Special Prosecutor Appointed To Probe Potential Bush Administration Crimes

The Blog of Legal Times is reporting AG Eric Holder has just appointed career federal prosecutor John Durham to review CIA Detainee actions regarding torture.

The Department of Justice internal watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility, submitted to Holder a report today that recommended the department re-examination earlier decisions, made under the Bush administration, to decline to prosecute apparent violations of anti-torture laws.

In reaching his decision to appoint a prosecutor, Holder also reviewed a 2004 report compiled by the CIA inspector general’s office. “As a result of my analysis of all of this material, I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations,” Holder said in a statement today. (Law.com)

So, what do the Obstructionists in Party Of No have to say? Let’s look!

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, expressed his strong disagreement with the appointment.

“I respectfully regret this decision by Attorney General Holder and fear our country will come to regret it too, because an open-ended criminal investigation of past CIA activity, which has already been condemned and prohibited, will have a chilling effect on the men and women agents of our intelligence community whose uninhibited bravery and skill we depend on every day to protect our homeland from the next terrorist attack,” Lieberman said in the statement.

…

The ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), were among nine GOP senators who sent a letter last week to Holder urging him to back off from the idea of appointing the special prosecutor. (TheHill.com)

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: The Part Of No, demonstrating once again that when they break laws, laws don’t matter.

Which, of course, is but one reason why GOP now stands for GreedOverPrinciples.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

The GOP's Tortured Logic

The video includes appearances by Oliver Stone, 9/11 family member Patricia Perry, actors Rosie Perez, Noah Emmerich, John Doman and Reg E. Cathey, and musical composer Philip Glass, among others, reading directly from a memo authored by Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. The memo was released in April as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

For more information, visit:
http://www.aclu.org/torturedlogic

Ladies and Gentlemen, I received the following via e-mail:

Opponents of torture will rally at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, LaSalle Ave and 11th Street, Minneapolis, on Monday, August 24, 9 – 11 AM to bring letters and voices of discontent to Dean Thomas Mengler regarding Professor Robert Delahunty. Prior to his current stint as professor of constitutional law for St.Thomas University, Robert Delahunty, along with John Yoo, authored an infamous memo (1/9/02) for the U.S. Justice Department which advised that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and terrorism. The ‘legal’ advice of this memo helped the Bush administration to legitimize harsh methods of interrogation, which are widely understood to be torture.

The mission statement of St. Thomas University School of Law, posted currently at the University web site, reads, “The University of St. Thomas School of Law, as a Catholic law school, is dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice”. Given this mission statement, many of us who also care about morality and social justice, wonder how the University of St.Thomas can justify maintaining Professor Delahunty on its teaching staff. We also wonder why Dean Mengler finds it necessary to defend Professor Delahunty. Is it the position of the University of St.Thomas Law School that Professor Delahunty’s position on torture is morally correct? Come to the rally August 24 (first day of classes) to hold Professor Delahunty and The University of St. Thomas Law School accountable.

For those who are willing to make it a slightly longer day, some of us will be marching with our banners and letters of discontent from The Center for Human Rights at the U of M to the rally at St. Thomas School of Law. We will be also carrying a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, given to us by The Center for Human Rights. We hope that Dean Mengler and Robert Delahunty will read it. The Center for Human Rights is located in Mondale Hall, University of Minnesota, on the west bank (229 19th Ave. So). We will gather outside the north entrance of Mondale Hall at 7AM. The 2 mile march will begin promptly at 7:15. The march will go straight down Washington Avenue to Nicollet, turn left on Nicollet to 11th Ave, then turn right to St. Thomas University.

That’s next Monday morning; see you there.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

The GOP Playbook: "She/He really isn't a ___ (fill in the blank)"

D*ck Cheney is still in the news; the subject is the outing of CIA Agent Valerie Plame and Bush The Lesser’s refusal to pardon Scooter Libby for Scotter’s role (something Bush got right). David Corn has an article on CQ.com about his appearance on Chris Matthew’s Hardball show on MSNBC discussing that issue and Time Magazine’s story concerning the last days in the misAdministration of Bush The Lesser.

That’s not the point of this post; the point of this post is how the GOP deals with their “enemies”.

And former Ambassador Joe Wilson was considered an enemy of the GOP for his speaking out about the Niger yellowcake BS. So, what play out of the GOP playbook did they run? The ol’ smear play, directed at his wife:

“Valerie Plame wasn’t really a CIA Agent; whe was just a secretary.”

Remember that? The GOP played that one over and Over and OVER, and to this day there are rightwingnuts that still firmly believe Valerie Plame “wasn’t really a CIA Agent; she was a secretary, no, wait – just a glorified coffee go-fer.”

Take the Not-So-SwiftBoat veterans: “John Kerry isn’t really a Purple Heart recipient; all it took were some bandaids.

Disgusting. Then again, coming from GOP “leadership” – it’s to be expected.

These days, the smear machine is going after President Obama:

“He really isn’t an American; he was born in the slums of Kenya.”

Unbelievable. You really have to watch:

GOP Party “Leadership” doesn’t care that it’s simply not true; what they care is that voters think it is.

The GOP Party “Leadership” uses surrogate mouthpieces like G. Gordon Liddy to spread their filth.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

"Disturbing Conduct"

Those aren’t my words; that’s what Attorney General Michael Mukasey called the behavior of Boy Blunder’s inJustice Department. And he called the behavior disturbing at a speech before the American Bar Association. Here’s the money quote:

“As I expect you know, the Justice Department’s own Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility recently released two joint reports about hiring practices at the Department in and before early 2007. The reports included detailed findings that improper political considerations had been used in hiring decisions relating to certain career employees, including Immigration Judges, some Assistant United States Attorneys, and employees detailed to offices in Main Justice, and in hiring decisions relating to candidates for the prestigious Attorney General Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program.

The conduct described in those reports is disturbing. The mission of the Justice Department is the evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it. That mission has to start with the evenhanded application of the laws within our own Department. Some people at the Department deviated from that strict standard, and the institution failed to stop them.

I want to stress that last point because there is no denying it: the system failed. The active wrong-doing detailed in the two joint reports was not systemic in that only a few people were directly implicated in it. But the failure was systemic in that the system – the institution – failed to check the behavior of those who did wrong. There was a failure of supervision by senior officials in the Department. And there was a failure on the part of some employees to cry foul when they were aware, or should have been aware, of problems. (emphasis added) ( US Dep’t of Justice)

Two points, from the ol’ TwoPutter:

1. It’s a good thing the AG is recognizing the problem, but:
2. He’s BLAMING THE EMPLOYEES??!?

Say, Mukasey? Remember a girl named Valerie? Valerie Plame? What did this misAdministration do, when hubby stood tall and told the truth??!?

The Plunderers in the misAdministration put people’s lives at risk ’cause hubby blew the whistle – what makes anyone think that career Justice Dep’t employees didn’t take note, and wonder what THEIR fate might be?

Sorry – the ol’ TwoPutter ain’t buyin’ this Thema Culpa by Gonzo’s stand-in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you shouldn’t either. If Mukasey was serious about career employees standin’ up, he’d have announced a program to cover their back when they did. He didn’t; he isn’t.

And since he’s sandbaggin’ the problems his boss, Boy Blunder, created – what else is he sandbaggin’?

Oh – and a H/T to Tony Mauro at LegalTimes for bringin’ this latest pile of horse(apples) from the misAdministration of Bush The Lesser to my attention.

(originally published at MnBlue.com)