Rep. Nadler (D-NY) Calls for an Investigation of Bush Administration Officials

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has written a letter
to Attorney General Michael Mukasey urging him to appoint an
independent council to investigate actions taken by Vice President Dick
Cheney, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other senior
level administration officials in regard to the torture of prisoners in
U.S. custody.

Rep. Nadler cites Vice President Cheney's recent interview with ABC News and Cheney's frank admission to directly approving the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
as evidence of the Administration's participation in approving tactics
that are against the law. Rep. Nadler states in his letter:

The Vice President's public admission that he was "aware of the
program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared" is
deeply disturbing. It implicates the Vice President in this activity
which appears to have been a direct violation of our criminal laws
against the use of torture. Similarly, a recent report issued by the
Senate Armed Services Committee found that "Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use
at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there."[7]
Additional evidence shows that other top officials also were involved
in authorizing similar activities.

Not only did Cheney admit to his role in approving such policies as
stated above, but, as Nadler points out, the Senate Armed Services
Committee recently issued a report that found Administration officials
directly responsible for the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. I
recently wrote about
this bi-partisan report and will reemphasize that this report is
damning evidence that the Administration not only approved policies of
torture, but lied about it when the abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed.

In addition to Nadler's letter, he appeared on Democracy Now! and emphasized some very basic points that I, and others, have been making:

And the morality of this aside, you cannot have high officials
deliberately break the law without accountability. The Vice President,
on that interview we saw a few minutes ago, talked about the oath
of office that the President, the Vice President, others take, and that
is to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States. You are not preserving it, and you
are not defending it; you are, in fact, perverting it, if you
deliberately break the law,
which is the supreme law of the land pursuant to the Constitution. It
is imperative, if the United States is to remain a country of laws and
not men,

that people who break the laws be held accountable.

This is very important and very fundamental to the operation of the
United States. This country is a country of laws and not men, or in
other words, no one should be above the law. When it continues to
become increasingly clear that elected officials at the highest levels
of government have committed serious crimes, there should be no reason
why an independent panel shouldn't look into said crimes. As I have
also written about in
recent days, a distinction must also be made between political
accountability and accountability to the law. Nadler touches on this
point in his interview:

...there are things that it is imperative that the Obama
administration, when it takes office, and the Congress, in January,
take steps to hold officials accountable for violations of law, and
really, not because we want vengeance and not because we want to be
vindictive of what happened, but because holding people to the law and
making them go through a legal process of proving guilt or innocence is
the only way that you can minimize the likelihood of recurrence of law
breaking and maintain the United States as a democratic country.

Those who often raise the argument that we should "move on to unite
the country" and "not hold political grudges" are wrongly applying
their formula for political accountability into the realm of criminal
accountability. When laws are broken, there is a need for
investigations and charges to be brought that apply to the crimes
committed. It does not make any sense, or deter future political
leaders from lawbreaking, if we chalk up the violation of laws to
"political disagreements" or "political difference". This is the same
disparity that I wrote about in discussing the response of some in Politico's "Arena" forum recently. I will revisit Maurice Carroll's response to reiterate the point:

Is it a good idea for a new administration to look for
prosecutable crimes by the old administration? Even if their opinion is
that there WERE crimes? By and large, the answer is no. Even if the
true believers (and the true-believer editorial writers) are pestering
the Obama administration to do it. One of the strengths of the American
political system is that it's not a blood sport. We disagree without
looking to put the other guys in jail. Which is a longish way of
saying: There'll be a new slate. Shouldn't we wipe the old slate clean?

Carroll is not alone in this viewpoint, a viewpoint that encourages
us not to investigate an outgoing administration EVEN IF there is a
belief that crimes WERE committed. Carroll justifies this viewpoint by
stating that "we disagree without looking to put the other guys in
jail" and that this is "one of the strengths of the American political
system." This is an absurd statement that equates political difference
with accountability to laws and sadly, it is this narrative that is
often repeated the loudest during these recent discussions about
investigation of Bush Administration Officials. It mischaracterizes the
argument of those who are calling for accountability to the rule of law
into an argument being put forth by mere political opponents.

Rep. Nadler is not the first who has called for the investigation of
Bush Administration officials for lawbreaking and he is certain to not
be the last. There have been some rumors that
President Bush has plans to pre-pardon members of his Administration
before January 20 to avoid potential prosecution, but at this point it
remains to be seen if an Obama Administration would put forth such an
investigation. There is certain to be more on this issue between now
and Inauguration Day.