Kucinich receives pro-impeachment petitions with more than 120K signatures
 Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said his push to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney is gaining support among the American people as he collected petitions with more than 100,000 signatures supporting the effort.
"I made it very clear that I was not alone," Kucinich said. "Today I am proud to see that hundreds of thousands of Americans have joined this effort."
Pro-impeachment activists circulated petitions around the country and collected signatures online, at ImpeachCheney.org. Kucinich spoke on in the Capitol beside a two-foot stack of paper bearing more than 120,000 signatures supporting Cheney's ouster.
"This is a further step along the way of catalyzing" the impeachment movement, Kucinich said at the sparsely attended press conference. There did not appear to be any reporters from mainstream media outlets at the conference in the basement of the Capitol, though a dozen or so impeachment supporters were in the audience.
"This is a national movement to save our country and our way of life."
Kucinich accused Cheney of "fabricating" intelligence and lying to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the country's ties to al Qaeda in the run-up to the 2003 US invasion.
"We know the vice president ... subverted the national security of the United States," Kucinich said, arguing that "blowback" from the Iraq invasion would expose the country to future terror attacks.
The Democratic presidential candidate did not take any questions after delivering his brief remarks, saying he had to rush off for committee votes on legislation. Impeachment activists said they would organize grassroots action to urge members of Congress to join onto Kucinich's resolution. Members will be returning to their districts at the end of this week for a month-long recess.
Kucinich introduced his Cheney impeachment resolution in April, and support for the move in Congress has been growing gradually since then, though top Democrats who control its fate seem to have no interest in advancing the legislation. The resolution has attracted 16 co-sponsors in the House.
More than 300 activists came to Capitol Hill last month to press Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin impeachment proceedings in the House, as RAW STORY previously reported. Conyers told the protesters, led by Cindy Sheehan, that there were not enough votes in the House to impeach Cheney or President Bush, so he refused to begin the proceedings.
An American Research Group poll last month found a majority of Americans -- 54 percent -- favored Cheney's impeachment.
"The Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive us about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Kucinich said in a statement released by his office Wednesday. "And he openly lied to the America people and has publicly threatened aggression against Iran."
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