February 07, 2008

Mukasey: CIA Waterboarding Will Not Be Investigated

Attorney General Michael Mukasey today said the Justice Department will not open a criminal investigation into waterboarding by CIA employees because his department previously permitted use of the technique in interrogations of suspected terrorists. Waterboarding "cannot possibly be the subject of a Justice Department investigation, because that would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting someone who followed that advice," Mukasey told the House Judiciary Committee at a department oversight hearing.

Mukasey's remarks followed an admission Tuesday by CIA Director Michael Hayden that the agency used waterboarding -- an interrogation technique that causes suspects to believe they are drowning -- on three al-Qaida detainees after Sept. 11, 2001. The department's Office of Legal Counsel has issued opinions that waterboarding is legal in some circumstances, though Mukasey and other Bush administration officials have said U.S. employees do not now use it.

The Justice Department is investigating whether CIA officials obstructed justice by destroying videotapes that showed waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques. Pressed last week by Senate Judiciary Committee members, Mukasey did not explicitly rule out the investigation addressing illegal acts shown on the tapes. That answer caused speculation the probe could move in that direction.

But today, Mukasey echoed statements by a department spokesman that any conduct shown on the tapes would be out of bounds for investigators. Launching a criminal investigation would subject any U.S. employee who relied on the department's legal advice to possible prosecution merely because "the political winds changed," Mukasey testified.

He refused to give the committee copies of a 2005 legal opinion justifying torture in some cases, saying the document contained classified information on CIA operations. "Everyone on this committee has a security clearance," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., responded.

Mukasey gave little ground to the committee, sticking to previous positions on subjects including reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is now being debated in the Senate. His prepared testimony was mostly identical to testimony he gave last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mukasey added a plea, however, for Congress to act by March 3 to prevent thousands of prisoners jailed for crack cocaine offenses from receiving retroactive sentence reductions. Citing sentencing guidelines far more severe for crack than for powdered cocaine, the independent U.S. Sentencing Commission voted last December to retroactively apply more relaxed guidelines to crack offenses. That decision makes about 1,600 offenders eligible for release in March.

Mukasey said that circumstance could allow early release of many violent offenders. "Once March 3 arrives, there's no undoing that," he said. But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., noted that each case must be individually reviewed by a court before a prisoner is released.

-Dan Friedman, CongressDaily

Posted at 4:39 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, House, Michael Mukasey, Terrorism
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