EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- As Death Toll Rises Beyond 500, Garment Factory Disaster 'Worst in World History'
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Pregnant Anti-War Soldier Sent to Prison
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- After Boston, Eyes-Wide Open Hope?
- Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free
Popular content
Today's Top News
Justice Dept. Investigators Say No Criminal Prosecutions, Just 'Disciplinary Actions'
As The New York Times put it, the investigators “concluded that the authors committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted.” The report is still subject to review by Attorney General Eric Holder and can still be amended. And, as The Washington Post reports, “Former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften” the (already apparently very soft) report. While disbarment of any of the lawyers in question would be significant, it is by no means a replacement for a criminal prosecution.
Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights responded sharply to the news. “We represent people who were tortured as a result of these criminal policies: calling what was done to them a mere ‘lapse in judgment’ is outrageous,” Warren said. “Government officials broke laws and then tried to create legal justifications for breaking the law—since when do we decide whether to prosecute crimes based on political expediency?”
According to the Times:
The draft report is described as very detailed, tracing e-mail messages between Justice Department lawyers and officials at the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. Among the questions it is expected to consider is whether the memos reflected the lawyers’ independent judgments of the limits of the federal anti-torture statute or were skewed deliberately to justify what the C.I.A. proposed.
The report was supposed to have been completed months ago, but was “delayed late last year, when then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy asked investigators to allow the lawyers a chance to respond to their findings,” according to the AP. “Investigators also shared a draft copy with the CIA to review whether the findings contained any classified information… the CIA then requested to comment on the report.”
The Post also reveals that early this year before Bush left office, Mukasey and then-Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip “wrote a 14-page letter to counterbalance the draft report. They described the context surrounding the origins of the memos, which were written at a time when government officials feared another terrorist strike on American soil:”
Both Mukasey and Filip were dissatisfied with the quality of the legal analysis in the wide-ranging draft report, sources said. Among other things, the draft report cited lengthy passages from a 2004 CIA inspector general investigation and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the questioning techniques, which sources characterized as far afield from the narrow legal questions surrounding the lawyers’ activities. The letter from Mukasey and Filip has not been publicly released, but it may emerge when the investigative report is issued.
One of the key Senators monitoring the progress of the Justice Department report, Richard Durbin, said, “It’s time to get to the bottom of the conduct of some of the key players… . It’s a question of responsibility. In this chain of command, how far up did it go?” However, Durbin, according to the Post believes it is “premature to call for a special prosecutor or the impeachment of Bybee.” Powerful Democratic Senators, including Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein, have called for closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. Feinstein asked Obama not to take any action for 6-8 months.
In contrast to Durbin’s remarks, in an interview Tuesday on Democracy Now!, Senator Russ Feingold said, he was “very open” to signing on to a letter from Rep. John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. “I want to see the letter,” he said. “That is one of the options that I agree with. I potentially agree with prosecutions. I agree with the idea of the truth commission. And I potentially would support a special prosecutor.” The CCR, ACLU and over 120 other organizations have called for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
73 Comments so far
Show AllIt still boils down to Rule of Law or Dictatorship.
Dictators have always used national emergency as the excuse to seize power.
From where I sit Obama is even more imperious than bush, just a bit more subtle about it.
And please, defending O by saying he is better than bush or McPain, is like saying lung cancer is better than lymphatic cancer.
..
same ol same oil,-----they select so we may elect. the powers that be [tptb] put in the right salesman, for endless wars, and the american globocop.
>>
From where I sit Obama is even more imperious than bush, just a bit more subtle about it.
<<
Can you imagine the crap Bush would have pulled had he been a bit more well-spoken? I think we are going to find out over the next few years.
Maybe we should formally apologize to Japan and Germany for prosecuting their people for implementing "enhanced interrogation techniques". They were at war, and were "just following orders" after reading the "memos" given to them on how far they could go. What hypocrisy!
Special Prosecutor? Vincent Bugliosi is willing to take on the assignment. John Dean, Michael Ratner, and others would probably assist in bringing these war criminals to trial.
What's the latest from Bugliosi? I can't seem to find anything recent. Did THEY get to him?
No, they didn't get to him. He's waiting for an honest politician to initiate an action.
Last I heard, he was waiting for some backing through some states AGs.
If he's waiting for an honest politician, that particular hope is dead!
re; --"waiting for an honest politician "---zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsss
My father always told me that the definition of an honest politician is one who stays bought!
could be a long wait, the next iceage may come before the next honest politician does
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
There is no combination of words profane enough to capture my true feelings here, but suffice it to say, we are now well and truly fucked.
"we are now well and truly fucked."
We always have been.
'Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.' - Pete Townsend
No.....we do not have the same old boss......we have a boss who sees the forest and not just the trees. It is unfortunate that you cannot do the same. This whole matter is far from over.
Violence begets Violence! That's what I see in the forest!
And who should be help repsonsible for the death of innocent civilians in Pakistan?
Congress has not declared war on Pakistan; where is the legal justification for murder?
The US has the opportunity for partial redemption... It will be squandered by yet another amoral president.
Congress has not declared war on anyone since WWII. We haven't been to war since then.
On Maddow, last night, Isikoff...Newsweek....said this report was only from the ethics branch of the DOJ, not the criminal division. Can anyone out there verify this?
Ethics department or not, torture MUST be prosecuted. AND WHAT ABOUT THE 2500 CHILDREN whom the pig Bush authorized to be tortured in Afghanistan and Iraq?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22529.htm
If we allow this all to pass, with simply a slap on the wrist, not a soul...not one of us ever again has the priviledge of complaining. We MAY ONLY HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME FOR ABANDONING THE INNOCENT CHILDREN OF THE WORLD TO THE LIKES OF BUSH AND HIS CABAL.
Yes, this is more comedy from the land of the "free".
An investigation, started by the Bush justice dept., is going to find that the Bush justice dept. should not be investigated for war crimes.
Obama's team will instead recommend that local bar associations look to see if the Justice Dept. lawyers, some of whom now sit as judges and university lecturers, need to be scolded for having made "mistakes" in exercising their judgement.
Writing "legal memos" that instruct torturers to carry out actions that led to the killing of over a hundred prisoners in offshore prisons is a mere "mistake"?
What a bunch of buffoons you have got running the place.
"Too big to fail" = "Too big to Jail."
the spineless dems will not throw themselves under the bus. they were complicit and carried the water for the shrub/vader cabal.
You gotta love this Obama DOJ. First they drop the charges against two Israeli spies, their American counterpart is serving 12 years. Now they drop prosecution.
Change Bush can believe in.
'Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.' - Pete Townsend
When I told people before the last election that the Deomocritters were the problem not the solution they all poo pooed me. I explained that the dems keep the republican party viable. I told them nothing "real" would change under Oh'Bumma. Now I can say I was right, all though is wish i were wrong. We don't need no stinking justice in Amerikka! Right Mr. Persident? When people take to teh streets and the riots start and the city streets get bocked and shutdown we will see the beginning of real change. Nothing in this Nation has changed without people taking to the streets. Check your history. NONE!
It's never been said any clearer. Any suggestions?..If not, I'll be in hell with you. We have allowed CHILDREN to be tortured in our name and still sit on our asses. Would this happen in South America? No!..They would be in the streets with their asses on the line.
I second angryoldman. You are correct, my friend.
But what will it take to get the people out in the streets? Perhaps, no health care, no jobs, or jobs without decent wages, or a good benefit package, and a guaranteed pension which you could live on.
But for the Wall Street class of shysters, swindlers and shylocks, and the death and destruction industry, based at the Pentagon, the sky is the limit.
I didn't vote for Obama either, and actually campaigned against him. Nor did I vote for my collaborating Dem Representative
this time.
You saw what happened in D.C. yesterday with Code Pink and the nurses. Those women have more courage and integrity than the "male rodents" in Congress of both the major parties.
IF enough people "hope" for progressive "change," they'll stop voting for the R's and D's.
Join us in the Green Party. Don't be fooled again about third parties not being able to win.
So if I go up and kidnap someone off the street and torture them i would get prosecuted for it...but if I have offical government status and use national security as a backdrop for that same thing, i get a 'get out of jail free' card. What the hell is wrong with this country!?!
If the legal classes were any less corrupt than the political classes, these shyster mouthpiece bastards would be disbarred forthwith. If society were just, these newly disbarred shyster mouthpiece bastards would next be seen working at a car wash or, if they were really really lucky, might become baristas at Starbucks or Peets. Of course, if society were just, this would never have happened to begin with.
Same old whitewash - probably some blathering about investigations into the policy of torture (yes, to everlasting disgrace, torture was a policy) being too much for the American public to handle right now....blah..blah...blah...
FWIW, here's Glenn Greenwald's take (from a comment at his Salon blog, not the article posted on Salon and CD):
"That report has nothing to do with Democrats. It's from the Office of Professional Responsibility, staffed by career DOJ lawyers, and it's the by-product of an investigation begun and virtually completed under the Bush administration.
Though it hasn't been released yet, it apparently concluded that John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- at least -- engaged in wrongdoing when writing the torture memos sufficient to justify misconduct proceedings by their bars that license them to practice law. Though it does apparently conclude that prosecutions are not warranted, that conclusion is not in any way binding on Holder, and the finding itself ought to substantially help the pro-prosecution argument, since it guts a major defense of those who oppose prosecutions: that these lawyers wrote good faith legal opinions legalizing these actions."
-- GlennGreenwald
· Yr Obd't Servant
"the finding itself ought to substantially help the pro-prosecution argument"
"ought to" is critical in this passage. I like your take on it, it may weaken the good faith route, but why am I getting the sense that this report will be used to argue that the verdict on this is now in, and to argue against criminal accountability?
Perhaps because of Obama's response to those who criticized him when he started appointing Clintonites and Bushies to his Cabinet. He said something like "First and foremost, as President I will decide the overall direction for our policies ...". I don't recall the exact quote, but his point was that he would be the one making the important decisions, so we could all stop worrying and rest easy.
Glenn Greenwald gives us some very valuable insights here, as well as perspective. Note, too (as Scahill's article reports) that the Gonzales/Mukasey Justice Department initiated this whole investigation. It was done by career DOJ ethics division attorneys, but with the political appointees at the top no doubt believing they could control its course, findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
Clearly, when the first draft surfaced - after the 2008 election but before Obama was sworn in - Mukasey went into major damage control mode for the Bushies. He writes some sort of multi-page counterargument, critiquing his own professional staff. This document is sort of like that top secret CIA report Dick Cheney keeps babbling about (you know, the one listing about fourteen domestic terrorist attacks that were averted in the last seven years of Bush's presidency, attacks that otherwise would have taken thousands of innocent lives but for information gained through the use of torture). Mukasey's letter is a talking points script for defense of the lawyer torture enablers.
Furthermore, before anything is finalized or disclosed publicly, the ethics division draft report gets circulated for critique and comment to (who could have guessed it!) the primary targets of the probe - Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury - no doubt as a matter of professional courtesy. Two of the three suspects supposedly still wind up recommended for formal bar association grievance commission investigation.
It's all supposed to be so hush-hush. But the ship of state is leaking like a sieve. Who wants to bet that the federal Court of Appeals Judge (Bybee) is the public servant least likely to face professional disciplinary scrutiny once the partisan dust finally settles, and all is said and done?
Anyway, I see this whole dynamic as yet further evidence that under the Bush/Cheney regime, the Department of Justice got corrupted from the very top down.
If a Mafia don's lawyer writes the Godfather a formal opinion letter saying a proposed contract hit on a mob rival is actually not murder at all, but rather is some sort of "enhanced ballistics technique" not constituting homicide, I say charge both the lawyer and the mobster client criminally when the victim gets whacked.
If, while the criminal conspiracy case is pending, the local Bar Association gets wind of the opinion letter, and then reprimands, suspends, or disbars the lawyer who authored it before he, the Godfather, and the hit man have their day in court, the jury indeed should be entitled to know of that development, assuming the defenses in the courtroom hinge upon an issue of good faith, and reasonable reliance upon advice of legal counsel.
Seems fair to me. Let's just let the American criminal justice system run its course. Let the show begin.
Bill from Saginaw
Congress is a joke. They are nothing more; (with very few exceptions) than a cabal of crooked attorneys for the corporations and crime family called the MIC. O bomb a knows this all to well, but probably figures he is better for the country alive than ending up like Kennedy or King. Impeachment is off the table; torture is off the table; killing innocent civilians, by the thousands, in Iraq,Pakistan, and Afghanistan, is off the table, single payer healthcare is off the table, ect.ect. So I ask you: When is congress going to be off the table!
When is congress going to be off the table!............When the American people have had enough. And I do not see that happening anytime soon. We're all cowards. If taking our children's and grandchildren's future is not enough, I don't hold much hope for any significant public action anytime soon...DO YOU??
AOM: Unfortunately, I have to agree with you as long as most people worship at the alter of power and money!
How about this. We the People form a "corporation of protest and justice" (or something like that). Legally, since the action in which they engage....protest et al......is the corporate purpose, they may not be individually incarcerated. You know...similar to the non-guilt of the perpetrators of the sub-prime mortgage and derivative fraud or of the members of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INC who engaged in torture.
Good luck with that. You can't even be a physician and politely request time to discuss health care for all during a Senate roundtable- you get arrested and taken away in handcuffs.
... But of course there will be criminal prosecutions for those people who demanded public representation for single payer health care, at the Senate roundtable....
Asking politicians to do the job they were elected for: evil.
Systematic torture to the point of death, and other crimes against humanity: progress.
They don't even pretend anymore.
Aloha, salud, lechiem,
- Tobias
http://www.youtube.com/user/tobiasaurusrex
Prosecuting protestors ...............freedom for torturers............If this is not a FASCIST STATE, Bush is a Mensa candidate.
Ah, the old wristslap-whitewash ploy - the classics never die, do they?
Of course, the twisted Yoo/Bybee duo will still be able to secure a few million each for their "truth about what really, really happened" books, and no doubt there's an "expert consultant" position waiting for them both over at FOX...
So, nothin no longer to see over here, folks... now move along before we shove a taser up your butt...
frank1569 - See what happens once torture is legitimized and we start quibbling about definitions?
Cross that threshold, and suddenly fine fellows like yourself (even in obvious sarcastic jest) can see a taser up the butt as something not nearly as morally reprehensible as, say, waterboarding, electroshock to the balls, strappado, or crucifixion.
As for the classic wristslap-whitewash ploy, let us not forget that Bill Clinton did get his ticket flipped by his old state Bar Association for committing perjury about getting a blowjob. Of course, Slick Willy was impeached by the House and stood trial in the Senate first. But the historical record is now clear that the professional law license sanctions were actually the toughest penalties former president Clinton ever formally suffered for misconduct committed while he was in office.
So, if we must descend on tippy toes into the swamp of ethics, moral relativism, and proportionate punishment here, perhaps we should frame the issue more this way:
Which is worse?
Fibbing about your sex life?
Or lying about the secret torture, sexual humiliation, and even the death of thousands of people?
Bill from Saginaw
Do these people want everyone to think they are soft on crime?
Oh my God, am I outraged by this ruling. "Lapse in judgement"! Boy, I guess. They hanged 'em in Nuremburg for less than this. What is wrong with this country? What happened to the rule of law?
Grab your pitchforks, people, let's go!
Pitchforks?
AK-47's maybe...
While folks in the US were busy screaming racist epithets at everybody who might look Mexican, and scared they were going to die from the Swine/Human Flu, this is ONE of the clever capers your government was cooking up.
Honestly, did any of you really think the DOJ would prosecute any of the Bush Admin. cabalers? This officially proves that we are a banana republic. Justin Raimondo has it right - we live in a "bizarro world" where up is down, back is front, forward is backward, etc. I am done with Obama. I never voted for the guy and I was done with him prior to the election.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
AND YES! WE WERE FOOLED AGAIN!
Well, most of us anyway!
Holder is definitely trying to do the dirty work for Obama - trying to stop this torture(scandal) from getting bigger or continuing. But don't count on it. Expect more revelations for most of Obama's term. I wasn't surprised at the DOJ's opinion. But this will hang like a cloud over Obama until he properly deals with it.
What should people expect from Big Brother's 'Justice' Departement? Justice?
The Corporate controlled Republicans plundered six trillion from our treasury
and now it's the Corporate controlled Democrats turn to plunder all they can.
Sadistic lies and torture - fine.
Israeli agents commiting espionage - fine.
Telcos spying on American citizens - fine.
Corporate pillage and plunder - fine.
We-The-People are disposible - like toilet paper.
When do we terminate this corporate tyrany?