In 2006, Nancy Pelosi, eager to become Speaker of the House, made a terrible promise: “Impeachment is off the table,” she said.

The signal could not have been more clear to George W. Bush: It didn’t matter what he did. He would not be held accountable to the law. Since that time, George W. Bush has acted as if Congress had no authority other than to pass laws - no oversight, and no investigation.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke before the House of Representatives yesterday, reminding the body of the consequences of allowing a President to be unaccountable to Congress:

“When the leadership of this House said back in October of 2006 that impeachment is off the table, what they did is they set the stage for the administration ignoring the subpoenas of the Congress for information. Once the administration understood that they did not have to comply with the law and that Congress essentially took away the one power that Congress has to compel the administration to respect Congress as a coequal branch of government, once that was taken away, the administration basically just decided it wasn’t going to appear in front of Congress to answer questions, they wouldn’t produce documents or papers that were relevant to congressional investigations.

Congress is a coequal branch of government. It is urgent that we reestablish our coequality, that we create conditions of a check and balance of administrative abuse of power. This isn’t a Republican matter, it is not a Democratic matter, it is a matter for our country. We need to have the Congress be strong. We need to hold this administration accountable.”