Mukasey Oversight: HJC Edition, Part Two

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

MM: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability.

Delahunt: This is brand new legal theory.

MM: Disclosure of waterboarding was part of CIA interrogation and permitted by DOJ opinion, would and should bar investigation of people who relied on that opinion.

Delahunt: Let’s concede that waterboarding is in contravention of international obligation. If opinion rendered that amounted to malpractice, whoever employed that technique, simply by relying on that opinion would be legally barred from criminal investigation.

MM: If you’re talking about legal mistake, there is an inquiry regarding whether properly rendered opinions or didn’t. But yes, that bars the person who relied on that opinion from being investigated.

Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.

MM: If it comes to pass that somebody at a later date that the opinion should have been different the person who relied on the opinion cannot be investigated.

Delahunt: Is there a legal precedent.

MM: There is practical consideration. I can’t cite you a case.

Sanchez: Deferred and non-prosecution agreements wrt federal prosecutions.

MM: Increasing use of monitors is something we noticed before the publicity. We have asked AG Advisory Group about the numbers, but what to do. Can’t tell you when we’ll get back to you on numbers.

Sanchez: Do you support full disclosure of all deferred prosecutions.

MM: Want to hear from AG AG, on confidentiality agreements serve or disserve these agreements.

[Interesting he wouldn’t say right away he’d maintain confidentiality–that’s why corporations enter into these agreements, which is precisely the problem.]

Sanchez: Actions of Christopher Christie. Christie selected his past superior, Ashcroft. Do you think this process has fostered the appearance of cronyism.

MM: Without getting into labels like cronyism. Whether it involves from process of selecting from a group.

Sanchez: Do you think Ashcroft’s agreement was excessive?

MM: I don’t know the details.

Sanchez: The lack of any oversight wrt deferred prosecution agreements. Plea bargains go before a judge. Deferred prosecutions neither party ever sees inside of courtroom. Are you concerned that this creates two systems of justice?

MM: Prosecutors proceed under guidelines set by department.

Sanchez: No judicial review.

MM: Not mistaken that not all of them are reviewed. Decision whether to charge or not charge has always been a executive decision.

Sanchez: Will submit questions.

Cohen: You represent US of A. Does that also include Congress? In a contempt situation would you not be representing Congress?

MM: If a statute says it must go forward it must go forward.

Cohen: So if Congress votes to hold in contempt, you will prosecute.

MM: Great deal of authority cannot go forward because of President’s order.

MM: Separation of powers, In response to an order that that not go forward, that would not go forward.

Cohen: So if Congress votes, you would not go forward with Contempt.

MM: I would examine what happens when it happens. Longstanding authority says senior advisors cannot be prosecuted for contempt.

Cohen: Shouldn’t testify or shouldn’t appear?

MM: The latter I believe.

Cohen: Would you think it would be more appropriate to have counsel appear. One thing is asserting immunity, another is the action of not responding and coming to Congressional committee. That’s a separate action. You don’t have to appear and assert your privilege?

MM: WRT only to senior advisors to President, not have to appear.

MM: I have had [a large number] of conversations about politiciation.

Cohen: Any memos?

MM: I can’t think of any, if I can find them, I’ll provide them.

Schiff: Happy to have new leadership, but very concerned about your statements on torture. I don’t think this can be delegated to an attorney in OLC to decide whether this is or is not legal. Shouldn’t AG investigate to see whether law broken, notwithstanding that an attorney thinks it doesn’t, then the AG comes before the American people to say what happens. To abdicate, to say that bc of opinion of OLC wrote an opinion, you can’t investigate. Why not investigate.

MM: Only signal for opening of investigation. Cannot signal opening of investigation.

Schiff: Are you saying that if you believe that the law was violated, you lack power to open investigation.

MM: If presented in concrete terms, I can take steps going forward. Comment that you made that is very portentious, that needs to be corrected. American troops fight in uniform.

[both talking over each other]

Schiff: It’s my time, I’d like to ask a question. I’m not trying to make equivalent our troops and AQ. Don’t even got there Mr. AG. But if we don’t establish a bright line, it makes us hard to argue to other countries. Why doesn’t AG have the power to investigate?

MM: We have a bright line, we bar torture.

Schiff: You’ve said that if you were being waterboarded you would consider torture. Does it depend on who is being tortured?

MM: It would seem like torture to me. I would not use my own tastes and preferences.

Hank Johnson: TPMMuckraker removed from press release distribution list. Has there been a change?

MM: Not familiar with how the distrib list is arrived at. All the press releases are on our website.

Johnson: Any orgs taken off list.

MM: Do not know.

Johnson: It was not you that made this decision.

MM: Not aware until called to my attention in letter from Chair.

Johnson: Won’t declare waterboarding illegal bc it’ll tell our enemies what to expect. Would it be lawful to use rack and screws?

MM: There is a line of hypotheticals that would get to indication to enemy, that is the only reason I won’t get into hypotheticals. Program has gone through OLC opinions. Waterboarding once part of program, is no longer.

[Admitting this has really sunk MM’s stated reason for not engaging in hypotheticals, since he’s now happy to tell the enemies that we don’t do waterboarding.]

Johnson: Under what circumstances would it be appropriate for a foreign nation to waterboard?

Johnson: CIA tapes investigation. Will you inquire into legality of underlying interrogations.

MM: Entirely in hands of John Durham. Career prosecutor, compiled enviable record before I got here.

Johnson: Guarantees that he’s not acting to please you?

MM: Reports to DAG.

Weiner: Copps program–was that a success?

Artur Davis: Political influence over prosecutions. 3 instances in which committee received sworn testimony on political prosecutions. In AL, a woman who happens to be a Republican testified under oath, she alleged that she was present during conversation in which Republican political operatives discussed possibility of prosecuting governor of AL. Any circumstance in which it would be appropriate for Senator to call USA about investigation?

MM: Can’t conceive of one.

Davis: How much would it concern you if all three of these statements were true. Given that, what steps have you taken to determine whether the claims are accurate.

MM: Case involving AL lawyer is before circuit court.

Davis: Not basis for appeal. What steps have you taken to see if these improprieties have happened.

MM: Limited to the people on the other end of the telephone call.

Davis: Why not. If this happened in the past, General. Given that two of those allegations have been repeated before Senate. What steps have you taken to determine if they’ve occurred. Has OPR conducted a review…

Conyers: Appreciation. Lengthy appearance.

image_print
140 replies
  1. RevDeb says:

    Adam Schiff asking good questions. To the nub of it:

    Does the def, of torture depend on who is being tortured and for what purpose? Or the nature of the act?

    More of the same kinds of non-answers.

  2. pseudonymousinnc says:

    The question to ask now, I think, is this:

    If you have no judgement over these things, then what’s your role? Couldn’t you just resign and let the OLC act as AG, since that’s what it’s doing now?

  3. LS says:

    Waterboarding is not torture if the intent of the person doing it is not to torture. It is the “intent”….

    WTF!!!

    • Hmmm says:

      Waterboarding is not torture if the intent of the person doing it is not to torture. It is the “intent”….

      WTF!!!

      As I previously suspected they would assert.

      But why all this de-cloaking now? Is this in some way a strategic move? Inviting legal challenge?

      P.S. In any event, yes, impeach Muckasey ASAP.

    • perris says:

      Waterboarding is not torture if the intent of the person doing it is not to torture. It is the “intent”….

      WTF!!!

      in other worlds, cutting off someone’s fingers, one at a time, is not torture if your purpose is to extract information and your purpose is not torture

  4. BayStateLibrul says:

    Just got this from my Congressman, when I ask him to impeach

    “…While I feel the same outrage and distrust felt by those who want
    to launch impeachment proceedings against the Vice President and President,
    I believe that the 67 Senate votes consitutionally required to remove either of them from office cannot be achieved in the 110th Congress…”

    Signed Rep John Olver, 1st District of Massachusetts.

    Fuck the 110th Congress

    • perris says:

      answer him back;

      “the results of an impeachment are not the issue, the charges and the crimes are, a record must be preserved.

      once the record is preserved, the law will be served, you must impeach if you are to fulfill your oath of office”

      or something to that affect

  5. skdadl says:

    This is really horrifying. It feels to me as though we are listening to the mouthpiece of some private society who are suddenly revealing to the world that they have taken over.

  6. perris says:

    this is really really bad

    we get a moron who claims we are allowed to torutre, then he makes some people torture, they don’t refuse and they can’t be prosecuted

    this all falls on the president, that’s all there is to it

    I have had enough of pelosi, does she know what is going on because of her?

  7. phred says:

    Thank God for the recess, gave me a chance to give my representative an earful, followed by an emphatic message left on the Speaker’s answering machine.

  8. perris says:

    I cannot believe these misogynists and bigots are going to surrender all this power to a women or a black man

    I cannot believe we will have presidential elections this cycle

    • GulfCoastPirate says:

      I haven’t thought there were going to be elections for quite a while now. I hope I’m wrong but you don’t go to these lengths to acquire absolute power in order to turn it over to anyone, much less a woman or a black man.

      Then again, didn’t the smirk buy some land in Paraguay?

  9. RevDeb says:

    OMG He’s asked if we were to use a rack and screws would that be illegal and Muke the Puke won’t answer because we can’t tip off the bad guys to what we might or might not do.

    I give up.

    • MadDog says:

      The singular focus on waterboarding has left in the dark what other “enhanced interrogation techniques”?

      Today the use of Tasers are an acceptable non-lethal technology and technique for subduing folks (non-lethal unless you die as have a number of young, physically-in-their prime people).

      I wonder if the use of Tasers is another one of the “tip off the enemy” enhanced interrogation techniques in use?

      Or since Tasers are considered non-lethal, perhaps their usage is just part of the normal interrogation techniques and don’t rise to the level of “enhanced”.

  10. perris says:

    check this out from think progress, now THIS is integrity;

    The FBI and Department and Defense, however, are standing by their position that waterboarding is unnecessary. The Pentagon has banned employees from using the tactic, and the FBI said its investigators do not use coercive tactics when interviewing terror suspects.

    In a hearing today, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) asked FBI Director Robert Mueller and Lt. Gen. Michael Maples of the Defense Intelligence Agency why their agencies don’t use coercive interrogations: “Do you never interrogate people who have critical information?” The agency heads responded:

    MUELLER: Our protocol is not to use coercive technqiues. That is our protocol, we have lived by it. And it is sufficient and approprriate for our mission here in the United States. … We believe in the appropriateness of our techniques to our mission here in the United States.

    MAPLES: The Army Field Manual guides our efforts and the efforts of the Armed Forces. … We believe that the approaches that are in the Army Field Manual give us the tools that are necessary for the purpose under which we are conducting interrogations.

    there you have real men of courage

  11. wkwf says:

    Mukasey: I can’t tell you exactly what we do or don’t do in our interrogation procedures. Congress can bar specific procedures if they so wish.

    Screw it, just ban everything. “You can’t touch the detainee or any of the detainee’s relatives”.

  12. Hugh says:

    If I had to choose with the threat of Osama bin Laden or the Bush Administration, I would pick Osama everytime. He only destroyed a couple of buildings. The Bush Administration is destroying the country as this soulless, morally vacuous Attorney General makes clear.

    • selise says:

      amen.

      aren’t patriots supposed to be willing to be harmed in the defense of their country? isn’t this the kind of thing conservatives are into? what has turned the conservatives into such a bunch of cowards? what has happened to all of us?

  13. perris says:

    The FBI has long warned against such interrogations. In 2004, agents “repeatedly warned” interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that their tactics “were legally risky and also likely to be ineffective.”

    The Defense Intelligence Agency, like the CIA, runs intelligence operations around the world. In fact, some “missions have expanded into areas traditionally the purview of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

    In December, the House passed an amendment that extends the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel. Later in the hearing, Hayden “guaranteed” that if legislation is passed prohibiting coercive techniques, the CIA will abide by it.

    also from think progress

    there you have it, it doesn’t matter WHAT friggin opinion abu torture rendered, if these morons tortured they are criminals

  14. LS says:

    Hayden after talking to his lawyers…. “It is not certain that it (waterboarding) would be considered legal under current statute today.”

  15. 4jkb4ia says:

    I know none of you good people are looking at this in these terms, but I can only say “chillul Hashem” here. I am embarrassed.

    • perris says:

      my bold is the most important part as regards this event in american affairs;

      to bring dishonour or shame to God’s name by an action or lack thereof.

  16. Eureka Springs says:

    Somebody should ask Muk if waterboarding his miniature Dachshund would be torture. I really believe a video tape of waterboarding puppies would at long last cause over half of America to rise up.

  17. phred says:

    Given that the committee was on the verge of adjournment, I think it would not have been too much to ask for Conyers to have required Mukasey to answer Davis’ question. It wouldn’t have taken long, one word would have done…

    Davis: What steps have you taken?
    Mukasey: None.

    There. That wasn’t so hard was it?

  18. perris says:

    I want to repeat myself because everyone must begin to think about the following;

    I cannot believe these misogynists and bigots are going to surrender all this power to a women or a black man

    I cannot believe we will have presidential elections this cycle

    prepare yourself

  19. selise says:

    fyi…. c-span has this hearing on it’s list of event they are covering today – which means it will probably be on c-span1 or 2 after the house and senate adjourn for the day.

    at least this hearing won’t only be watched by people who streamed it from the hjc website.

  20. Hmmm says:

    EPU’d: I think Muckasey has screwed the FISA/PAA pooch here. Meaning the poison-pill amendments must have just picked up several votes. Hmmm.

    • phred says:

      Hmmm, since you’re on this thread now… Can you please clarify how Mukasey screwed the pooch on FISA/PAA? I must have missed something, because I don’t follow you…

      • Hmmm says:

        I mean that by so outraging the conscience with his answers today, he seriously damaged the likelihood of Senators’ reliance on all of his assertions wrt the FISA/PAA bill amendments. And so likely has lost quite a few votes.

        • phred says:

          Thanks for the clarification. I just hope the Senators are as affronted by Mukasey’s performance today as we are, as every citizen should be.

        • bobschacht says:

          Hmmm February 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
          51
          In response to phred @ 44

          I mean that by so outraging the conscience with his answers today, he seriously damaged the likelihood of Senators’ reliance on all of his assertions wrt the FISA/PAA bill amendments. And so likely has lost quite a few votes.

          I really DO hope you’re right. This is a deadly farce.

          Bob in HI

      • Hmmm says:

        Do you really think any of this matters to the distinguished senators? I have yet to see any evidence that they care.

        A further contextualizing thought — I think the sudden unexpected outbreak of Democracy on Tuesday has put them all in a fairly scared and circumspect mood. The times may well be a-changin’ and they know that what they do now may well come back to defeat them first chance they get. The McCain non-vote on EcStim cloture being just the most glaring example.

  21. Mary says:

    Basically, Mukasey is using a jigged up “reliance on advice of counsel” type of argument to be able to claim there could be no criminal contempt.

    This isn’t new and it isn’t unique. Corporations, in particular, have done it a lot in the past.

    There are rules for invoking this kind of theory, and one is that you have to waive privilege and produce the opinion.

    A second is that it needs to have been reasonable to rely on the opinion as produced.

    He is adding a layer that you get around both of those issues by claiming state secrets in civil litigations and just corruptly refusing to prosecute in criminal context – although he does have a point that you could never prosecute with the same people who authorized the actions. If he looks around, though, he should see that those people have been removed and he, as AG, has the power to appoint a special prosecutor (not as good as an independent counsel, and any he’d pick would no doubt be as corrupted on the issue as he himself is).

    Horrible precedent Congress is going to set, if they play along with his theory that all a President or any lawbreaking depraved monsters working for him ever have to do to walk away from any crime they commit is to have a secret OLC opinion from a politically vested cretin signed off on.

    OTOH, they already set that horrible precedent by not impeaching Bybee. That’s about all that would make any OLC lawyer think twice.

    And really, that’s how they need to push Mukasey now on the opinion – how does Congress know whether or not to impeach those who produced the opinion if they can’t see it?

    That’s a very clear issue – if Congress wants to see it in that context. Too bad impeachment is off the table – Bradbury would make a lovely start point in a real Constitutional democracy with values.

    • Hmmm says:

      Mary, for what (little) it’s worth, in his book Jack Goldsmith conceded that sufficiently bad OLC opinions (he meant Yoo) could fail to shield acts committed in reliance upon them. Seems that’s part of why he withdrew them and drafted new ones, an impulse to protect operations pople.

    • perris says:

      I went to look, this is one fine piece of writing right here;

      [snippet]

      We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it’s not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it’s not.

  22. pdaly says:

    Rep. Conyers,

    Let’s NOT continue this relationship. Let’s call it malignant at best and cut it out. Time for a new AG. Time for investigating articles of impeachment.

  23. perris says:

    I’m laying 2 to one we’re in for at least one more bush term as president, then another three for jeb

    then possibly jenna

    • RevDeb says:

      Why bother with the Bush window dressing? Why not just be outright upfront about it and have Cheney/Addington with a pardoned Libby as AG?

      • perris says:

        cheney’s gonna have a heart attack and wouldn’t last too long

        he also likes to play without being seen, so cheney stays in the shadows

        so it’s the puppet not the puppet master

  24. selise says:

    current c-span schedule now has the following (beware, c-span makes changes to their schedule on the fly) listed to be shown tonight (for folks like me who missed most of today’s hearing).

    10:52 PM EST
    3:00
    House Committee
    Justice Department Oversight
    Judiciary
    John Conyers Jr., D-MI
    Michael B. Mukasey , Department of Justice

    01:52 AM EST
    1:41
    House Committee
    National Security Assessment
    Select Intelligence
    Silvestre Reyes , D-TX
    Robert S. Mueller III, Federal Bureau of Investigation

  25. Mary says:

    23 – but it was also FBI agent at GITMO that came up with the great plan, that NCIS had to stomp on, of sending off some of their detainees to for torture – the way DOJ sent Arar to be tortured in Syria.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15361458/
    part one

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15361462/
    part two

    In early September 2002, the FBI suggested another option for obtaining information from al-Qahtani, according to the leaders of the law enforcement task force, who shared an office at Guantanamo with the FBI. The plan, they said, was to send al-Qahtani temporarily or permanently to another country, such as Egypt or Jordan, where he could be interrogated with techniques that the FBI could not legally use

    Going back to part one, you have this from Alberto Mora about the NCIS interrogators and the illegal and immoral behavior at GITMO:

    ‘We will not be a party to this’
    “What makes me intensely proud of all these individuals was they said, ‘We will not be party to this, even if we’re ordered to do so,’” said Alberto J. Mora, the former general counsel of the Navy, who ultimately got Secretary Rumsfeld to roll back permission for some of the harshest interrogation techniques. “They are heroes, and there’s no other way to describe them. They demonstrated enormous personal courage and personal integrity in standing up for American values and the system we all live for.”

    What Mukasey is also doing right now is telling everyone at DOJ, including FBI, everyone at CIA, and everyone in the military – that those “orders” to engage in depravit are legal an that – faced with someone like Mora telling them they are not allowed to act in that manner, they should spit on him and do what the Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Haynes, Thompson, Comey Gonzales McNulty, Bybee, Goldsmith, Bradbury etc. tell them to do.

    It’s not just saying that they won’t prosecute torturers who got their ok from a secret OLC opinion, it’s also saying that anyone who refuses the orders to torture is refusing a legal order and they don’t get a chance to know about what is in the secret opinions or not.

    Their “legal” choices are depravity or dereliction.

    How sick is that?

    That’s the same message that people like Comey and Philbin and Thompson and Goldsmith send when they push Haynes for the 4th – even after he misrepresented to the SJC.

    That’s the same message that Congress sends every minute of every day, by doing nothing.

    It’s the same message we send, by allowing it.

    • perris says:

      Their “legal” choices are depravity or dereliction.

      wow

      that is quite eloquent, you should send that to leahy

  26. selise says:

    schumer on the senate floor just now:

    i want to say that this is a very good day for the country.

    he’s talking about the economic package, but it struck me quite differently, given his role in mukasey’s senate confirmation.

  27. Mary says:

    20 – Mueller got report after report of torture, did nothing and allowed the fruits of that torture to be used in criminal prosecutions. Color me less than impressed.

    56 – thanks, as you probably know, I’m not going to be buying Goldsmith’s book or supporting his chosen charity – but I’m guessing when he discovered that you had deaths from the “approved” tactics – the man tortured to death by freezing in stress positions – he might have gotten a little worried about just how long, with no SOL, everyone had to think about that – and especially as some of the people being subjected to the approved tactics were turning out to be american citizens and/or completely innocent civilians from allied countries like Arar.

    As for why the decloaking now – raised elsewhere – they really kind of need to get it done now, while the top tiers of all the agencies are criminally compliant and the Dems are worried about looking “weak on terror” and the DOJ is wholly owned.

    If they let this stuff fester and simmer until a new President, new AG, and the President isn’t McCain and the new AG doesn’t believe in freebies for Executive crime, then there are people hanging out to dry.

    Right now, the best thing they can do is make this all old news and instill in the storyline the fact that everything done was ok because of a secret OLC opinion and have all the Dems shrug it off, as they will. If Congress has acquiesced, it pretty much sets it up to be something the next AG can’t do much about.

    Not that we’d have a next AG who would be doing much about it anyway. Obama won’t look back (kind of like Mukasey for that matter) and Clinton’s got far too many ties to what has happened.

  28. bmaz says:

    Ah, so this is where everybody went. The site is acting goofy; I had to switch to Firefox to even see that there was a new post and that i was the stepchild left behind…..

    • phred says:

      U.S. loses prison camp records of Bin Laden’s driver

      I’m sure they did… in a fireplace, while sipping fine cognac.

    • Hugh says:

      The U.S. military has lost a year’s worth of records describing the Guantanamo interrogation and confinement of Osama bin Laden’s driver, a prosecutor said at the Yemeni captive’s war court hearing on Thursday.

      Actually they’re right beside the 10 million emails that went missing.

        • bmaz says:

          No trash talk, but Curt Schilling has traumatic shoulder injury and is out for the coming year; maybe forever, and Clemens is on a roll at Congress, my guess is they may be starting to believe him. Especially after this criminally non-credible and patently unbelievable bloody syringe evidence stunt pulled by MacNamee.

  29. MadDog says:

    And like usual, the MSM is blind, deaf and stupid to this entire thing. They’re too busy kissing St. John’s ass to care about something as minor as the shredding of the Constitution.

  30. TLinGA says:

    CNN weighs in:

    Waterboarding involves strapping a person to a surface, covering his face with cloth and pouring water on the face to imitate the sensation of drowning. Critics call it torture.

    Apologists are the only ones who *don’t* call it torture.

    • perris says:

      Waterboarding involves strapping a person to a surface, covering his face with cloth and pouring water on the face to imitate the sensation of drowning. Critics call it torture.

      it’s NOT “imitating”, it IS

      you are drowning someone and reviving them

  31. ralphbon says:

    Just emailed the following:

    Dear Senator Schumer:

    Mukasey is the worst recipient of your support since you trumpeted Bernie Kerik for DHS Secretary.

    I’m listing the “issue area” for this message as “Transportation,” because it’s high time you took a hike. Really, instead of serving at the vanguard of complicity and capitulation until 2012, wouldn’t you rather step down to spend more time with your compromised principles?

    • Hugh says:

      Doesn’t declaring waterboarding legal also tell our enemies what to expect?

      It’s just juju to make you think there is a reason when there isn’t one. It’s not just our enemies but the whole world that knows we torture. The list of techniques has only been published in a million places. Maybe they think the “terrorists” are as stupid as they are.

  32. Mary says:

    71 – like the first “extraordinary” renditions going back to Bill’s era – with the Albanians
    eg
    http://obsidianwings.blogs.com…..ary_r.html

    not sure if you are really interested and want many links or just feel defensive about the fact that what Clinton did pales in comparison to what Bush has done. It does, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be also drug out and hashed through in any thorough investigation. I think Scheur said that they got Mary Jo White to give them the legal assists to help with the first extraordinary renditions. There would be huge resistance to bringing that, and the SDNY’s role during the Clinton years, into any of this, especially with the Al-Qaeda propaganda that the African bombings were in retaliation for the US role in the extraordinary renditions, torture and later deaths or disappearances of some of those rendered to Egypt.

    Then there was the recent – and pretty deliberate – leak that Clinton also may have violated FISA and engaged in warrantless surveillance of US citizens involved in SOuth American calls as a part of a war on drugs program.

    • brendanx says:

      Don’t jump to conclusions! I don’t need to be disabused of any illusions about the Clinton administration. Thanks for the link.

    • bobschacht says:

      “Then there was the recent – and pretty deliberate – leak that Clinton also may have violated FISA and engaged in warrantless surveillance of US citizens involved in SOuth American calls as a part of a war on drugs program.”

      All the more reason to start fresh. Are the Clintons supporting Pelosi’s cover-up?

      More sunshine, please.

      Bob in HI

  33. phred says:

    OT — anyone know if the Senate has any FISA related activity on their schedule today, or will it all be about the stimulus package?

  34. JimWhite says:

    From a Reuters story, Mukasey responding to Conyers:

    Mukasey explained why he rejected any investigation.

    “Waterboarding, because it was authorized to be part of the program … cannot possibly be the subject of a criminal — a Justice Department — investigation, because that would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting somebody who followed that advice,” Mukasey said.

    Mukasey, by interjecting that little bit about a Justice Department investigation not being apprpriate just inadvertantly called for an Indpendent Prosecutor.

  35. pseudonymousinnc says:

    I believe that the 67 Senate votes consitutionally required to remove either of them from office cannot be achieved in the 110th Congress…

    So effing what? It takes a simple majority to impeach in the House.

  36. Mary says:

    Someone needs to start asking Mukasey the Yoo questions – is it ok to crush a child’s testicles. How about rape their wife? Their child? Their 80 yo mother with such bad arthritis that her hips break as she’s being raped?

    When is it not ok, if there is an OLC opinion.

    Never?

    And the bigger question – is it illegal to refuse a command to beat, palestine hang, strip, smear feces on, waterboard, and leave to freeze to death, if there is an OLC opinion that says those things are legal?

    We know FBI agents and NCIS refused to go along with some of the torture – will they be prosecuted for disobeying orders?

    Make it clear just how far open the barn doors are now.

    • GulfCoastPirate says:

      Mary wrote:
      ‘Make it clear just how far open the barn doors are now.’

      Haven’t they removed the doors and anything goes?

  37. GulfCoastPirate says:

    WHen did the Borq arrive? The Democrats have all been assimilated.

    I’m embarrassed that I’ve been supporting the Democratic Party all my life.

  38. Praedor says:

    There is no need for hearings to find out if the Bushies broke the law by torturing prisoners (waterboarding). They have officially admitted it. Hearings on whether or not they did it are superfluous. It is also ridiculous on its face to hold hearings to determine if waterboarding is torture. Of course it is torture! Always has been, always will be.

    Hell’s bells! If there is actually a question about it as the Bushies claim, then the Dems must IMMEDIATELY bring forth a bill fully exonerating any and all persons we convicted in the past for waterboarding prisoners. That means that the Japanese soldiers we convicted after WWII explicitly and exclusively for waterboarding prisoners were NOT guilty of any crimes and they and their families deserve full exoneration. The Dems and GOP MUST unanimously vote to return honor to these men and their families for the unjust prosecution for their NON-crime.

    We must also revamp all history books. The Inquisition used “enhanced interrogation methods” to get just confessions. They did NOT torture. One cannot quibble about this or that torture being more or less a torture. If one form of torture is, in fact, NOT torture, then NO form of torture is, in fact, torture.

    I demand that Senator Evan Bayh sponsor this bill exonerating the Japanese victims of false prosecution on the part of the US government after WWII. Justice MUST be done!

  39. Mary says:

    66 – at least replaced with the warnings that he would go to jail if he dislcosed ’secret’ info on Executive crimes.

    98- fix my typos, ‘kay?

    http://www.time.com/time/natio…..91,00.html
    Majid Khan’s lawyers are going to go testify to the Senate Intel committee – big Jay, going to hear a different version of the torture he’s been so supportive of.

    They have notes (betcha those get confiscated) of conferences they’ve had with Khan. While the Exec branch has been redacting anything in writing and preventing anyone from talking with Khan (IIRC, he’s the one where they made the claim that anything he told his lawyers about his treatment was also state secrets), they are taking the position that they can tell the Senate what he has told them, without Bush/Mukasey censorship.

    But Khan’s private declarations to his lawyers cannot be censored, and it is those that the Intelligence Committee will hear on Friday

    Again, I believe that, but I think that gov has filed pleadings to the contrary.

    Apparently he’s mentioned more videos as well as more torture and there are reports that he was held briefly at the same site as the 6 and 8 yo children of KSM were held and abused. Of course, by the time those children, if alive, are ever appeared, they will be much older. Still, I think between Khadr and the disappeared under age 10 children, it’s not happenstance that the “al-Qaeda child soldiers” tape was released when it was.

    • bmaz says:

      Mary, you are on a serious and valuable roll today. I have to be mostly busy with something else for at least half an hour or so, will only kind of be monitoring; but I want to go over your wonderful rant on ethics and prosecutorial duties you made a few threads back, because that is really important again and i want to make sure everybody understands exactly what you were conveying. See you shortly….

  40. Mary says:

    It would be nice, too, for someone to ask Mukasey if, upon Executive Order or OLC supporting opinion, it would be defensible for a Dept of Justice to misrepresent facts to a court.

    If an OLC memo or Executive Order indicated that, for state secrets purposes, Dept. of Justice lawyers should lie to the court about the existence of evidence, is Mukasey saying no DOJ lawyer can be prosecuted for that – not if they were relying on an OLC opinion or an Executive Order as the authority to lie to the courts.

  41. JTMinIA says:

    I like to think that I’m intelligent, but I still don’t quite get Mukasey’s argument. Is he saying that an opinion from the OLC means it’s legal to do something, such as torture (extreme version … OLC now equal Judicial Branch); an opinion from the OLC means it was legal for the person who did it to do it, but might not be for the writer of the opinion (slightly less extreme … OLC can be substituted a la Specter/Whitehouse amendment); or only that an opinion from the OLC means that the person who did it won’t be prosecuted, leaving the question of whether it was legal to do it unanswered and, maybe, out-of-bounds (moderately extreme version … OLC can provide immunity but not decide legality)?

    • Praedor says:

      Mukasey is placing the OLC into the position of the SCOTUS. The OLC gets to determine what is or is not legal or Constitutional. Not only that, it then is impossible for the SCOTUS to chime in (even if they wanted to) because it’s all very hush-hush, you know.

      • JTMinIA says:

        Did Mukasey say that in any way clearly? It seemed to me that every time someone tried to pin him down on whether that made it legal, he dodged. Did I miss part of the testimony where he was, for once, clear?

        • Praedor says:

          He didn’t state that directly. I was simply extending what he was saying to the logical (and operational) conclusion. And far be it from Congress to actually do anything to protect their constitutional prerogatives. Mustn’t actually exercise any Article I powers. Mustn’t actually do oversight. Mustn’t actually do checks and balances. So long as they do EVERYTHING Bush wants, all is balanced!

  42. JTMinIA says:

    (OT: Stimulus Package is now getting third reading … I’m not sure what’s in the compromise, but it’s done.)

  43. JTMinIA says:

    (OT: I just saw some details on the “compromise.” It isn’t a compromise; it’s another cave-in. No unemployment extensions. Just the few obvious fixes of the House version, such as add the vets or their survivor and no illegals. Pathetic.)

  44. Eureka Springs says:

    Mary’s nothing short of patriotic Soul Food..) bmaz @ 109, would you care to leave a link to that particular comment, por favor?

  45. BayStateLibrul says:

    OT, but incredible bull shit from the Mittster’s concession speech…
    If Dems win, we will be attacked!
    I mourn for America, but I’m glad Mitt spent $35 million to find out
    that is he is one of the craziest jerk in America.

    ROMNEY:
    Today we are a nation at war. And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror: They would retreat, declare defeat.
    And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that would make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child’s play. About this, I have no doubt.
    Now, I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know.
    But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, and finding and executing Osama bin Laden.
    (APPLAUSE)
    And I agree with him on eliminating Al Qaida and terror worldwide.
    Now, if I fight on, in my campaign, all the way to the convention…
    ROMNEY: … I want you to know, I’ve given this a lot of thought — I’d forestall the launch of a national campaign and, frankly, I’d make it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win.
    Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.
    (APPLAUSE)

  46. Mary says:

    Kurtz at TPM posted a comment from a reader – basically saying that since the Romney boys weren’t enlisting for Iraq bc they were serving the country by helping their father’s campaign – and he’s not campaigning now – shouldn’t …
    You can finish the thought.

    A bit more on Majid Khan before I have to go (even though OT, if I don’t put this stuff down while I’m thinking about it and while I can find the link, I forget it).

    Khan’s lawyers tried to get a chance to talk to Congress once before, in November, in connection with the Mukasey confirmation vote.

    http://balkin.blogspot.com/200…..ogies.html

    But as a condition of being able to speak to their client in the first place, the government required them to agree not to reveal what their client told them, because (as they explained in a letter to Senators today) “everything we learned from our client is presumptively classified.”

    So this new round is going to be interesting. I’m wondering if the TIME statement about them being able to talk about things he said to them is based on a ruling of some kind, or a lack of knowledge about DOJ’s former position on this, or some worked out agreement?

    • MadDog says:

      And it sounds like some “compromises” have been achieved. I don’t like the sound of that, but I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised.

  47. klynn says:

    O/T

    We can take this up later so we don’t juke up the thread but just to update:

    http://afp.google.com/article/…..iKCqGksCSg

    One Internet cut explained, but four others still a mystery

    3 hours ago

    CAIRO (AFP) — A ship’s anchor severed one undersea Internet cable damaged last week, it was revealed on Thursday amid ongoing outages in the Middle East and South Asia, but mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts.

  48. Praedor says:

    OK…We need to hit the HOUSE HARD to force them to NOT give in on immunity! They are going to the house to seek a “compromise” bill that the Senate can vote on! That means it is in the House’s court here!

  49. JimWhite says:

    Harry talking now. Votes on several amendments tonight (two roll call, others voice), five tomorrow and final passage likely Tuesday. Can work out timing on cloture, but not done yet.
    Mentioned a conference report.
    Must have caved. McConnell said it’s a good game plan.

  50. Mary says:

    While I have it – link on the surveillance story

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12…..washington

    In the drug-trafficking operation, the N.S.A. has been helping the Drug Enforcement Administration in collecting the phone records showing patterns of calls between the United States, Latin America and other drug-producing regions. The program dates to the 1990s, according to several government officials, but it appears to have expanded in recent years.

    Officials say the government has not listened to the communications, but has instead used phone numbers and e-mail addresses to analyze links between people in the United States and overseas. Senior Justice Department officials in the Bush and Clinton administrations signed off on the operation, which uses broad administrative subpoenas but does not require court approval to demand the records.

    • skdadl says:

      @ 121 and 128 — don’t know whether you’ll be back here; just wanted to let you know that I’ve read and registered and filed.

  51. JimWhite says:

    Feingold use amendment now.
    Also, Harry rambled off the bulk of the agreement for moving ahead. It sounds like Dodd had agreed only to “filibuster” for four hours on Tuesday. If that is the case, I’m a very disappointed person.

  52. zuch says:

    Anyone have a complete transcript of Delahunt’s questions and Mukasey’s bloviating? Would appreciate it.

    Thanks,

  53. SIT4o says:

    Hidden Hands
    Only the “hidden Hand” can explain what has been going on in Congress for the past seven years. It is obvious to almost all of us has to have been obvious certainly to all, or almost all of the members of both Houses of Congress that preserving the Constitution requires eternal vigilance and that impeachment proceedings should have been initiated against Bush and Cheney before the end of their first year in office. (Not to mention that their should have been impeachments of the Supreme Court Justices that thumbed their nose at the facts, the election statutes, precedent, the Constitution and their oaths of office to steal the 2000 election under the laughable premise of upholding the “Equal protection” clause.)
    It is obvious to everyone that Gonzales and now Mukasey should have been urgently impeached as soon as they demonstrated their contempt for the law, the Constitution and Congress as well as for their flagrant violations of their oaths of office and for the obvious, in your face, willful destruction of the Constitution as to render it meaningless. They should not even have been confirmed, as all of this was obvious before their confirmation votes.
    Only the hidden hand (secret government) wielding coercion and fear can explain why those of otherwise decent character in Congress and the other branches of government have not acted and will not act now.
    Failure to act is too widespread to be from corruption alone.
    JF

Comments are closed.