now, you could probably hear it in Malaysia or Madagascar as much as at this convention. Why? I don’t know. There’s a fear of the right wing in this country.
PALEVSKY: One of the main issues of the people trying to get Bush impeached right now is getting the secret documents, the numerous, innumerable secret documents of the administration, out in the open. We don’t know a lot of what’s happened.
BUGLIOSI: We know quite a bit already.
PALEVSKY: We do know quite a bit, but there’s much we don’t know. Could that be part of any case that ensues after the administration [inaudible]?
BUGLIOSI: Absolutely. You issue a criminal subpoena, the court does, the prosecutor gets the court to do it, and they’d have to respond. But listen, let’s talk about the documents that we already know about. When Bush spoke to the nation on the evening of October 7, 2002, Cincinnati, Ohio, he told millions of unsuspecting Americans the exact opposite of what his own CIA told him. He said that Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country. Six days earlier, the CIA told him the exact opposite, that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. Millions of Americans were deceived. And it gets worse. October 4, the Bush administration put out an unclassified summary version of the classified October 1 report. It came to be known as the White Paper. And in this White Paper, the conclusion of US intelligence that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country was completely deleted. Every single one of these all-important words was taken out. So Congress and the American people did not see that. And, by the way, a very conservative Republican congressmen who voted for the war, staunch supporter of the war, called me on June 16 in my home in LA. He heard the book on tape. He said, “Mr. Bugliosi, you’ve convinced me Bush misled Congress. I’ve bought several copies of the book, handed out to members of Congress, told them to read the book. We’ve been lied to.” And this congressman from the deep south has got a deep conscience. After the election he’s going to come forward with me, and he said, “I want to be by your side when George Bush is prosecuted for first-degree murder as a conservative Republican congressman,” ’cause he learned for the first time that this White Paper that he was given on October 4, extremely important information was deleted from it by the Bush administration. This is a very heavy book here. I only write serious books, you know. I’ve had three books got up to number one on The New York Times hardcover bestseller list.
PALEVSKY: What about international law? You talk here about prosecuting him in America. Is there any discussion about prosecuting him, bringing him to the Hague?
BUGLIOSI: No. The ICC would not have jurisdiction here. The United States was not a signatory nation to the ICC when it was formed in Rome in 2002. So the ICC does not have jurisdiction.
PALEVSKY: So just tell us, real quick, what is necessary when he leaves office? In one paragraph, who needs to step up to prosecute him? What would—.
BUGLIOSI: I don’t care if he’s in Fargo, North Dakota.
PALEVSKY: What kind of prosecutor? A state prosecutor?
BUGLIOSI: It could either be one of the 50 state prosecutors. Or you know how many DAs I found out about four or five days ago in this country? Two thousand seven hundred. Just one of them has got to have the courage to step forward and say, “Hey, this is the United States of America. No man is above the law here.” The evidence of Bush’s guilt is clear. I’ve got jurisdiction, which I’ve established in this book, and I’m going to go after this guy. And if you think that this is just a joke, that I’m just wasting my time, I don’t have time at my age—you might have time, but I don’t have time at my age to fool around with anything nonsensical. This is very, very serious. And if you think the Bush administration’s not aware of this book, they are.
PALEVSKY: We’ll be following you when he leaves office to see how it goes. Vincent Bugliosi. The book is The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.
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