Pat Fitzgerald Chose Not to Consult with Margolis on Rove Indictment
I recognize that at some point I'm going to have to read Karl Rove's book propaganda. But until I find it lying around somewhere for almost-free right next to at least a six-pack of equally almost-free beer, I'm going to let Main Justice read…
Ronald Rotunda: Yoo Sent Email to Someone Else
Ronald Rotunda, having received a copy of my post suggesting that he was the professor whom Yoo emailed looking for help on common law defenses, has emailed to say he did not correspond with Yoo at all on these issues.
As you'll recall, last…
The Waterboarding Smoking Gun, Again
Since Mark Benjamin has decided to claim--some 300-plus days after I did the first of many posts focusing on the details of waterboarding (to say nothing of posts drational did looking at these descriptions medically)--that, "the agency's "enhanced…
Richard Shelby Held Up
Remember that Richard Shelby hold? Where he was holding the Senate hostage so Airbus could get a tanker refueling contract?
Well, given that Airbus withdrew from the competition yesterday, I thought it appropriate to see what Shelby has to…
The DOD Techniques from Spring 2004
Yesterday when I raised the question of what techniques DOD wanted to use in spring 2004, I said there was some ambiguity about what DOD was trying to get approved. In this post I'm going to lay out the conflicting sources of information. Given…
Senator Bob Graham: Majority on Senate Intelligence Committee Supported Interrogation Oversight in 2002
A couple of weeks ago, I noted that the CIA Memorandum for the Record from their February 4, 2003 briefing of Pat Roberts revealed that Bob Graham, Roberts' predecessor as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had attempted to institute…
A Blowjob for Liz "BabyDick" Cheney
Joe Hagan has an epic softball in the New York Magazine describing PapaDick Cheney's plan to salvage his legacy. Or rather, Liz "BabyDick" Cheney's plan to salvage Daddy's legacy, and with it, launch her own career. (At several points, the piece…
Days after Taguba Reported Sadistic Criminal Abuse at Abu Ghraib, DOD Asked to Use More Torture
On March 13, 2004, according to the OPR Report, Jack Goldsmith and Patrick Philbin went to Jim Comey's house on a Saturday to alert him of something. The military had contacted Goldsmith, wanting to use a more extreme form of torture against…
Clarence Thomas' Revenge
Rosalind linked to this LAT article describing Clarence Thomas' pro-abuse views.
According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a prisoner who was slammed to a concrete floor and punched and kicked by a guard after asking for a grievance…
"We all benefited" from Margolis' tenure
A bunch of former DOJ bigwigs just wrote a seemingly pointless letter to Pat Leahy to assure him that David Margolis does not have a partisan--and they mean Left-Right partisan--bias. (h/t Main Justice)
I say "pointless," to begin with, because…
Rahm's Mouthpiece: White House to Cave on KSM Trial
Rahm's mouthpiece is reporting that the White House is all set to cave on civilian trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept.…
The Legal Principles Document and OLC's Leaky SCIF
Sorry to get so deep in the weeds on the missing OLC documents, but I wanted to show why this matters, using the example of the Legal Principles (AKA the Bullet Points) documents. As I'll show below, one of the most sensitive documents involved…
Nadler: FBI's Not Done on Amerithrax
I know that Rush Holt has already called for further investigation in the anthrax case, but having a Sub-Committee Chair at HJC make the same call might carry different weight.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary…
OLC Identified 31 Missing Documents During Period Leading Up to Torture Tape Investigation
As I reported on Monday, DOJ lost not only John Yoo and Patrick Philbin's emails from the period when they were writing the Bybee Memos. It also lost at least 10 documents on torture, a number of them that went into the development of the torture…
Bob Lutz Hangs Up On Ed Whitacre's GM
With the quick corporate profit vultures and Wall Street wizards flailing about at GM for immediate returns; Bob Lutz, the last real car guy left in key management, walks away.
German Constitutional Court: Don't Let America Spy on Germans
A number of you have passed me this breaking news from Germany:
Vast amounts of telephone and e-mail data held in Germany must be deleted, the country's highest court has ruled.
The constitutional court overturned a 2008 law requiring communications…
Boxes and Burials in the CIA's Torture Plans
In this post, I'm going to test a hypothesis that OLC may not have included "cramped confinement" in its torture plans until it removed "mock burial." If I'm right, it means after having been told OLC would not approve mock burial, OLC and CIA…
More Obama Administration Civil Liberties Neglect
The NYPD is compiling an enormous and permanent computerized database of these encounters between innocent New Yorkers and the police while President Obama has failed to appoint even one person to his Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board designed to investigate such infringements.
Ibn Sheikh al-Libi's and Abu Zubaydah's Coffins
At Mary's instigation, I went back to look at Ibn Sheikh al-Libi's description of how he was shoved into a coffin-like box in Egypt. (Thanks to burnt for the searchable copy.)
According to al-Libi, the foreign government service [redacted] "stated…
A Momentous Day to Lose Your Documentation
As I explained in this post, at least ten documents that OPR should have had to conduct its investigation into the writing of the torture memos disappeared sometime over the course of the investigation (significantly, CIA had an opportunity…