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.

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Posted to: Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, House, Michael Mukasey, Terrorism
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January 30, 2008

Mukasey Frustrates Again On Waterboarding

Attorney General Michael Mukasey fended off questions today on waterboarding, CIA destruction of interrogation tapes, the U.S. attorney firings and other high-profile issues in his first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since his contentious confirmation hearings three months ago.

Mukasey said the CIA does not conduct waterboarding now and that the committee would be privately informed should that change. Mukasey repeatedly declined to say if waterboarding -- an interrogation technique that causes suspects to believe they are drowning -- constitutes torture, or to confirm if it was used by the CIA.

"Given waterboarding is not part of the [interrogation] program and may never be added to the program, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on its legality," he testified. Mukasey did suggest a standard where the brutality of an interrogator's action would be weighed against the value of information elicited to decide if the act constitutes torture. That position drew rebukes from several committee Democrats.

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Posted to: Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, CIA, Constitution, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Terrorism
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January 24, 2008

Bush Stands Firm On DOJ Nominee

Watching President Bush's congenial interaction with Democratic congressional leaders as they hammer out the details of an economic stimulus package, one may be tempted to see a promising sign of bipartisan cooperation during Bush's final year in office. But don't let the photo opportunities fool you. On other issues, particularly those pertaining to law and national security, the White House and Capitol Hill remain worlds apart.

In the latest example of the continuing partisan rifts over CIA interrogation techniques, Bush renominated lawyer Steven Bradbury to a senior post at the Department of Justice yesterday, despite years of Democratic resistance to his nomination.

Bradbury, who has been the acting head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel for more than two years without being confirmed by the Senate, has run into opposition from Democrats because he signed several classified memos in 2005 authorizing harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects.

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Posted to: Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Senate
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January 08, 2008

Dems Weigh Response In Defense Authorization Showdown

Congressional Democrats are grappling with how to respond to President Bush's unexpected veto of the FY08 defense authorization bill late last month because of a provision that would allow victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue foreign governments in U.S. courts.

One response would be to hold a veto override vote in the House as early as next week, despite White House claims that the president's action constituted a pocket veto and is not subject to a challenge. House Republican leaders have urged their Democratic counterparts to fix the provision and are expected to vote to uphold the veto. While no formal vote count has yet been taken, a House GOP aide predicted Monday that a "large majority of House Republicans" would vote with the president. Should Democrats succeed, the White House could challenge the override vote -- a move that could tie up the defense bill in a murky constitutional dispute over the definition of a pocket veto, another House aide said.

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Posted at 11:13 AM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Congress, Constitution, House, Michael Mukasey, Military, President Bush, Senate
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January 02, 2008

DOJ To Investigate Destruction Of CIA Tapes

UPDATED.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced today that the Justice Department would open a criminal probe into why the CIA destroyed videotapes of terrorism interrogations, but a top administration critic renewed calls for an outside investigation.

"It is disappointing that the attorney general has stepped outside the Justice Department's own regulations and declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.

The DOJ probe follows a preliminary investigation conducted internally at the CIA after Director Michael Hayden disclosed that videos of two al-Qaida suspects being harshly interrogated were destroyed. The White House has bristled at reports that it had a role in the tapes' destruction, but officials have generally refused to clarify what they knew and when they knew it.

In a statement announcing the investigation, Mukasey said, "Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation."

The investigation would normally fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia, but following a recusal request, a U.S. attorney based in Connecticut will handle the matter, Mukasey said. U.S. attorneys are political appointees, but questions about just how political those appointments were culminated in the resignation of Mukasey's predecessor, former AG Alberto Gonzales, last year.

Mukasey described John Durham, the first assistant U.S. attorney in the Connecticut office, as "a widely respected and experienced career prosecutor who has supervised a wide range of complex investigations in the past."

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Posted at 5:27 PM
Posted to: Al-Qaida, Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, Michael Hayden, Michael Mukasey, Military, President Bush, Terrorism
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December 19, 2007

WH Lawyers May Have Encouraged Destruction Of CIA Tapes

One day after a federal judge ignored the Justice Department's objections and ordered a hearing into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, the New York Times is reporting that at least four high-ranking White House lawyers may have had a role in the decision to destroy the video evidence.

Citing "current and former administration and intelligence officials," the Times names four White House officials -- former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington, former senior National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger and former White House counsel Harriet Miers -- who "took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives" from al-Qaida.

The Times' sources reportedly gave "conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed."

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Posted at 7:46 AM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, CIA, Harriet Miers, Michael Hayden, Michael Mukasey, Terrorism
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December 13, 2007

ABA Journal Not Above Usual Magazine Stunts

It's a sort of truism in lawyering circles that if you become a household name, you're doing something very wrong. This week, the ABA Journal has several cases in point.

In an apparent bid to show that it can compete with general-interest rags in cover-shot gimmickry, the usually super-serious magazine of the American Bar Association has named former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as its 2007 Lawyer of the Year... and Gonzales' successor Michael Mukasey as 2008's Lawyer of the Year.

"The top legal story of 2007 was unquestionably the unraveling of support for the Bush administration's expansive view of presidential power during wartime, and with it, the slow-motion destruction" of Gonzales, ABA Journal's cover story reasons. "And now, all those problems have been dumped in the lap of the new AG.... How he'll deal with them -- in the middle of a presidential campaign, no less -- promises to make him the top legal newsmaker of 2008."

Certainly, Gonzales' collapse is one of the biggest stories of 2007. But Lawyer of the Year?

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Posted at 1:25 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Michael Mukasey, President Bush
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December 10, 2007

Libby Abandons Appeal Bid

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has decided against furthering pursuit of an appeal of his perjury and obstruction of justice conviction in relation to the CIA leak investigation.

The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney had been sentenced to 30 months for lying to federal investigators during a probe into the outing of former CIA officer Valerie Plame. President Bush commuted Libby's sentence in July, fueling speculation that the former top White House aide would eventually receive a full pardon.

"We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence. However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear," an attorney said in a statement.

Libby's decision to drop his appeals bid will renew speculation that Bush plans to grant a pardon on his way out of office in January 2009. House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked AG Michael Mukasey last week for all remaining interview transcripts from the now-closed investigation.

Posted at 11:43 AM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, House, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Michael Mukasey, President Bush
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November 14, 2007

Bush Takes Swipe Over Gonzales Again As Mukasey Sworn In

President Bush could not resist expressing his anger at the unceremonious way in which longtime confidante Alberto Gonzales was disposed from his job -- even as the man who replaced him as U.S. attorney general, Michael Mukasey, was just feet away for his own formal swearing-in.

"Our new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, follows in the footsteps of a fine man and fine American, Al Gonzales," Bush said, as Mukasey and Chief Justice John Roberts stood by for the ceremony. "As White House counsel and attorney general in my administration, Al Gonzales worked tirelessly to make this country safer and to ensure all Americans receive equal justice in the eyes of the law," the president continued, thanking Gonzales and his family for their "service to our nation."

Few in Washington share Bush's high opinion of Gonzales, however, which is the reason why the former AG resigned in late August after months of bipartisan calls for his ouster. Bush has apparently not gotten over the slight to his longtime friend and to his own judgment. When he announced Mukasey's nomination in September, he also took time from praising his pick to indirectly chide critics over Gonzales.

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Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Congress, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Senate
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November 09, 2007

Mukasey Confirmed As Attorney General

The Senate approved former federal Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the 81st attorney general last night by a tight, mainly party-line vote of 53 to 40. Seven Democrats, including independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, crossed over to vote for President Bush's nominee, who over the course of several weeks of debate went from being assumed likely to sail through the confirmation process to catching fire from many top Democrats for his refusal to solidly denounce waterboarding as torture.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid came out firmly against Mukasey, saying his answer to the waterboarding questions raised "serious doubts about whether he is prepared to be the truly independent voice that the Justice Department so desperately needs." His sentiments were echoed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. But another powerful member of the Democratic leadership, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, backed Mukasey throughout the process.

Bloomberg News reports that the Mukasey outcome has "aggravated a rift" between Schumer and Leahy, "raising the question of who's running the Judiciary Committee."

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Posted to: Bush Administration, Charles Schumer, Congress, Michael Mukasey, Patrick Leahy, President Bush, Senate
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November 06, 2007

Mukasey To Be Confirmed As AG By Next Week

Former federal Judge Michael Mukasey cleared a key hurdle today when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 to confirm him as the next attorney general. Mukasey is expected to easily survive a floor vote by next week, upon which he will be forced to dive into the formidable task of stabilizing the Justice Department.

Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer expressed doubts about Mukasey's stand on detainee treatment but decided to cast their votes for him anyway. Mukasey had refused to say definitively whether waterboarding qualified as illegal treatment of terrorism suspects.

A CNN/ORC survey (subscription) released today finds that a majority of a half-sample of Americans, 69 percent, believe waterboarding is a form of torture. But when a different half-sample was asked if the use of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, should be allowed in an "attempt to get information from suspected terrorists," 40 percent said yes, compared with the 29 percent who asserted that waterboarding was not torture.

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Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Congress, Michael Mukasey, Senate
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November 05, 2007

House Judiciary Cmte. Files Miers/Bolten Contempt Report

The House Judiciary Committee has filed an 862-page report [PDF] recommending that lawmakers find former White House counsel Harriet Miers and current Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in contempt for refusing to testify or provide documents in an investigation into the U.S. attorney firings of last year.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to bring a vote on the criminal contempt citation to the floor, though the timing of that has not been announced. If a simple majority of the House does find Miers and/or Bolten in contempt, the matter will be referred to D.C.'s U.S. attorney, Jeffrey Taylor. And herein lies yet another speed bump in congressional Democrats' quest to get to the bottom of those firings.

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Posted at 6:37 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Congress, Harriet Miers, House, Michael Mukasey, President Bush
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November 02, 2007

Mukasey Confirmation Appears Certain

UPDATED.

Following Chairman Patrick Leahy's announcement earlier today that he would vote against confirmation of Michael Mukasey, fellow Democrats Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein announced their intention to support the nominee for attorney general. With GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expected to line up behind President Bush's pick to replace Alberto Gonzales, Mukasey is all but guaranteed clearance to the floor, where he is expected to win confirmation by a comfortable margin.

In making his announcement this afternoon, Leahy joined Edward Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Joseph Biden and Richard Durbin in vowing to oppose Mukasey unless he states clearly that waterboarding is torture.

"There may be interrogation techniques that require close examination and extensive briefings. Waterboarding is not among them. No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture," Leahy said from his home state of Vermont.

Feinstein's vote had been thrown into doubt by Leahy's decision. In a statement earlier this week, she said, "The Justice Department is in desperate need of effective leadership.... I believe that Judge Mukasey is the best we will get and voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the administration to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and diminish effective oversight by Congress."

With Feinstein and Schumer now solidly on board, there is little doubt that Mukasey will be the next attorney general of the United States.

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Posted at 5:45 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Charles Schumer, Congress, Michael Mukasey, Patrick Leahy, President Bush, Senate
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November 01, 2007

Bush Seeks To Head Off Fight On AG Nominee

President Bush delivered yet another harsh reprimand of the 110th Congress today, this time with a warning against holding up the nomination of former federal Judge Michael Mukasey for attorney general.

"Judge Mukasey has been praised by Republicans and Democrats alike as a man of honesty, intellect, fairness and independence," Bush said in remarks before the Heritage Foundation. "Judge Mukasey provided nearly six hours of testimony, patiently answered more than 200 questions at his hearing and responded to nearly 500 questions less than a week after his hearing. Yet the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding up his nomination."

Earlier today, the president called reporters to the Oval Office to air his frustration over criticisms of Mukasey. The New York Times described the unusual meeting as "a strong signal that Mr. Bush thinks the nomination of Mr. Mukasey, once seen as a sure thing, is in trouble over his responses to questions about what constitutes illegal torture." That may be, but there's still no indication that the nomination is in any real trouble. What's more likely the case is the president wants the torture debate to end as quickly as possible.

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Posted at 3:45 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Congress, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Senate
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October 30, 2007

Yo, Hillary! Field Hopes For Front-Runner KO Tonight

Seven of the Democratic presidential contenders descend tonight on America's least-attractive metropolis for what promises to be the ugliest debate of the season.

Both Barack Obama and John Edwards are scrambling to slam the brakes on Hillary Rodham Clinton's runaway lead. With the Iowa caucuses about two months away, double-digit spreads are forcing the rest of the pack to be more forceful and, dare we say, meaner than they've been so far.

The M-word might be unfair, but it's inevitable because of Clinton's gender. Everyone wants to avoid a Rick Lazio moment, in which they attempt to treat her as they would a male candidate and end up coming off as ungentlemanly.

On the other hand, Clinton isn't just any woman. She's in the lead because she's been exuding forcefulness and strength throughout her campaign -- a breakdown in most polls shows she scores highest on national security issues, not personality. It also doesn't hurt that a large swath of the Democratic left is waving the white flag as they signal their support for the former first lady. So Obama, Edwards and the rest -- Christopher Dodd, Joseph Biden, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich -- will take time to remind primary voters of Clinton's many apparent weaknesses.

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Posted at 6:45 PM
Posted to: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Christopher Dodd, Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Joseph Biden, Michael Mukasey, Mike Gravel, WH 2008
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October 26, 2007

Bush To Congress: I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Disappointed

President Bush, back in Washington today after a trip to Southern California to survey the devastation caused by raging wildfires there, delivered a harsh rebuke to congressional Democrats in a televised address from the Roosevelt Room.

Bush said that upon returning to the White House, he "was disappointed by what Congress had been doing -- and even more disappointed by what they had not been doing." He accused lawmakers of "wasting time" by voting yesterday on a slightly revised version of a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program instead of working to pass already delayed appropriation bills, approve supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and confirm the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general.

Bush said that he had appointed members of his administration to negotiate with Congress on a compromise SCHIP bill, but instead "the House once again passed a bill that they knew would not become law," indicating that he would veto the legislation for a second time if it arrives on his desk. Yesterday's House vote failed to reach the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto.

AP and The Hill have more analysis of Bush's remarks, and the Washington Post has responses from Democratic leaders.

Posted at 2:55 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Congress, Health, House, Michael Mukasey, President Bush
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October 19, 2007

Mukasey, Torture And The Responsibility Question

Cultural critics blame the proliferation of sadistic and gruesome imagery on television and in movies on Americans' psychic discomfort with their role as players in the war on terror. The phenomenon has even birthed a new category of mainstream entertainment: torture porn.

Audiences mostly comprising males in the 18-to-34 demographic are eagerly forking over $10 a pop to view the fantastical and revolting "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises. More discomfiting are the realistic depictions of torture lately seen in the film "Syriana" and on the show "24." A Foreign Affairs magazine survey (subscription) released in April found a 54-percent majority of Americans were OK with the use of torture on terrorism suspects "sometimes." Jack Bauer doesn't electrocute or nearly drown every hog-tied potential terrorist that comes his way, but when he does, the writers of the show are sympathetic to it. Bauer doesn't "always" torture, he "sometimes" tortures, and the end result is he saves the world. The "24" audience, including a former Democratic president, is apparently OK with that.

Americans may think they know what the legal definition of torture is from these images, but they probably have no idea. As we've learned in recent weeks, the business of defining torture is a difficult one, whether for national security reasons or failure of imagination. Certainly, the Bush administration is in no hurry to turn the issue into a national debate. That's problematic for this country, and not for the reasons you might think.

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Posted at 2:33 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Campaigns, John Ashcroft, Michael Mukasey, Military, President Bush, Terrorism, WH 2008
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October 17, 2007

Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part II

[Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part I]

End note. Thanks to the schedule provided by the Judiciary Committee, we were under the impression that the witness round was today. It is tomorrow, and about that we have no complaints.

Patrick Leahy didn't yell at anyone today. That hasn't happened in a long time. He expressed hope this morning and in closing that Mukasey's confirmation will signal the beginning of a healing process at DOJ. The Democrats on this panel have been accused of partisan bloodlust in this saga, but you have to believe Leahy wants this chapter closed. It's been an exhausting nine months for the committee, and the tug of war with the White House is far from over. A new attorney general that has the confidence of Congress means one fewer battlefront.

C-SPAN3 is replaying the hearing throughout the day; watch it here.

4:32. Cardin, who is intimately familiar with Election Day shenanigans, doesn't give up. He asks about a Georgia voter ID law that was overturned two years ago after a federal judge likened it to the Jim Crow-era poll tax. Cardin is undoubtedly aware that the issue goes before the Supreme Court next year.

"I think if identification is made available and... every step is taken that allows everyone who is allowed to vote to" have access to the polls, "it seems to me that the comparison to the poll tax would be over the top," Mukasey responds.

But is it right when the "energy committed to weeding out the few" outweighs that used to ensure greater numbers to the polls, Cardin asks, conjuring Democrats' impression of the Republican Justice Department. "That shouldn't be what the Justice Department is doing, I hope you agree with that."

"I certainly do," Mukasey responds.

By the way, whatever party was responsible for the deceptive fliers and phone calls that threatened Cardin's Senate bid last year: Mukasey considers the tactics "flat-out fraud and pernicious fraud."

Continue reading "Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part II"

Posted at 5:00 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Congress, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Senate
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Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part I

[Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part II]

12:20. Recess. So far, no big surprises, but plenty to reassure those who anguish over DOJ's loss of credibility under Gonzales. We'll resume with testimony from the witness panel -- fomer AG Dick Thornburgh among them -- later this afternoon in a new post.

12:11. "More recently, a statute called the USA Patriot Act has become the focus of a good deal of hysteria, some of it reflexive, much of it recreational," Mukasey wrote in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal in 2004.

Russ Feingold somewhat ridiculously asks if Mukasey believes that all critics of the Patriot Act engage in "recreational hysteria." He doesn't, of course, and acknowledges parts of it can be improved. Like most non-partisans on the act, Mukasey sees good and bad there. The point of the op-ed is best summarized in the second half of its title: "Before attacking the Patriot Act, try reading it."

12:02. "I'm going to assure you there isn't going to be any stonewalling," Mukasey says when Charles Grassley asks about the load of documents and testimony his panel has been denied by the administration. "I'm certainly going to review the clearance process simply to make sure that it is a clearance process and not just a black hole."

Continue reading "Liveblogging The Michael Mukasey Confirmation Hearing: Part I"

Posted at 12:22 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, Congress, Michael Mukasey, President Bush, Senate
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October 05, 2007

Bush: 'This Government Does Not Torture People'

UPDATED.

The White House today signaled that it will not accede to Congress' demands for transparency on two secret memos on terrorism detainees, insisting it does not engage in torture and that key members had already learned all they needed to know.

"They have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress on the Intelligence Committee. But they are classified for a reason and they are secret," press secretary Dana Perino said during the daily briefing. "One of the reasons they are secret is because they need to be. They need to be cloaked in the classified system so that we can keep that information private so that we're not signaling to our enemies exactly what our techniques are."

Earlier, President Bush gave his first public response to revelations that CIA officers may be using tactics that might qualify as torture in a program secretly endorsed by the Justice Department.

"This government does not torture people. We stick to U.S. law and our international obligations," Bush said in a brief statement to the press this morning.

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Posted at 5:20 PM
Posted to: Al-Qaida, Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Detainees, Guantanamo Bay, Michael Mukasey, Military, President Bush, Terrorism
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October 04, 2007

CIA Interrogations To Take Center Stage In Mukasey Hearings

UPDATED.

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are incensed at the revelations in this morning's New York Times report outlining secret legal opinions the Bush administration has used to justify harsh interrogations techniques for terrorism suspects.

"It would be bad enough if this administration had disgraced itself and this country by engaging in cruel and degrading treatment of detainees. It is worse still that it enlisted the Justice Department in the effort to justify and cover up its activities," said Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, speaking on the floor of the Senate today.

Kennedy is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which yesterday announced that confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey would begin as early as two weeks from now. Chairman Patrick Leahy appeared to be signaling that he would not hold up Mukasey's hearings despite an ongoing confrontation with the White House over the NSA surveillance program and U.S. attorney firings scandal. While the revelations about DOJ possibly signing off on torture will probably not affect the hearing timeline, they will almost certainly have a huge impact on Mukasey's confirmation.

A congressional source with close knowledge of the committee said that "a lot of people are really, really angry" about the secret opinions. According to the Times report, the White House took backdoor measures to keep CIA interrogation techniques like "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures" in play by way of secret DOJ memos asserting their legality -- even as it publicly bowed to demands by Congress and the Supreme Court to outlaw them.

Continue reading "CIA Interrogations To Take Center Stage In Mukasey Hearings"

Posted at 6:15 PM
Posted to: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney Scandal, Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, Constitution, Detainees, House, Michael Mukasey, Patrick Leahy, President Bush, Senate
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