By Grigs Crawford, CQ Staff

When North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones sat down to talk to two authors writing a play about an impeachment of President George Bush, it probably didn’t occur to him that he’d also be feeding them material for his opponent in a GOP primary. According to screenwriter Richard Lasser, he and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein held a September meeting with Jones to discuss their upcoming play, titled “I,” to find out what questions Jones would ask and how he would ask them in a trial—if Bush actually were to be impeached. Lasser thought Jones was a good choice to interview based upon Jones’ critical views of the Iraq war.

Lasser said that a lot of the dialogue from that September meeting made its way into the script and an actor will portray Jones and use his name in the play. He said that in the meeting, Jones expressed that he had felt “personally wronged and betrayed” by President Bush. And while Jones told the playwrights that he did not have plans to ever introduce an impeachment resolution himself, he said he would support such a resolution if it were to come up.

Lasser had posted comments on his “Impeachment Play” blog, which in turn, led to a story in the Raleigh News && Observer last week. On Friday, retired Army officer Joe McLaughlin, who is challenging Jones in a GOP primary, put out a press release lambasting Jones for his meeting with “impeachment activists.” In the statement, McLaughlin said Jones is “guilty of the ultimate betrayal of the people he is supposed to be representing,” by suggesting impeaching President Bush.

McLaughlin’s campaign manager, Doug Raymond, said, “this is Bush country,” referring to Jones’s heavily conservative 3rd District, where Bush received close to 70 percent of the vote in 2004. Raymond said Jones has refused to talk about his position on this issue or on “anything that’s in the least controversial.” “People here would have more respect for [Jones] if he would just go ahead and say what he thinks,” he said. “People are insulted that [Jones] thinks he can play this game with them.”

Raymond suggested that after speaking with such disdain for the President on a number of issues, Jones should go ahead and switch parties. Jones was a Democrat prior to switching parties and getting elected to Congress in 1994. Jones’s press secretary, Kathleen Joyce, refused to discuss anything regarding the meeting with the playwrights or the Congressman’s views on impeaching President Bush. When asked about the McLaughlin campaign’s press release, Jones’s campaign office in North Carolina said it has “no comment” regarding “that story.”

Lasser added that Democratic Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich has acted as his “de facto casting director,” by sending the script to a number of high-profile actors, including Sean Penn. A possible venue for the play, which Lasser hopes will be performed in January 2008, is an auditorium at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, which formerly hosted the CNN show “Crossfire.”

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We supplied impeachment materials to the office of Republican Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC), who has been critical of the Iraq war. We encouraged him to support impeachment. ImpeachForPeace

Contact Rep. Walter Jones

DC Office: Phone: 202 225-3415 .  Fax: 202 225-3286