Constitutional attorney, voting rights advocate targeted by Right for support of Bush impeachment...even though he also supported impeachment of Clinton...
By Brad Friedman on 5/20/2010, 5:47pm PT  

Taking a page from the successful hit campaign the Republican right ran against former White House Green Jobs Advisor Van Jones, one of rightwing activist Andrew Breitbart's website's "Andrew Breitbart Presents...Big Journalism," is now attempting to use a McCarthy-like guilt-by-association smear against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

But my own 2005 interview with their latest target kinda blows the very basis for their entire attempted High-Tech Lynching/Conspiracy Theory....

This time, the bizarre --- and ill-researched --- claim against the Democratic President's nominee to the High Court is that she has made political contributions to Democrats. Not just any Democrats, mind you, but, as Breitbart's blogger Morgen Richmond informs us in his scoop today --- which, he notes twice, "every media outlet has either failed to report, or missed" --- Kagan made a "maximum ($500) contribution" to noted Constitutional attorney, author, voting rights advocate, and former Democratic candidate for Massachusetts' Secretary of State, John Bonifaz.

Richmond describes Bonifaz, who is now the Legal Director of the non-partisan election integrity advocacy organization VoterAction.org, as well as the author of 2003's Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush as being "about as far left as you can get before joining the Bernie Sanders fan club."

The far Right blogger goes on to detail five points which he believes underscores Bonifaz' "left"-ness, including his founding of the National Voting Rights Institute in 1994; his co-founding of AfterDowningStreet.org (a non-partisan website created original to demand accountability following British evidence suggested Bush had lied to Congress about the case for WMD in Iraq); his former board membership of Progressive Democrats of America ("whose platform includes ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," warns Richmond!); and, of course, his support of the impeachment of George W. Bush.

Setting aside the fact that the Right's favored "Tea Party candidate" Dr. Rand Paul, KY's GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate, also supports "ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," it seems Richmond left out one important point on the record of the "about as far left as you can get" John Bonifaz --- he supported both the impeach and conviction of President Bill Clinton too!

In 2005, I interviewed Bonifaz live on my weekend radio show, and asked him about those who might suggest he was simply out to find something, anything, to use against Bush. (Audio and transcript of the 6/4/05 interview below.)

"Well the first thing I would say," Bonifaz responded immediately, "is that people should know that I supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton."

Describing his belief in the "need to be consistent on this," Bonifaz went on to say that he also "supported his conviction in the Senate" because, he says, Clinton "committed perjury in a federal court proceeding."

"I'm not interested in having people impeached over their private affairs," Bonifaz said at the time, "but this was a matter that had become a federal court proceeding and he committed perjury."

"However...Nothing comes close to the potential high crimes that President George W. Bush committed. No one died in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Here we have tens of thousands of people killed as a result of [Bush's] possible high crimes."

"The Constitution requires that no one is above the law," said Bonifaz, "including the President of the United States, and when President Clinton broke a law with respect to perjury matters he should have been impeached as he was."

What a Lefty!

Richmond's attempted high-tech lynching goes on to describe Bonifaz as "far out of the political mainstream" and says he was a "far-left, fringe candidate and Kagan supported him."

The tremendous exclusive then goes on to detail the Vast Leftwing Conspiracy which, once again, Breitbart's (absurdly named) "Big Journalism" website has been able to uncover:

Now, one campaign contribution is not much of a basis to draw any conclusions, and campaign contributions in general are really outside the realm of what is evaluated and discussed during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. But I do find it interesting that this donation was not reported by any of the other media outlets that covered this, in spite of the fact that it is a matter of public record. ... Was this an inadvertent omission, or a conscious decision to sweep this under the rug given that it could prove to be a minor embarrassment for Kagan and the White House?

You be the judge.

Okay, we'll be the judge. Andrew Breitbart has whiffed again. And "reporter" Morgen Richmond could "prove to be a minor embarrassment for" him, if only the shameless Breitbart had the capacity to be embarrassed by anything.

[Full Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us, which has paid for the server used to host the AfterDowningStreet.org website, and we have worked with Bonifiaz on a number of election integrity related campaigns over the years. He declined to comment for this article.]

* * *

The audio and transcript from my January 4th, 2005 radio interview with Bonifaz, in regard to the impeachment of Bill Cllinton, follows...

Download MP3 download or listen below [Appx. 2 mins]...

From The BRAD SHOW interview with John Bonifaz
June 6, 2005

BRAD FRIEDMAN: How would you answer critics who would suggest that you and others --- and I suppose "others" would include guys like me --- are hammering on these Downing Street Memos basically trying to find something, anything, to use to get at Bush? I mean, didn't we see this during the Clinton years? Didn't we see these guys, these Republicans, they were trying to find anything they could, they couldn't vote him out of office, so they, ya know, kept working until they could impeach him. How would you answer folks who would suggest that you, and I guess me, are doing that same thing?

JOHN BONIFAZ: Well the first thing I would say is that people should know that I supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton...

FRIEDMAN: You supported...I'm gonna repeat that because people are still having trouble hearing you. You supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

BONIFAZ: I did. And the reason why I did was because he committed perjury in a federal court proceeding. I'm not interested in having people impeached over their private affairs, but this was a matter that had become a federal court proceeding and he committed perjury.

However, nothing comes close..Nothing comes close to the potential high crimes that President George W. Bush committed. No one died in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Here we have tens of thousands of people killed as a result of these possible high crimes.

But yes, I supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and I think we need to be consistent on this. The Constitution requires that no one is above the law, including the President of the United States, and when President Clinton broke a law with respect to perjury matters he should have been impeached as he was. And frankly, I supported his conviction in the Senate. He wasn't convicted as we know.

So I'm willing to be consistent on this, and I do believe that this President needs to face this accountability. If he lied to the United States Congress and to the American people, he ought to face impeachment, he ought to be convicted of it.

Share article...