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September 02, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

OLBERMANN: In the 48 hours since Dick Cheney called investigating torture an outrageous political act to former prosecutors, one from each party say they disagree.

In our fourth story on the COUNTDOWN: The torture probe is now getting support not only from former prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic U.S. senator who joins us in a moment, but also from the nation‘s former top prosecutor, Republican Alberto Gonzales.

First, the senator, the former U.S. attorney in the “National Law Journal,” laying out the legal foundations that justify that require investigation. First, the corpus delicti, the body of evidence establishing the possible existence of a crime. In this case, the Bush administration‘s admission of waterboarding, an act defined as criminal by international treaty and by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit in 1984.

Mr. Whitehouse writing, quote, “For there to be investigation now is unexceptional. The only exceptional is the parties involved: the former vice president of the United States, his counsel, David Addington, Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo.”

Congressman Jerry Nadler making the same case on FOX News where, of course, the emcee was contractually obligated to interrupt as soon as Nadler mentioned Cheney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: The law says very clearly that it is the obligation of the attorney general to investigate, to see whether crimes were committed any time there was torture under American jurisdiction. He must do that, if he didn‘t do that, he‘d be breaking the law. My criticism of the attorney general is that he should not limit the investigation to people in the field who may have committed the torture, to people who may have ordered, such as the vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: But it was Fredo, poor Fredo who grabbed the headlines by going against the family. He broke their hearts.

Quote, “Let me just say that I have a great deal of respect for General Holder. I think that the attorney general would have made this on his own and I think as the chief prosecutor of the United States, he should make the decision on his own. Eric Holder is looking at conduct that goes beyond the instructions given by the Department of Justice. And if people go beyond that, I think it is legitimate to question, to examine that conduct to ensure that people are held accountable for the actions they take even if it‘s the actions in prosecuting the war on terror.”

With us now, as promised, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Great thanks for your time tonight, Senator.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Good to be with you.

OLBERMANN: First, your thoughts on Mr. Gonzales endorsing this investigation. Do you think his approval is sincere here? Or is it a function of relief that the aim is no higher than the operatives at the interrogative level?

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September 01, 2009 MSNBC HARDBALL

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From The Cafferty File:

Attorney General Eric Holder has named a federal prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture by the CIA. This coincides with the release of the 2004 Inspector General’s report of CIA interrogation tactics including waterboarding, staging mock executions, and threatening suspects with guns, power drills, and the safety of their family members.

It also mentions moving detainees to prisons in countries where torture is practiced. A redacted version of the report was first released after the ACLU sued last year but clearly the details were in the redacted sections.

This is all happening as the President announced a change in intelligence gathering — shifting the responsibility for terrorism interrogations to the FBI and away from the CIA.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said all along the Inspector General’s report would prove that interrogation tactics were successful in obtaining useful information from detainees that prevented additional attacks on the U.S. He says we should be praising the people responsible for conducting these interrogations. Cheney is also raising questions about the Obama Administration’s ability to protect Americans.

Nine Republican lawmakers have sent a letter to the Attorney General urging him not to launch a criminal investigation because it would jeopardize “security for all Americans, chill future intelligence activities,” and could “leave us more vulnerable to attack.”

The point of the investigation is to determine if laws were broken. For most people, when a law is broken there are consequences. The question remains whether the people who authorized all this stuff will ever be held accountable.

Here’s my question to you: Is naming a special prosecutor to investigate torture a good idea?

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[Editor's note: Please welcome D-Day to the Crooks and Liars team. Most of you are no doubt familiar with him through his always-impressive work at Digby's Hullabaloo, where he'll continue to contribute; you'll just get to read more of him here. D-Day also helped fill in a few weeks back while I was on vacation. John's trying to swim against the tide of blogs pulling, so he's hired D-Day to write several posts a week for us. We're lucky to have him. -- DN]

Keith Olbermann talks with Jane Mayer in this clip about the release of the CIA IG report and the preliminary investigation into some of the worst practices of the torture regime. She talks about how the IG report reads like "a crime scene," foregrounding the idea that the architects of the policy at CIA were warned in this 2004 report and repeatedly thereafter that their agency would be in deep legal trouble for continuing these actions, and yet they kept justifying them and/or actually engaging in them for years afterward. Nobody took the warnings seriously, knowing both the makeup of the Justice Department and the Presidency at that time, and perhaps banking on how Washington would view these efforts, as part of the past and best kept their, given the Establishment culpability for torture.

Here's just a few of the facts of what CIA interrogators did in our name, just the ones that come from this IG report, as masterfully summarized by Glenn Greenwald:

• Threats of execution, using semi-automatic handguns and power drills
• Threats to kill detainee and his children
• Threats to rape detainee's wife and children in front of him
• Restricting the detainee's carotid artery
• Hitting detainee with the butt end of a rifle
• Blowing smoke in detainee's face for five minutes
• Multiple instances of waterboarding detainees, of the type we prosecuted Japanese war criminals for using:
• Hanging detainee by their arms until interrogators thought their shoulders might be dislocated
• stepping on detainee's ankle shackles to cause severe bruising and pain
• choking detainee until they pass out
• dousing detainee with water on cold concrete floors in cold temperatures to induce hypothermia
• killing detainees through torture techniques, whether accidental or not
• putting detainee in a diaper for days at a time to live in their own filth

On that last point, Digby notes that this could have been used in tandem with another technique we know about, the use of forced enemas, a particularly degrading technique, part and parcel of the humiliations heaped on prisoners that were psycho-sexual in nature. A lot of these stem from misreadings of books like Raphael Patai's "The Arab Mind," which presumed a host of dubious generalizations about Muslims and their predispositions, all of it willingly lapped up by neoconservatives willing to believe that their opponents were somehow subhuman. As if anyone would react favorably to being made to live in their own shit. These stereotypical projections that manifested themselves in essentially an allowance for torturing brown-skinned people have dangerous and deadly repercussions.

more...

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From The Ed Schultz Show, Jerrold Nadler says the appointment of a Special Prosecutor doesn't go far enough and that the law is that when torture occurs under American jurisdiction there must be an investigation of everyone who may have been involved and if warranted prosecutions. Nadler expressed concern that we aren't being aggressive enough and limiting the investigations too much. He also adds this:

Nadler: We are well into territory already, where because of the pardon of Nixon after Watergate and the people around him, because of in the Iran Contra, we're getting into territory where it becomes taken for granted that high officials can violate the law and get away with it.

Schultz: Yep.

Nadler: If high officials violated the law here, if Cheney did, if Rice did, etc., they've got to be prosecuted to show that no one is above the law.

I agree with his point that no one is above the law. I disagree that we're "getting into territory" where high officials take it for granted that they will never be held accountable for their law breaking. We're well past that point now.

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August 24, 2009 News Corp

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Keith talks to Harper's Scott Horton about the reports that Attorney General Eric Holder is about to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the CIA for torturing prisoners. Horton has more at Harpers:

Here’s another question. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Officials said it wasn’t clear that any CIA interrogators were ever informed of the limits laid out in the Justice Department memo. ‘A number of people could say honestly, correctly, “I didn’t know what was in it,”‘ said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.” How would that affect the work of a special prosecutor?

The Times piece builds off accounts furnished by “former senior Justice officials,” close to the torture issue, with apparent knowledge of “investigations.” In all likelihood, we’re talking about Bush Administration political appointees apprehensive about what a special prosecutor might uncover. I would strongly discount the claims that the investigations will never go anywhere because of a lack of witnesses and evidence. That conclusion can’t be justified until a serious investigation has actually been conducted—and it’s clear that the Bush Justice Department did not conduct a serious investigation because they were concerned about where it might lead.

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(Suzanne Ito writes for and manages Blog of Rights, the blog of the national ACLU.)

June 26 of this year marked the International Day in Support of Torture Victims, and the anniversary of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture. On that day, the ACLU joined countless other human rights groups in calling for Accountability for Torture. We asked people to send Attorney General Eric Holder the Office of Legal Counsel memos—the actual evidence released through ACLU lawsuits that revealed the fact that high-level Bush administration officials had sanctioned these illegal acts—and urged him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these crimes.

We were pleased when Newsweek's Daniel Klaidman reported that Holder was indeed considering an investigation. But now a month has passed, we haven't heard much from the Justice Department. So last week, the ACLU renewed its call for accountability by launching a new video, featuring director Oliver Stone, composer Philip Glass, Rosie Perez, and many others reading from the torture memos, and calling for accountability.

The public knows that detainees were tortured during the Bush presidency. From the photos from Abu Ghraib, to congressional reports (PDF), to the torture memos themselves, it's crystal-clear that these abusive interrogation practices were authorized by the highest levels of the Bush administration. Even Dick Cheney couldn't resist a little cheerleading about how effective he thought waterboarding was.

It is a core premise of American democracy that no one—not even the president—is above the law. When we hear Attorney General Holder is considering only investigating those who carried out the torture, not those who authorized the torture in the first place, it sickens us to think how this clashes with the most fundamental American ideals of fairness. Too much evidence of high-level orders exists to limit criminal investigations to "a few bad apples." We cannot compromise the rule of law because we're afraid the outcome might be politically messy, inconvenient or even painful. To not investigate is to tell future presidents and their administrations that they're above the law, and that would render our system of justice meaningless.

So please watch the video, and send it to Attorney General Holder. It's time for a comprehensive investigation of the Bush era torture policies.

CNN contributor Bill Bennett must feel vindicated. Who knew Richard Nixon was such a racist? /snark

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies. “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

Just as interesting is the revelation that then California Governor, Ronald Reagan approved of the now infamous Saturday Night Massacre, cheer leading all the way. No wonder the GOP of today love him so much:

Nine months later, after Nixon precipitated the resignations of two top Justice Department officials and forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he heartily approved.

Reagan told the White House that the action — which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” — was “probably the best thing that ever happened — none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation. Read on...

Emptywheel: Former Sen. Bob Graham says the CIA is making sh*t up. Holy Joe says they always told him the truth.  At least one Republican disagrees...sometimes. Still, I applaud the Wingnutosphere's sudden, inexplicable desire for accountabilty.

Hit & Run: Drug Czar calls for an end to the 'War on Drugs'

The Brad Blog: Rove to be questioned by Special Prosecutor on U.S. Attorney firings today

Happy Valley News Hour: The Fanboyification of the GOP

The Reaction: Does anybody really give a damn other than the "variable values" lunatics?

The Political Carnival: Scouts train to fight terrorists

The right-wing pundits love to hurl insults and ridiculous talking points about the Obama administration. The newest one to date is that what we've really got here is a "Banana Republic." The media won't tell you this, so the blogs have to. Right-wingers were quite happy to try to prosecute Bill Clinton after he left office and weren't shy about their feelings.

Jamison Foser has the lowdown on the bottom feeders:

Gaps in the Right's "banana republic" rhetoric

... In fact, Sean Hannity argues in favor of investigations and prosecutions of past administrations -- as long as the past administrations are Democratic administrations.

In April of 2000, for example, when independent counsel Robert Ray (Ken Starr's successor) suggested that he might indict Bill Clinton when Clinton left office, Hannity said he thought that should happen. On January 21, 2001 -- the day after George W. Bush replaced Clinton in office -- Hannity reiterated that position. In March of 2001, Hannity argued that there should be a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton pardons, and that Clinton attorney general Janet Reno should be indicted...read on
--
What really lends this a through-the-looking-glass quality, however, is that the conservative media who now denounce potential investigations of torture by portraying it as a mere policy disagreement previously sought investigations of a pardon. Whether or not you think all of Clinton's pardon decisions were correct, there is pretty much nobody who denies that he had the authority to make those decisions -- so investigating the pardons essentially was investigating a policy disagreement. Torture, on the other hand, is not a policy disagreement; it is a crime. Thus, the Journal's case against investigating the Bush administration better applies to investigations of the Clinton administration -- investigations the Journal supported.

That's what the conservative media consists of: partisans offering inconsistent, insincere, and nonsensical arguments on behalf of torture and the depraved thugs who authorized it.

They are hypocrites, crooks and liars -- the whole lot of them.

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It wasn't just Karl Rove and the Bush White House crew that was freaking yesterday over President Obama's statement yesterday leaving the door open for prosecutions of the architects of Bush's torture regime -- indicating he'd leave the decision up to the Attorney General. (There was also growing speculation that AG Eric Holder might appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the matter.)

No, it seemed the entire Village was in an uproar. Especially over at Fox, where the dismay was universal. Especially funny on Fox's All Star Panel yesterday afternoon was Morton Kondracke, the Faux Designated Liberal, who blamed it all on MoveOn.org and the liberal bloggers.

Oh, and NBC and the New York Times, too.

Wait. Can we blame it on the French somehow too, while we're at it?

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Karl was positively freaking out yesterday afternoon over the prospect that some of his ex-colleagues at the White House might wind up being prosecuted -- or held responsible publicly -- for helping George W. Bush install a torture regime during his tenure, after President Obama's statement earlier in the day indicating he'd leave the decision up to the Attorney General.

Rove, appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, was particularly frantic -- and when Rove gets frantic, he gets nasty:

Rove: Sure, as long as they've released the limits to which America will go to extract this information, let's share the information that was extracted, and saved America from further attacks. We know, for example -- it's already a part of the public record -- that the interrogation of these high-value targets kept them from being able to attack Los Angeles by flying airplanes into the Liberty tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles, which was one of their plans.

But look, let's step back for a minute. What the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous. What they've essentially said is, If we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run colonels in mirrored sunglasses. And what we're going to do is prosecute, systematically, the previous administration, or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration, based on policy differences.

Is that what we've come to in this country? That if we have a change in administration from one party to another, that we then use the tools of the government to go systematically after the policy disagreements that we have with the previous administration? Now that may be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by, you know, the latest junta. It may be the way that they do things in Chicago. But that's not the way we do things here in America.

Hmmmm. Last I looked, Chicago was here in America.

But more to the point: Karl's sounding like someone who's already looking over his shoulder at congressional subpoenas.

And even more to the point: Sorry, Karl, but working for the White House is not a Get Out of Jail Free card. If you broke the law -- and particularly if you and your pals are war criminals according to American law for having not merely permitted but avidly constructed a torture regime -- the appropriate justice needs meting out.

Of course, we keep hearing about how Torture Saved Us From Terrorists -- notably the overhyped and debunked "Los Angeles Tower plot."

Funny thing about that -- back in 2006, it was Wiretapping Saved Us From Terrorists.

Yes, the same overhyped "plot."

Rove will have to do better than that if he wants to stay ahead of those rapidly gaining footsteps.

The air all around is percolating with the sounds of impeaching Jay Bybee, author of a torture memo. Rep. Jerry Nadler is calling for it now.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called Monday for the impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee, one of the principal authors of the torture memos released last week by the Obama administration.

"He ought to be impeached," Nadler said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law."

Nadler, a New York congressman, is chairman of Judiciary's Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee. Bybee is currently serving a lifetime term on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed in 2003 and confirmed before it was publicly known that he had authorized the torture of detainees.

Nadler is meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday to argue that the release of the torture memos further buttresses a call he had made earlier for a special prosecutor on torture.

Digby finds that Bybee has retained legal council because so far, President Obama has been mum on him:

Anything could happen:

The Obama Administration assured CIA employees Thursday that they would not be prosecuted, but the White House has offered no cover to Bybee or other government lawyers.

So for now, Bybee is on his own. The good news, however, he’s got a nationally recognized lawyer on his side, Latham & Watkins’s Maureen Mahoney, who’s handling the case pro bono. In an e-mail Thursday, Mahoney said Bybee has recused himself from Latham cases, but offered no further comment on his case.

Of course Rahm said yesterday that Obama didn't want to prosecute any former officials. But it's not really Obama's decision and it certainly isn't Rahm's. And the fact that they are out there saying it is --- for political reasons no less ("national unity" etc) --- means it behooves Holder to appoint a special prosecutor.

Bybee certainly seems to understand that he's got some issues if he has one of the top conservative lawyers in the country as his defense lawyer. He's smarter than he seems.

You can sign the petition to have the California Democratic Party Convention vote to impeach Bybee, here.

Please sing the petition. Holder was appoint a special prosecutor not named Starr to investigate.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Michael Isikoff about the latest news as reported by the Washington Post on the Attorney General firings. Special Prosecutor Nora Dannehy has met with defense lawyers and issued subpoenas through a grand jury. Looks like that pardon list isn't getting any shorter but I'm sure Gonzo was on it already.