The OPR Report: Why No Sanctions for Bradbury?
The WaPo has a helpful preview of what to expect from the Office of Professional Responsibility’s upcoming report on the authors of the torture memos. It talks a lot about the recommendation for professional sanctions for John Yoo and Jay Bybee.
A draft report of more than 200 pages, prepared in January before Bush’s departure, recommends disciplinary action, rather than criminal prosecution, by state bar associations against Yoo and Bybee, former attorneys in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, for their work in preparing and signing the interrogation memos. State bar associations have the power to suspend a lawyer’s license to practice or impose other penalties.
But curiously (or rather, suspiciously), the report does not recommend sanctions against Bradbury.
The legal analysis on interrogation prepared by a third former chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven G. Bradbury, also was a subject of the ethics probe. But in an early draft, investigators did not make disciplinary recommendations about Bradbury.
Remember, the OLC got to review an early draft of this report–an OLC then headed by Steven Bradbury. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave it to those who are to convince me that Bradbury’s opinions weren’t every bit as crappy as Yoo’s. But I do find his wholesale dismissal of the 8th Amendment rather troubling.
The WaPo also has this fascinating passage:
In a separate effort to counterbalance the draft report, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip wrote a 14-page letter before they left office this year. They described the context surrounding the origins of the memos, written at a time when 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 passages from a 2004 CIA inspector general’s 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.
So Mukasey and Filip are going to try to rebut this report. Mukasey, of course, repeatedly pointed to the OLC memos to explain his refusal to prosecture torturers–so he’s got to pretend they’re respectable. I love the way the WaPo says Mukasey and Filip’s report "may emerge" after the OPR releases its report. Just so you know, when the WaPo publishes their report in a month or so, it’s not because Mukasey gave it to them, it’s because it magically "emerged."
And, finally, the CIA IG Report again–funny how that’s still causing the Bush Administration headaches, huh? Again, if the report discusses the CIA IG Report, then I don’t know why Bradbury gets off without sanctions, as the report, which was written in 2004, only influenced Bradbury’s memos, not the Bybee/Yoo work. If the OPR report is emphasizing the CIA IG Report that torture doesn’t work, then Bradbury’s specious attempts to claim it was effective ought to be a real legal problem.
Ultimately, though, Bradbury may not be sanctioned for a totally different reason. The WaPo repeats reports elsewhere that emails formed a key role in the investigation. And we know that by 2005, the Bush Administration was much better at disappearing its emails than in the early days of the Administration.
Why no sanctions against Bradbury? My guess: No email trail showing that he altered his analysis to fit policy. Why was there no email trail? It wasn’t necessary. Bradbury was justifying things that happened in the past while Yoo and Bybee had to be directed on what wasn’t torture.
That was exactly my own first thought, WO.
But if enough evidence turns up, maybe things will turn out differently. For example, that case in Spain.
(Based on phone call last night, Spaniards of the left are closely watching these judicial cases against the torturers.)
I agree with you. Bradbury was perfectly clear that waterboarding in particular was deadly, whereas Yoo and Bybee sold the lie that it was harmless. My guess is that Yoo blatantly disregarded discoverable evidence about the danger of waterboarding (like an email from someone) in drafting his opinion. I still think the problem that brought the whole facade crashing down was particularly brutal waterboarding of AZ or al Nashiri that made everyone in the CIA realize that waterboarding could kill.
They got a medic with a pulse-oximeter for KSM, but they certainly knew the “harmless” story was a lie and they were flying beyond the Yoo authorization into torture land.
Bradbury’s “academic” exercise was simply to try to retrospectively redefine torture for CIA CYA. He had the CIA IG report and the OMS guidelines (CIA doctors input) to advise him in his “good faith” effort. He certainly did not try to say waterboarding was harmless as Yoo did.
Our troubles are deeper than missing Bradbury as a member of the conspiracy. You have a group of lawyers, who propose to rewrite the Constitution, International Treaties, and the Laws of the United States by secret memoranda, and other lawyers can’t see what is wrong with this? First of all, the Executive branch doesn’t get to modify the Constitution, period. Second, The only thing the Executive Branch can do with treaties is to sign them, veto them, or rescind our participation in them. They don’t get to just rewrite them after they’ve been ratified. Third, the choice for laws passed by Congress is the same, sign, veto. As with all the elements of the Constitution, International Treaties, and the Laws of the United States, the Executive Branch has one duty – OBEY THEM!
Every lawyer who can’t pass this fundamental civics lesson should have their bar card stripped from them immediately, if not sooner.
It may well be the emails, but it may also be a conflict of interest. I think in these two sentences you clearly lay out why a special prosecutor is needed. No matter what the OPR report says, the DoJ has a fundamental conflict of interest that calls into question the ability of OPR to produce an unbiased report under the Bush administration. The report was finished last December. Anything since that time is window dressing, but even at that, I don’t think we can presume the finished December draft was a fair assessment of all relevant parties. There were (and probably still are) too many foxes in that henhouse.
I wouldn’t belive anything left by the previous occupants of the DOJ. They will be spinning all of this stuff and I suspect that is some of what is going on with the NYT’s and the WaPo. This seems like a pre-emptive spin against Holder and his staff.
I’m not throwing away my popcorn popper just yet.
I took out stock myself
John Boltons OpEd reeks of the fear of all these reports and investigations. Just a minor reading in between the lines is enough for most to see them running scared. Not just of the reports in the USA, but the one in Spain particularly. I have a diary up at dkos on the OpEd if anyone is interested ( or not )
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..Difference
Naive question du jour: Can whatever surfaces in Spain be used as evidence in the U.S., or will the “jury” be instructed to disregard the preceding proceedings?
this statement makes it absolutley clear, this was NOT the cia requesting these techniques, the cia KNEW there was NO link between al qaeda and saddam, they informed the president time and time again
it ALSO makes it [bill] Krystol CLEAR, they wanted FALSE information not “links to al qaeda”
they lied themselves into Iraq with falsified data, they did it before under nixon trying to undermine detante and they were going to do it again
CLEAR implication right there, they wanted to falsify information
Thanks Marcy! Habla Espanol Neuevoncons?
Here’s the deal: you can’t investigate yourself. That goes for individuals and institutions. It is inherently impossible.
It must be done from the outside.
Call for an International War Crimes Tribunal. No presidential pardon power over the #1 & # 2 crimes against humanity.
War of aggression or a preemptive war if you like .
Article 3 Geneva rules against torture . It’s in it’s totality TREASON.
What’s good enough for the Nazi’s is more than fair enough for these creeps. Then lock ‘um away in Iraq until they pass.
Thank you.
I’m really curious why this “report” isn’t being characterized as the whitewash it is: by Bushies, for Bushies.
According to some reports I’ve seen, folks have been “working on the report” for a couple of years. Obama’s folks haven’t been on deck for that period of time.
If we’d had a truly independent and reliable Justice Department, that wouldn’t be a problem. But with the nest of vipers Bush installed over there, NO ONE should be characterizing their work as a “report” on an “investigation.”
A corrupt and compromised system that appears incapable of holding criminals accountable. The “Establishment” is an accomplice.
Why was Bradbury allowed in the room during the “review and response”?
What the hell was that about? If I “allegedly” commit a serious crime or have a “lapse of memory” do I get to be in the room when the powers that be “review and respond”
What country do I live in?
ABOVE THE LAW especially when you are rewriting, reinterpreting and in on the “review and response” to that rewriting of the law. What a scam
This is the end result of the 9-11 lie commission.
A full open honest criminal investigation then fair trials would have spared us all of this.
Brazen daylight treason showed us who to fear and to shut up about it.
Treason is never a mistake ( good faith ?) and it’s always a mistake not to call it treason.
“…written at a time when officials feared another terrorist strike on American soil.”
That excuse is getting tiresome. Rice invoked it the other day.
They are suggesting that they cannot be expected to uphold the law in times of crisis.
If that’s the case, we are in big trouble.
Congress is going to have to investigate if DOJ whitewashes these bums.
Don’t hold your breath.
I think the telling sentence is:
Bush established his MO for dealing with
alleged criminalsfriends whobreak lawsmake questionable judgments by using deferred prosecutions with monitoring agreements. He also established, with other IG reports (e.g. Schlozman, Goodling, Paulose, the Interior Department sex/drugs scandal) that prosecutions would not be warranted because the investigated persons left government.So here we stand again with another report concluding that prosecutions are not warranted. If Holder issues the report unrevised, we should prepare for the day when our nation is told that it’s time to sweep the entire mess under the rug.
Filip is still around, too, isn’t he?
For that matter, is Bradbury really gone-gone yet?
IMO, Bradbury’s opinions were more egregious and showed in their content more of a direct commitment to taking the knowledge of how broad ranging the crimes that had been committed were to date and really drafting to cover as many of them as possible.
But Bradbury is a better drafter than Yoo/Bybee. Instead of just ignoring case law, he would bring some of it up and distinguish it in … indistinguishable ways. But Bradbury had the IG report and definitely that put him in a different, higher “duty of inquiry” status Yoo-Bybee.
So the emails is likely a big factor.
One of the real keys to putting the OPR report in perspective, though, is Mukasey’s reliance on attacking the OPR based on “the narrow legal questions surrounding the lawyers’ activities” It was a narrow shot slot and that’s a tactic that has been used over and over to have a pretense at a investigation that ends up being a non-investigation.
But I don’t see how someone looks at Bradbury’s opinions and the fact that, as he wrote them he had the IG report (something Yoo and Bybee did not) and yet he still went on.
And it would be interesting to know what the IG report says about how waterboarding was actually done, then look at Bradbury’s “our waterboarding isn’t torture bc we do it differently than the people we prosecuted” testimony, under oath, to Congress.
I watched the fist 20 minutes of Olberman on the late repeat and Turley nailed it with a comment about how (paraphrasing some) it’s like we are giving public tours of the crime scene with the guys who committed the crimes right there in the room and no one is bothering to arrest them.
Nope. From this morning’s WaPo (Al Kamen’s column):
No, Filip is back in private practice (Kirkland & Ellis), the Trib reports today.
I’ve been saying since this investigation got started that it was a “preemptive strike” investigation that was going to be about CYA, not about who was actually responsible and to what extent. The “draft” reports covered in the Times & Post reinforce that belief. The investigation under Bradbury was/is nothing more nor less than an attempt to give cover to those who violated and/or authorised violations of domestic & international law.
I’m getting a “can’t see the forest for the trees” reminder around the large amounts of pertinent minutiae coming out about torture programs.
Something else is being hidden, something that could consume Obama’s whole presidency, he does not want that to happen even though for this nation to cleanse and heal it ultimately necessary.
that’s what Senator Feingold said yesterday during his interview with Amy Goodman.
“AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of President Obama saying we have to look forward, not back.
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: I understand that, in general, that’s the right thing. Throughout the campaign, I said our first priority is to get our economy back in place, and our other priority is to make sure we change our international reputation and policy. But I said, “But we cannot ignore the third priority, which is accountability for things that have happened in the past.”
And I am troubled when the President says, “I just want to look forward.” That’s not the way we do things in our society. We have to, just like they did in South Africa, just like we did when we realized the mistakes we made with Korematsu and the internment of Japanese Americans—you can’t just sweep it under the rug.
And I know the President cares about this, and I understand the political dynamics. But there is a way here, through a truth commission, other steps, to make sure that people know that we understand a terrible mistake was made and that Americans will not do it again. So I would like to see the President find a way to speak more in terms of what kind of accountability we can have for past misdeeds.”
http://www.democracynow.org/20…..scalation.
Excellent find, Leen.
By looking at Feingold’s phrasing and and broad net he casts, one can infer he might be talking about something not even barely acknowledged at this point in time.
Feingold is sharp.
Do you supose it is the simple fact that the executive branch was peopled with willing murderers… murders here in the “homeland” also?
On the strength of the OPR Report’s alleged findings of Professional Misconduct by Yoo and Bybee, in the preparation of the Legal Foundation for Bush’s Torture Program, there should be a follow-up Criminal Investigation.
If that happens, then Bradbury’s May ‘05 Memos are likely to pull him into Culpability, along with Yoo and Bybee, for Aiding and Abetting Bush’s Torture.
The OPR Report appears to have been tightly ’scoped’ by Bush – designed – to limit exposure only to documented ethical lapses in judgment by the OLC Lawyers.
“But in an early draft, investigators did not make disciplinary recommendations about Bradbury.”
I’ll suggest that another way to account for Bradbury’s ‘absence’ from the final OPR Report is that he was shown a Later Draft Copy – one which may have implicated him as an ‘advocate’ for Bush’s Torture Policies in his May ‘05 Memos, along with Yoo’s and Bybee’s earlier work – and then he rolled on Addington/Cheney and/or Gonzo/Bush to save himself from Bush’s Fate.
So, in that case, the Goopers – who would have undoubtedly seen the Draft Copy of the Report when it implicated Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury, if it ever did – would then have gone ballistic in their trumped-up opposition to Dawn Johnson in order to stall the *Clear Revelation* that the Professional Misconduct of Bush’s OLC Lawyers – all three of them – destroys Any Good Faith defense of the Torture Memos.
So, now, with the release of the Report Summary, the Goopers might ‘know’ that Bradbury has rolled, and be wondering what to do next?
It’s just a possibility, imvho, worth tossing into the discussion…
Independent prosecutor is the only sane way to go.
24 – Thanks. I just went to read EW’s WaPo linked article too and it mentions Ogden is DAG now.
After reading the article, part of the opening cracked me up – that the Yoo/Bybee lobbyists going about it all by: “point[ing] out the troubling precedent of imposing sanctions on legal advisers”
Aside from the *troubling precedent of imposing torture as a result of legal advice* the law is all about sanctons on legal advisers for doing the wrong thing. I beleive we, the taxpayers, are coughing up right now for sanctions imposed on prosecutors in the Stevens case. Bar Associations have committees that exist for the sole purpose of imposing censures, penalties, suspensions, disbarrments etc. —sanctions as it were – – on lawyers. That’s what a professional code of conduct is all about. Rule 11 – all about imposing sanctions on legal advisers. Nuremberg trials – sanctions on legal advisors.
The troubling thing about sanctions on legal advisors would be if they were not applied because of politics.
I still think that Spanish case is going to crack this open. Whether it happens there or nationalism forces it to happen here.
Since the OPR can’t really go any further in its responsibilities than recommending disbarment, I think this report (and its conclusions) lays the groundwork for the Spaniards’ case OR for the US to have to step up to the plate. International outrage will, in my view, play a role here. Likely a pivotal one.
Goodman’s interview with Feingold yesterday
“AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge who led the charge for the indictment against Augusto Pinochet, going after Bush administration officials?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: This is what happens when we don’t have accountability in our own country. I think we should have accountability here. I think we should have appropriate prosecutions here, and the Spanish should wait. But, of course, other countries aren’t going to wait forever, if we don’t show any concern about the lawlessness that affected our own country. But I do think that it’s our responsibility, not the responsibility of the Spaniards. “
———————-
Feingold “That is what happens when we don’t have accountability in our own country”
Thank you Senator Feingold
Senator Feingold “the Spanish should wait” For what? Our Reps to get their justice juices revved up over lies under oath about a bj?
We have waited enough, the world has waited enough, we want Justice and accountability for these serious crimes. We are doing our part now our Reps need to do theirs
Feingold .should look the torturee in the eyes and tell how long he should wait for justice in terms of years. WTF
The thing is, it is so ez for the Spanish investigation to be shut down. I’m guessin that the Obama admin will claim, with respect to several of the lawyers at least, that this OPR report qualifies as the US investigation that disenfranchises the Spanish assertion of jurisdiction.
I hear what you’re saying. But they would have to believe that. And so would the Spanish public. I simply don’t believe Europeans would view that as satisfying Geneva and CAT obligations. (My brother-in-law “brought up” that subject last night. WRT Rumsfeld in particular. If it’s on his mind, we have our finger on the pulse of activists on the left in Spain, likely beyond.)
good morning Mary,
I would very much like to use one of your comments from yesterday in a diary – this one.
basic stuff for the lawyers, but informative for the non lawyers and those of us not following so closely.
can I huh ?
thanks
and a big p.s. to this community – my comment over at WaPo has over 100 recommends – all content colored by what I learn here – mwah!
Sure – if you can live with my typos. *g*
ooh thankee. it may help keep the last few unexploded heads intact
“…written at a time when officials feared another terrorist strike on American soil.”
So the laws against torture were meant to apply only when times are good and the country is at peace with the world?
That’s the impression I am getting.
ot but related – the Pentagon IG is withdrawing the pack of public lies its office issued as a report on the Rumsfeld program, where he snarfed up “military analysts” for tv and radio and secretly converted them into walking, talkingpoints for the Pentagon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05…..38;ref=fp1
Althought the IG’s office concedes the report was riddled with lies, no word on anyone being punished for it and no expectation of reissuing the report sans lies (all about the looking forward). After all, the program is over now, no need to make sure it isn’t repeated now that it’s all about the Obama admin calling the shots on killing civilians and ramping up military confrontations.
Was just going to post the DOD story, when I saw you had already done so, Mary. Lies, lies and more lies. Here’s another instance.
Al Jazeera Strikes Back at Pentagon, Releases Unedited Footage of U.S. Soldiers’ ‘Bible Study’ in Afghanistan
Posted by Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports at 12:00 PM on May 5, 2009.
“Hours after Al Jazeera first broadcast a video showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, the Pentagon shot back. It charged that Al Jazeera had “grossly misrepresent[ed] the truth.”
“Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered footage of U.S. soldiers in ‘bible study’ in Afghanistan.”
To say nothing of the anti-US sentiment this is bound to generate.
Jason Leopold has been looking at the Vaughn index that Hellerstein ordered in the Torture Tape Destruction case.
http://www.pubrecord.org/tortu…..aydah.html
All this is going down in a neocon playbook somewhere to pull out the next time they need it.The constitution busters on parade
My reading of this is that Bradbury’s PR flack is trying to justify his fees.
I question whether this is just a case of “Those who know (about the actual report) are not telling; those who are telling don’t know.”
Nonetheless let’s start pushing back demanding that the rule of law be preserved. Let’s make Obama (and Holder) do the right thing again; let’s provide the necessary incentive and political cover.
Two points to add:
1) When a Special Counsel is named, an early priority will be to recover the draft of the report seen by Bradbury and to compare it to the product of his revisions. That should take care of getting him cooked.
2) The irony is just too overwhelming:
If only attorneys as “principled” as Mukasey and Filip had been around OLC in 2001-2002, we might not be having this discussion. That’s when the “quality of the legal” analysis went down the toilet to stay.
As usual Colbert sums it up
Captain Kangaroo Court
http://www.colbertnation.com/t…..aroo-court
Ooooh, many thanks, Stryder. Heard about this and was going to track it down this am. It is superb!
This whole affair reminds me of the impotent congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra affair by the Democratic Senate in 1986-90 – which produced no real information, and provided the technical basis to overturn Ollie North’s conviction for his criminal actions – capped by Bush41’s pardon of Cap Weinberger and Elliot Abrams.
Many of the same players are involved in the present lollapoluza – and the contra/El Salvador situation seems to have been a training camp for alot of the players in the Iraq/torture scam: Abrams, Goss, Foggo, many others.
can’t see it without linking – Parry’s Iran Contra – The Lost Chapter
bygones and all that
US interrogators may have killed dozens, human rights researcher and rights group say
BY JOHN BYRNE Published: May 6, 2009 Updated 1 hour ago
“United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..l=home.php
http://tinyurl.com/c5gt6r
By defining torture as merely a hairsbreadth away from murder, the torture memos set the stage for many murders.
Why would we need a word like torture if it was only a synonym for near-murder? Saying torture meant “organ failure” – isn’t that what murderers are after?
O/T. When the going gets tough . . .
Rep. Jane Harman may not be taking on wider wiretap issues
By Gene Maddaus Staff Writer
Posted: 05/05/2009 07:53:34 PM PDT
“When news first broke two weeks ago that she had been wiretapped, South Bay Rep. Jane Harman fought back in a tone of populist outrage.
“In an interview with the Daily Breeze on Tuesday, she scaled back her criticism of Bush administration policies.
‘”I don’t know if there are rampant wiretapping abuses,” she said.”
Her new PR guy seems to be working wonders–for someone.
Ooops. Here’s the source for the Harman story.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_12302939
WHY IS OBAMA WHITE HOUSE MAKING THE SAME ARGUMENT TO IGNORE OUR LAWS THAT BUSH AND CHENEY MADE TO VIOLATE THEM?
I am a staunch Obama supporter, but I don’t believe it’s “looking to the past” to ENFORCE the LAW. Since WHEN is NOT enforcing the law an acceptable option in AMERICA? It is “ignoring the law” to choose to ALLOW LAWBREAKERS TO GO UNPROSECUTED FOR THEIR CRIMES. Since WHEN is the POLITICAL ramifications of prosecution an acceptable or relevant argument?
WHERE does President Obama draw the line when it comes to IGNORING illegal acts? Is it EVERYONE in AMERICA who broke the law during Bush’s/Cheney’s reign; or is it ONLY those who were participants in AIDING and or ABETTING Bush and Cheney? Since WHEN is someone who aids and abets a crime not subject to CRIMINAL prosecution?
The precedents that President Obama would set in failing to hold Bush administration appointees and or employees legally accountable for their illegal actions if FAR MORE DANGEROUS TO AMERICA’S FUTURE than whatever POLITICAL COST we might pay.
How can a Constitutional Law Professor advocate IGNORING the reasons that America was founded as a NATION OF LAWS instead of a NATION OF MEN?!
President Obama is WRONG to PREVENT the prescribed enforcement of our laws. In making the argument that “we have more pressing matters to consider”, he is making the SAME ARGUMENT to IGNORE our laws that the Bush administration made to VIOLATE them. The ends DO NOT justify the means!
Aiding and abetting is only a crime if you are aware of the crime. Let’s say a bank robber stops you on the street, and asks to borrow your car. You know the guy, but don’t know he just robbed a bank, so you loan him your car. Are you guilty of aiding and abetting? No. Would prosecutors convict you anyway? Yes. So you have an issue on appeal – yea!
The government constantly ignores illegal acts, just to be able to function. Many of them are trivial – the equivalent of disobeying “don’t walk on the grass” signs. Some are murder, war without cause, fraudulent intelligence, treason, war crimes, and other such misdemeanors.
Sorry. Your point being …?
Answer = Blackmail.
Nothing else explains it.
Here’s one of the links that the Raw Story link is based on:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…..eath/full/
John Sifton for Human Rights Watch? Is his stuff credible, in general?
‘Cause if it is … Bush and Cheney certainly got their GWOT, and we’re the terrorists.
The “excessive filling of the airways” quote appears again, as well as the “doctor standing by to perform tracheotomy” line. What just occurs to me, although IANAMD (I am not an M.D.), is that what the heck is a tracheotomy going to get you if the problem is farther down in the lungs, namely, “airways”. You’ve filled the prisoner’s airways with water and now you were going to do what, exactly, with a tracheotomy? The blockage is not in the throat. It’s not as though he or she has swallowed a ping-pong ball. “Sub-xyphoid thrust” recommended as Plan A, but a tracheotomy for Plan B? Doesn’t make sense to me; does it to anybody else?
The “interrogators”/torturers were just effing around with people’s lives. They (or we, if we go along with this) were no better than the SS.
I feel punched in the gut.
(But then, the prisoners weren’t — aren’t? — really “people” to these particular captors. And is this what Cheney had is mind when he talked about “the Dark Side”? Because it doesn’t get significantly darker than this.)
Sure it gets darker. Nobody is called to account and the next time it gets worse.
BTF: your Daily Beast link is busted. Wanna try again? Or did they take it down?
I have to go out, and may be able to try again later. On a quick check, though, the link appears to me to have disappeared from the first graf of the Raw Story story (fatster @ 47). I know my memory is like a sieve, but … Huh?
A tracheotomy would only work if there were some sort of muscular spasm, seizure or object that was blocking respiration. CO2 poisoning, hypercapnia, can cause seizures. An epileptic-like seizure might result in the tongue retracting into the air passage. Once again, this would suggest that the claim that the techniques posed no physical risk is simply a lie. If they had to monitor the individuals to prevent them from entering into these stages there was a high risk of organic failure. Even before organic collapse there is long term traumatic damage that occurs in the nerves and tissues.
Per today’s NYT:
These reporters are playing fast and loose with the scope of the negation here. There is a big difference between not recommending that someone be prosecuted and recommending that they not be prosecuted.
There really isn’t any difference (other than grammar). When you discover a conspiracy to eviscerate the Constitution, International Treaties, and the interpretation of federal law by the use of secret memoranda to enable people to commit war crimes with impunity, involving thousands of people and still in operation today, yet you don’t recommend that they be prosecuted? Forget grammar and semantics, these people have lost all human dignity. In this case, there is no difference at all. It either shocks the conscience or you don’t have one.
Yeah, that is right. In other circumstances, in a private setting or something, you might could make that distinction. Here, however, a recommendation for criminal prosecution is either made, or it is not made, for the record. None was made; that is all that counts.
Especially when you are the Office of Professional Responsiblity, whose investigation is being done on a Professional Responsiblity front and not as a criminal investigation and whose Professional Responsiblity investigation is to determine professional or administrative recourse, not criminal, and whose Professional Responsibility investigation was limited to looking at the straight drafting of the opinions and not the broader context of any criminal conspiracy involving them.
It’s not that the press isn’t “getting it;” it is that they are being deliberately played with and they like that – no reason to know what the hell you’re talking about that way.
The OPR investigation was NEVER to be a criminal investigation – that’s not their function. It’s like having a doctor deliberately murder a patient in the operating room. If the hospital conducts an inquiry into whether or not that doctor should have his privileges suspended — that is not the same as a DA investigating him for murder. May not be a great analogy, but it shows where I’m trying to go.
Exactly. And when they did not recommend prosecuting, the NYT reported that they did recommend not prosecuting. A major shift in meaning occurs, when those two words are transposed.
I’m really enjoying these lively discussions here so I hope you don’t mind if I chime in. Bush officials were calling reporters yesterday to say “did you hear the report doesn’t recommend prosecution or criminal charges.” The leaks about the report came from ex-Bush officials and they deliberately spun it to change the debate to say “no crimes were committed.” If you look at Jarret’s letter from last year to Whitehouse and Durbin, he makes it clear what the scope of his investigation had been all along:
And on top of that, the report doesn’t even say “we don’t recommend you pursue criminal charges/investigation/prosecution.
Jason,
Welcome to the Pit here at the Wheel House! I’m glad you stuck around to join the discussions. I usually don’t have the time to become substantively involved, and usually have to content myself with making occasional cheers from the popcorn gallery.
Carry on!
Bob in HI
Hi Jason, Thanks. Also, thanks for your excellent reporting over the years. (I’m a big fan.)
ah, thank you There have been some hiccups along the way. But thank you and thank you Bob for the welcome. I have really, really enjoyed the discussion here on this issue for some time now.
I’ve incorporated your words (@ 98 – crediting both you and this thread) into an update at my blog on this. It steamed me that the NY Times did not bother to look into the facts, but simply took it on Faith from their leakers in the former administration. You’ve been very helpful!
oh thank you! That’s so kind of you. And I’m glad I was able to add something worthwhile to the discussion.
Yes – we had some of this discussion in an earlier thread (starting around here) but reporting whether or not the OPR “recommends a criminal charge” would be a bit like reporting whether or not a dentist recommeded cataract surgery for the teeth you broke when you fell down because you couldn’t see. He’s a lot more likely to comment on the teeth, since that’s his function and his lack of comment on the state of your eyesight isn’t really the same as saying there’s nothing wrong with it.
OT I find it beyond sad that Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe – mothers of children – are managing to ignore the unfolding horror of their support for Bush’s inhuman Torture Policy.
War is the worst nightmare the mother of a Servicemember can have. To know that her son or daughter is Fighting Honorably for Our highest principles of Freedom and Justice for All – only barely off-sets the potential sacrifice she dreads.
For Snowe and Collins to see their own Political Leaders dis-honorably going to War – on Lies – and then dis-honorably fighting the War – in contravention of the statutory Laws of Land Warfare, the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions – is to be Silently Complicit where a Moral Obligation exists to Do the Right Thing.
The more barbaric the War, the more likely the worst nightmares of Our Servicemembers’ Mothers are to come true. Those Laws, Treaties and Conventions exist to limit the brutality of War to Honorable Mortal Combat – something we can All wish to avoid – but still, only just barely, accept with a heavy heart when one of Our sons or daughters makes the ultimate sacrifice.
I really wish Snowe and Collins, and all principled Republicans, would do the Honorable Thing and stand-up with the Dems and Obama, on the side of the Rule of Law – if only to Honor the sacrifices made by Our Warriors – and their mothers, too.
Senators Snowe and Collins – Please help to Redeem their Loss Now by Honoring the Law that you helped your ‘leaders’ to Evade in Bush’s Immoral War of Choice. Bring Bush and Cheney to Justice for Mis-Leading you and US – with tragic consequences for All.
Moral Responsibilities as a Human Being, or Complicit Loyalty to an Immoral Ideology?
It’s time to face it. There are very few principled individuals left in the GOP. In fact, one could argue that the party has descended so far down the curve, and so many have left the party either formally or informally, that office holding in its name, or even active membership in it, establishes an individual as, by definition, unprincipled. From their recent statements and actions, there may be some hope of Snowe fulfilling your hopes but Collins, not so much.
I wish they’d stand up too, but I’m not sure that standing with the Dems and/or Obama is much of a place to stand if you are against the wars.
The recent bombings of civlians in Afghanistan is all a part of the Obama game plan.
How so?
You were saying it doesn’t get significantly darker than this. We are discussing the total lack of accountability and sanctions for grievous crimes against the Constitution, International Treaties, US law, and human dignity. My point is that since they have gotten away with it, the next time these plays are run the results will be even worse, and the crimes more foul.
I agree with you in principle, and also feel punched in the gut. I worked hard for Obama’s campaign, hoping that the Rule of Law would be returned. I got the rule of Obfuscation and kicking it down the road instead. So I’m a little tweaked.
Next time will be worse.
Next time will be worse.
Ah. I see. I tucked in the word “significantly” there because (not that I’m any judge of such things *g*) willfully drowning or ordering people to drown prisoners probably would get a person tucked safely away in Hell for eternity. So, “significantly” worse? Probably not, unless they’re jockeying for which particular circle of Hell they’d like.
“Zelikow: I Think Cheney Tried To Destroy My Torture Memo”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..hp?ref=fp3
From your link
This is from commenter 3 (their whole comment seemed interesting) ..
Is what they (#3) are talking about, actual fact? re; Cheney and Rumsfeld and hearings re; experiments on people? That may prove interesting.
I don’t know so much regarding Cheney/Rummy/ etc ’s history, except it goes back a long way and they (and others) seem to be connected to major ‘dark/shady’ periods in US history (Watergate/IranContra/ etc, etc, etc), but I know they have been doing what they do for a really long time…..
——————Attachment—————-
I am concerned that many seem not be be aware that of the ‘CIA Secret Experiments on Humans’ and to my recollection, our own US Military Troops in the 1950’s and the subsequent Rockefeller Commission on these exect matters in the 1970’s.
It was widely reported that the Rockefeller Commission had and has to this day many factual errors, many ommissions and ambiguious and also alleged then that Dick Cheney (CIA?) and Rumsfeld (CIA?) also withheld relevant facts and information and that then President Gerald Ford (seemingly un-constitutional and un-timely pardons, Nixon) blocked all further attempts at hearings, Adjudication ecetra.
Do you think, in terms of the ’50s, they were referring to MKULTRA?
I think they have to be…Although with so much stuff/programs hiding in the dark, it’s hard to know which one is which sometimes.
I did a post on my blog called Working the Refs because I found it astonishing that so many people who have a vested interest in the outcome of this “ethics report” have been allowed to have input.
Who is supposed to initiate the grievance proceedings? Is the Justice Department, the “client”, going to do so and if so where? Are the grievance proceedings confidential in whole or in part in the jurisdictions where they would be commenced. What will the letter to the applicable disciplinary committee state? What is the “grievant” actually going to complain about?
Based on my reading (IANAL) of the Policies and Procedures of the Office of Professional Responsibility, OPR does not investigate crimes but instead investigates ONLY the:
If OPR does find “professional misconduct, it appears to have ONLY three options available as “penalties”:
The option of referral for prosecution does not appear to be available under OPR Policies and Procedures.
The DoJ office which does criminal investigations within the Dept of Justice appears to be the Office of the Inspector General. Based upon this office’s press releases, they appear to do lots of in-house investigations and prosecutions.
Thus, it would appear to me that media coverage of this issue has been misleading to an extreme. For I find no evidence that OPR itself can refer for prosecution.
Seems to me this leaves the door still open for referral of this matter to the Office of the Inspector General. The Investigations Division of OIG has this duty:
Thanks, TheraP. I added an update to my blog post and referenced your comments here.
Thanks for your link. I decided to put up a blog on this myself and I’ll place a link to yours along with a quote or two into a comment or the blog itself.
It’s important, I think, not to allow the story to be defined by the right! (as if this is end of it…)
ding ding ding ding ding
This is the point I tried to make long long ago, when there were the first rumblings that the OPR report might be “devastating” or worth a tinker’s damn. Not only that – but they had such a narrow mandate that it was ridiculous.
It’s very helpful to have your feedback on this. And the post by pmorlan (who commented here @ 80), Democracity has this worrisome paragraph:
Which, I’m sure, is exactly what you meant!
Absolutely right, TheraP. Sorry I spaced on OPR and what they will and won’t do. Thanks for setting me straight.
Kind of OT, but on the topic of ‘journalism,’ if anyone is interested
Even if it turns out to be not DJohnsen voted in at Olc, I think the current administration will continue working toward some institutional remediation to shut the entrancesExits sufficiently that a future executive branch would find it more difficult to evoke an iteration of the relay whose framework Garzon attempts to define. On the email issue, Waxman’s 26pp grid begins in 2003. I wonder if Payton transferred to NatArchivist .pst’s for 2001-2002; and, if the rollout of the Exchange system was incremental, .pst’s for those offices whose columns on Waxman’s grid contain nothing for the first months of 2003, providing no way to estimate mean and average volume. Re: loc MFilip, v. Kirkland newsitem date yesterday; the bulletin has it Filip ended employ at DoJ in February 2009; the firm’s searchengine has no entry yet for Filip there, however, evidently not yet fully active in the new post. I think Reid needs to sequester the mole from PA as plans are made in the Senate for some of the healing of DoJ; Specter would be the equivalent of Manuel Miranda IT seive. SenSpecter might have a den near another cherished harbinger in Punxsutawney whose activities appear in the news each February 2.
More on the “stress test”, or BOHICA
MAY 6, 2009 2:41AM
Ten Banks Expected to “Fail” Stress Tests
“It’s Stress Test Week! (Again). But this time, we’re talking results instead of just, you know, hey, guess what’s happening behind closed doors. The nation’s 19 largest banks have all seen their results by now, and rumors have been flying since Monday about what, exactly, those results showed. I thought I’d do a round-up of expectations now, and then come back tomorrow and see how the banks fared in reality.”
http://open.salon.com/blog/sat…..ress_tests
http://tinyurl.com/daecc2
In a rush here to a med appt, so didn’t check to see if this has already been posted. If so, apologies.
Spanish judge sends Guantanamo inquiry
May 6, 2009 – 6:09AM
“A Spanish judge will ask the United States if it plans to probe alleged torture at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp before deciding whether to open his own inquiry.
“Judge Eloy Velasco from Spain’s top criminal court will make the request formally in a letter to officials in the United States, according to a copy of the document obtained on Tuesday.”
http://news.smh.com.au/breakin…..-au6r.html
http://tinyurl.com/csmv9p
OT, but this made me laugh so hard. From Froomkin’s WaPo chat today:
(emphasis in original)
To me it seems that the recent media (especially rightwing radio, tv and blogs) focus on whether torture was “effective” was BushCo pre-planned in order to change the story away from “was it illegal” to “was it effective” so that they could then argue that the question of effectiveness is not the question the (POS bastard) lawyers were asked to answer … and thus the cast doubt on “the quality of the legal analysis in the wide-ranging draft report.”
It is the old bait and switch. Making this argumant was planned BEFORE “Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip …left office this year.” And the rightwing media was given the talking point to stress effectiveness in March, April, and May so as to re-enforce Mukasey’s and Filip’s counter argument and undermine the OPR report.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon pulled some old Ronnie Reagan quotes out, where Raygun spouted off against torture under any and all circumstances. (They used to try to hide it better).
Quite the find. Recall that all the R candidates for prez couldn’t resurrect the ghost of Reagan fast enough.
Here’s their golden oldie Raygun backstabbing them from the grave on torture “policy”.
The modern Republican party is not even the party of Reagan (bad though that was). Today’s Republicans are the party of Gingrich and Delay.
Hard Right Reagan Policy (Manifest Destiny Redux) was the grandfatherly prelude to A thousand points of light (Go Fck Yourself), and Dubya’s Holy GWOT on Americans.
Delusional Republicans all wax nostalgiac on the imagined good ol’ Raygun days of 14 percent home loans, ketchup as a vegetable for school lunches and dead commies in Nicaragua.
Therefore, frontrunners McCain and Romney threw elbows at the table, explaining how each deserved to be admired as the real reincarnated Reagan.
Reagan said he was against torture. It is unconstitutional, etc. IMHO, Reagan was simply a script reader. His Nicaragua misadventure stands as evidence that Reagan was a soul-less creep.
And here’s Teddy Roosevelt, another Republican hero:
“The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, … for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.”
http://www.politico.com/news/s…../6647.html
Good find. Good for Teddy. George Washington was no big fan of torture either. The story goes that the British were torturing our captured freedom fighters. And our boys had tortured British captives in kind. Anyway, the land baron slave owner Gen. Washington ordered against torture.
And lest we think that was about some other kind of torture…it was the “water torture”. Applied during the filipino insurrection against American occupation. American soldiers euphemistically called it the “water cure”: “A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down… and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose, … until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious. … His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but who cannot drown.” (1902 Congressional Hearing).
Both sides committed many atrocities and it looked as if the situation was spinning out of control. Roosevelt’s Secretary of War, Elihu Root, ordered a General accused of the water torture to stand trial and reported back to the cabinet. Roosevelt sent a cable to the Commander of the Army in occupied Philippines:
“The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts…the President intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; [but] he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality, and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.”
Roosevelt ordered the courts-martial of the American general on the island of Samar, where some of the worst abuses had occurred. Concerned about a superficial trail, Roosevely insisted upon ” the right of review.” Surely enough the court-martial cleared the general of all charges, and “admonished” him for “excessive zeal”.
Roosevelt reviewed the verdict and then ordered the general’s dismissal. Roosevelt’s decision “won universal praise” from the rival Democrats for acknowledging cruelty in the Philippine campaign. Republicans said that Roosevelt had “upheld the national honor.” Even the major opponents to American “imperial intentions” the Anti-Imperialist League admitted that Roosevelt had slipped their grip. Charles Francis Adams stated Roosevelt: “…has been very adroit. He has conciliated almost everyone.”
Anyone want to connect water boarding to the Salem Witch Trials and “dunking”? Makes about as much sense.
Bob in HI
To the Spanish Inquisition, actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
Thanks.
Yes, John Sifton is a very credible and expert researcher on torture and detention issues.
His story is here: The Bush Administration Homicides
Raw Story
I guess I’m glad, but I think that’s the wrong “header” for the hearings if they want results from them.
If they want something tangible IMO, they need to shift the focus to the Executive branch’s duties of candor and truthful, timely dissemination of information to Congress and the Courts. That’s where you’ll be able to draw blood – again, IMO. Duty of candor is the mild, lulling way of getting at obstruction and perjury.
You don’t think it could lead to higher ups??? (And thanks for clarifying what the OLC does)
And welcome Jason!
It’s not whether having hearings talking about the circumstances of drafting the memos will “lead to” higher ups, but whether you’ll get anything actionable from them. I don’t think you will, and since much of what the inquiry would be focused on would be “state of mind” issues and Exec Priv WH communications issues, etc. you will basically be offering up a chance for them to take this vehicle that’s mired down and spin the wheel, giving out tales of their good intent, and making sure the thing gets more and more stuck.
I think the track of “what the hell were you thinking, drafting such bad opinions” doesn’t go anywhere and no one is going to say, “well, you see, the President wanted to put togethter a torture conspiracy and I wanted to sign on and …”
OTOH, there are lots of things that can put on heat that will get you to actionable places. Like Bradbury’s testimony to Congress about how “we waterboard” and why it’s not torture — and whether or not he had read the IG reports on how waterboarding was ACTUALLY being conducted when he gave that testimony and if that doesn’t mean he … lied to Congress about how “we actually” are waterboarding. Not the “Way of Yoo” but the way the IG report told him it was done. That gives you one perjury and/or obstruction.
Starting with the earliest cases, you bring in the various court orders on preservation of evidence, you bring in professional standards on preservation, you bring in DOJ regs on preservation, you bring in all of it and then start nailing hides to the wall on why evidence was not preserved and why info was not disclosed. Another round of obstruction counts derive from that. Why no lit holds, why the guys in OLC who read the IG report, or Ashcroft, or Thompson, or Comey, or Gonzales, or McNulty etc were insuring that evidentiary requests in the cases where coercion was being raised was being preserved. Just a helluva lot of fallout on that.
You go to al-libi’s case and put on pressure about any OLC or DOJ involvement in authorizations to send him to Egytp and on any State Dept lawyer’s input (bc of the CAT and the provsions re: attaining assurances) Was state cut out – why – did no one obtain assurances on torture, if so who, etc. Given al-Libi’s status as an important witness re: info on training camps in Iraq and on interrogation claims being made in multiple lawsuits, what did DOJ do when he was returned to US custody in 2004 to insure his availability as a witness to both Congress and the Courts? Where is he? Another round of obstruction claims opens up.
You go to the Executive order on classification and on not being able to classify things that are illegal and you start hammering on things like Arar’s case and el-Masri’s. How did DOJ and State lawyers interact to obtain assurances from Syria – what authorized the kidnap in Macedonia of a German citizen who was not a member of al-Qaeda and was not being brought to the US? Who authorized? What was DOJ’s response on discovery? How can it have been legal? Can you invoke state secrets for illegal acts, etc. This frames things up much better than the states secrets invocations in other places, bc it is all about someone who got mistakenly kidnapped and tortured. Then you go to the press reports on Rice and Merkel. Merkel says that Rice admitted he was taken by mistake. Rice then says to the Press that includes domestic press that Merkel is fibbing (i.e., got it wrong) Is anyone in DOJ aware of the National Security Act and prohibitions on planting propaganda in the US press? Anyone at State give Rice advice before she made her statements? What would be the procedure if they were false – who to investigate, etc. They could get so much more traction out of this kind of thing, all tieing to truth from the Exec and adherence to laws re: same than, IMO, they ever will out of a “weren’t you plotting torture with Addington when you drafted the memos?” kind of hearing/investigation.
fwiw – too much to hit on to really answer this in a meaningful, coherent way.
Dang, Mary. At first I saw all of those question marks as question I should answer. I soon realized that you know better.
Via Spencer Ackerman link to Mother Jones – Mother Jones says:
“In an email exchange with Mother Jones, Zelikow notes that Cheney’s office did not have the authority to request that his memo be deep-sixed: “They didn’t run the interagency process. Such a request would more likely have come from the White House Counsel’s office or from NSC staff.”
Whatever happened to the contempt charges against Rove, Miers and Josh Bolten?
Here’s the link to 104
Senate to hear testimony on Bush detainee interrogations
BY MIKE SHEEHAN Published: May 6, 2009 Updated 2 hours ago
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..l=home.php
http://tinyurl.com/dj2yvt
Don’t forget, in the response to the OPR report, that the IG’s office (which would ordinarily deal with the criminal issues) said it couldn’t investigate.
This review at History Commons is pretty good
2-19:
4-23
This hole is really a huge toehold, if Obama weren’t Obama and if Holder weren’t Holder, in calling for a Special Counsel. In a world where the President and AG wanted to do the right thing, you’d only have to say that –
a) there have been allegations of serious misconduct resulting from a very narrow investigation, with signicant questions relating to what a more broadly based investigation might reveal;
b) the OPR, while it has done a very good job, is not empowered to make criminal investigations, charges or recommendations;
c) ordinarily, the Office of Inspector General would be able to make investigations and clear the air on these issues, but;
d) Senator Kyle amended the IG legislation passed last year to delete the ability of the IG’s office to undertake such investigations, therefore
e) our only option at this point is to appoint an independent special prosecutor
It won’t happen, although it would be very legitimate.
And last year when a special prosecutor was appointed to probe the U.S. attorney firings to determine whether crimes were committed it was based on the recommendation of a report prepared jointly by OPR and the IG.
Thanks, Mary, for the clarification here. (I’ll amend my post yet again…) Can they not revisit the legislation now? Could the Congress not decide to do that? Not that I’m opposed to a Special Prosecutor of course. But you’ve hugely clarified the conflicts of interest in OPR doing the investigation here! In a sense it put OPR into a position of an ethical violation because it had to take on a tainted “investigation” – overseen by the very folks that engineered this near-coup in the first place!
I guess we should all complain to bmaz for allowing Arizona to elect such an accomplice to the Bush Crime syndicate.
Hey bmaz, how do we get that bozo off the bus???
But wait!
“Congressional sources say in this case there will be no such conference; the House is likely to accept the Senate version”
Can’t we pelt Speaker with Pelosi with cat calls and demand that the House NOT accept the Kyle loophole?
Bob in HI
(I left AZ in 2004, so don’t blame me *g*)
Yeah, that is right unfortunately. That said, it would have taken some balls, I can dream of a sentence to the effect “While this office, and this report, does not possess the jurisdiction to recommend consideration for investigation and filing of criminal charges, it is recommended that this report be considered by the appropriate department in that regard”. To dream the impossible accountability dream……….
Yeah – I mean you can imagine a runaway OPR lawyer saying, “while this is not within our scope of review, there do seem to be quesitons of conspiracy and obstruction which would warrant further investigation by an appropriate office or officer” But that is where the fact that they are not independent and are subject to the AG comes in.
Oh, agreed. Just seeing the language out there on the record would make my day. Because, as we both believe, not diddly shit else likely is going to happen.
The only thing of real value that can come of the OPR report is evidence of what happened and these lawyers and their paymasters were involved. Let the idiot right-wingers think they’re winning the week by get the MSM to focus on ‘no recommendation of criminal prosecution’. This is a long struggle against the enemies of all Humankind (as Scott Horton reminds us). We have a duty to keep pressing for accountability. Every new revelation gets us one step closer. The breaking point will come. Maybe not tomorrow or even next year, but the day will come that the fearmongering, torture-loving criminals are held to account. I don’t intend for my kids grow up in a world where these yahoos walk around with impunity.
WO, my sentiments exactly! I’m in this for the long haul!
Heh, I am not done fighting, but I do understand the score.
Think Progress:
Sorry I can’t link on this computer.
Here’s the link to Graham at ThinkP
hehehe
Hot, much?
God forbid Senators should listen to citizens!!!!
Steaming!
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..-bloggers/
Got a plug in for Marcy Wheeler and FDL in on the Diane Rehm show. That is the fourth time I have been able to plug this blog on the Rehm show. Hell I bet I’ve gotten through at least 200 times over the last eight years. First call just after the 2000 Supreme Court Presidential selection.
Mentioned Marcy trumping the how many times KSM and AZ had been tortured. Wish I would have gotten more in.
Fate of Newspapers
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/
44;00 mention Marcy ,FDL
So cool. Thanks for everything.
by the way, and I am not sure if there is actual text to back this up, but according to some ex-DOJ attorneys because Yoo and Bybee no longer worked for DOJ when OPR launched it’s probe the watchdog could not recommend punishment beyond a state bar inquiry.
That would be correct. They are not a part of the administration anymore, so no administrative remedies can apply. OPR has no independent power to do something as far as censure, suspension, etc. of licenses. All it can do at that stage is a referral and the aspects on that, absent a conviction of some kind, are dim. If you watch Turley on Olberman last night, he notes that as well. I don’t think you could expect anything rising to the level of disbarrment with what the bar assoc will have to work with from the OPR report, but I guess we’ll see.
A few of the comments in a review on this book on torture policy make me think of some of your insights Mary.
Latest Murray Waas:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..97764.html
And in that Waas, this:
But that is exactly what HOlder and Obama sent letters to CIA to say they would do. I guess they both wish Yoo was still on staff, they seem to like his recommendations.
from Salt Lake City, no less:
Bybee’s memo
Judge should resign or be impeached
Tribune Editorial
Updated: 05/05/2009 05:33:43 PM MDT
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12301236
Keep in mind that that came from the SLC Tribune, the non-Mormon paper, not the Deseret News, the Mormon paper, for Utah. That said, yes, Bybee should resign or be impeached. You better hope he resigns though, because I am not sure that Harry Reid, a Mormon, would encourage impeachment in the Senate. In fact, you can bet he would discourage it strongly. I cannot believe there will be sufficient political will for impeachment of Bybee.
Okay. Now I’m seeing some potential bipartisanship!
The Top Ten Banks Who’re Responsible for the Economic Meltdown [and the raid on our Treasury]
http://www.publicintegrity.org/blog/entry/1354/
A bright moment in today’s news (Lt. Watada):
Justice Department drops case against Fort Lewis war objector
By GENE JOHNSON, AP Legal Affairs Writer
“The Justice Department is dropping its appeal of a judge’s decision that blocked the Army from retrying a Fort Lewis lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq.”
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/44492717.html
I’d like to think the Justice Dept dropped this so they could spend time and energy going after much bigger fish, but . . .
That is good news and a + in the Obama column.
**********
This is a crappy video, but Nadler questioning Bradbury on waterboarding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecdJupasSFY
I musta missed the “classification” of tracheotomy kits, as they are prominently absent from his answers.
Thanks so much for posting that youtube, though I do wish somebody would get the audio and video in synch to better reflect Nadler’s powerful and persistent pursuit of the truth.
Lt. Watada is our boy. His parents live here in Hawaii, and I’ve met them. So I’m happy about this!
Bob in HI
This was also on this morning’s news in the Puget Sound region — he’s based (or was based?) at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma.
The news report said he’s hoping to enter law school when he gets out of the military, and I thought, “This guy’s tough enough to make one kick-ass lawyer.”
Piece on the new OPR head – who says she was inspired by watergate hearings.
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/…..tions.html
WaPo:
The threat to America’s security was countered immediately after 9/11 – the government increased security at airports and on flights. Bush then immediately began using the tragedy of 9/11 as propaganda to pursue PNAC’s long-held dream of invading Iraq.
Saying that torture was for protecting the US against some immediate danger of attack is a lie. Torture was for establishing a link between al Qaeda and Iraq.
Hey, cool! Thanks Leen!
I’ve forgotten the name of our commenter who told the story of running into Rumsfeld getting onto public transport. ??
Frank Rich and Rachel were just discussing this. Is he okay/has he been around?
on: Bradbury, on forgetting YooBybee, an article posted 1 month ago.
Lopresti – Thanks for the link!
Of course, Bradbury’s job was to shut-down the UE/Inherent Powers/Unlimited President Program – on the last day possible – so that Bush would have enjoyed All the Benefits of Unlimited Power for seven years, but Obama would be denied the same powers from Day One.
Mission Accomplished with Bush’s OPR Report, huh?
Balkin’s got good, clear insight, imvho, into Bradbury’s white-washing of Yoo and Bybee, which Bradbury does by ‘disavowing’ the legal reasoning behind Two Claims made by the Cheney/Addington/Yoo Proponents of Presidential Power:
“These two disowned claims lie at the heart of the Cheney/Addington/Yoo theory of presidential power– namely, that when the president acts as commander in chief Congress may not restrict in any way his military decisionmaking, including decisions about detention, interrogation, and surveillance. The President, because he is President, may do whatever he thinks is necessary, even in the domestic context, if he acts for military and national security reasons in his capacity as Commander in Chief. This theory of presidential power argues, in essence, that when the President acts in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, he may make his own rules and cannot be bound by Congressional laws to the contrary. This is a theory of presidential dictatorship.”
So, Bradbury ‘disavows’ Yoo’s reasoning that Bush is Above the Law when acting as the UE, but Bradbury holds harmless anyone who acted Loyally (including Yoo and Bybee, and the Torturers,) in good faith, to the Addington/Bybee/Yoo UE Theory – Blind Loyalty to Bush whose Word was Law – through 2003.
In addition, as I understand it, Bradbury ‘disavows’ Yoo’s reasoning that Bush as CIC has free-rein, domestically and internationally, to violate the basic Constitutional Rights of Citizens to enjoy Protection from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures, etc, but Bradbury ‘immunizes’ those who assisted Bush – like Congress and the Telecoms – from future liability.
So, as Bradbury saw it, Bush the UE, without commenting on the Legality of the Cheney/Addington/Yoo Theory, was entitled to exercise Unlimited Power during his Administration – and All of Bush’s Loyal Flunkies were entitled to be *not prosecuted* and/or given immunity from future liability.
To show the ‘distance’ that Bradbury’s OLC put between reliance on the Cheney/Addington/Yoo Theory, and his new-found reliance on the Rule of Law – Bradbury assures US that the Addington/Bybee/Yoo UE Theory of Presidential Power was not given credence in OLC after 2003.
However, if that is so, then how does Bradbury explain the Hospital Visit and the March 11th, 2004 Re-Certification of the President’s Program – when Bush allegedly declared himself the UE, all over again?
whitewash.