chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
So barry and his minions need another distraction to try and get the pressure from the people on healthcare to go away...."Oh wants that shiny object over there!?!?" so they have appointted a "special prosecutor" to go after the bush administrations CIA and also tie the hands of those interrogating any war criminals now.....Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do....as the heat goes up on healthcare, they need another "crisis"....this is a typical move of the disciples of Saul Alinsky and the followers of "Rules for Radicals"..........overload the system and confuse the people....
2 seperate articles:
Prosecutor to Probe CIA Interrogations
Attorney General Parts With White House In Approving Preliminary Investigation
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Holder Hires Prosecutor to Look Into Alleged CIA Interrogation Abuses
Obama spokesman announces interrogation unit
Aug 24 12:08 PM US/Eastern
By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writers
Obama spokesman announces interrogation unit
Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess and White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this story from Washington and Associated Press Writer Phillip Elliott contributed from Oak Bluffs, Mass.
2 seperate articles:
Prosecutor to Probe CIA Interrogations
Attorney General Parts With White House In Approving Preliminary Investigation
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Holder Hires Prosecutor to Look Into Alleged CIA Interrogation Abuses
In appointing a prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA interrogation abuses, including episodes that resulted in prisoner deaths, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Monday shook off warnings from President Obama to avoid becoming mired in past controversies.
Holder said that he realizes the move is controversial but that it was the only responsible course to take.
The decision does not reflect a sharp division between the Justice Department and the White House, government officials said, given the limits of the preliminary review and the respect that Obama says he maintains for the role of an independent attorney general. But it could mark the beginning of a painstaking inquiry that tests the boundaries of the Justice Department's discretion and its ability to evaluate incomplete evidence collected on the world's battlegrounds.
Holder has named longtime prosecutor John H. Durham, who has parachuted into crisis situations for both political parties over three decades, to open an early review of nearly a dozen cases of alleged detainee mistreatment at the hands of CIA interrogators and contractors.
The announcement raised fresh tensions in an intelligence community fearful that it will bear the brunt of the punishment for Bush-era national security policy, and it immediately provoked criticism from congressional Republicans.
Legal analysts said the review, while preliminary, could expand beyond its relatively narrow mandate and ensnare a wider cast of characters. They cited U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, which culminated with the criminal conviction of then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney's chief of staff.
In a statement Monday afternoon, Holder cautioned that the inquiry is far from a full-blown criminal investigation. Rather, he said, it is unknown whether indictments or prosecutions of CIA contractors and employees will follow. Lawyers involved in similar reviews said that any possible cases could take years to build because of challenges with witnesses and evidence.
"I fully realize that my decision to commence this preliminary review will be controversial," Holder added. "As attorney general, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law. In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take."
Obama and White House officials have said that they want to look ahead on national security; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that the administration is eager to keep "going forward" and that "a hefty litigation looking backward is not what we believe is in the country's best interest."
But the White House voiced support for Holder in a news conference held Monday on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters that "ultimately, the decisions on who is investigated and who is prosecuted are up to the attorney general. . . . The president thinks that Eric Holder, who he appointed as a very independent attorney general, should make those decisions."
But nearly as important in the high-stakes analysis will be Durham, 59, an assistant U.S. attorney in Connecticut who has investigated Boston mob kingpins, corrupt FBI agents and his state's GOP governor. Durham rarely speaks publicly, but in private he cracks jokes, follows the Boston Red Sox and regularly attends Mass with his wife of several decades. One of his four sons followed in his father's footsteps and now serves as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.
Though a registered Republican, Durham generally is regarded as apolitical, and attorneys general from both parties -- including Janet Reno, Michael B. Mukasey and Holder -- have tapped him for their most difficult assignments.
Hugh Keefe, a longtime Connecticut defense lawyer who has often squared off against Durham in court, called the prosecutor "the go-to guy for Justice whenever they get a hot case."
Durham risked unpopularity a decade ago when he untangled questionable relationships among FBI agents, Massachusetts police and Boston mob kingpins. Ultimately, he turned over evidence that prompted a federal judge to dismiss several murder cases and he won a conviction against a longtime federal agent who had grown too close to organized crime figures. The investigation later attracted a mass audience in the Academy Award-winning film "The Departed."
Holder selected Durham for the inquiry announced Monday in part because of his role as prosecutor in an ongoing investigation of the destruction of CIA videotapes in late 2005, expanding his mandate to cover additional agency conduct. Durham has appeared in Alexandria's federal courthouse about once a month to present evidence to a grand jury that is probing the incident. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes of waterboarding involving high-value al-Qaeda suspects. That investigation is in its 19th month, though lawyers following the case have cast doubt on whether criminal charges will be filed.
A similar concern could emerge in the detainee mistreatment inquiry. Many of the cases have been subject to review by two sets of prosecutors: counterterrorism lawyers at Justice Department headquarters in Washington as well as a special team from the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia. Lawyers involved in the Bush-era reviews sought and won an indictment in one of nearly 20 cases, after concluding that they were hampered by such problems as unreliable witnesses, scanty forensic work and even missing bodies of prisoners who had died in detention.
In all, more than 100 detainees died in U.S. care, most of them under military custody, according to previous government reports and congressional inquiries. It is not known how many of the cases in the new review by Durham involve detainee deaths.
Mark Califano, a former prosecutor in Connecticut, described Durham's approach as "clinical." He said Durham "very rarely" has walked away from a case without bringing criminal charges.
"He likes to make cases when there is evidence there," said Califano, the son of former Heath, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califano Jr. "You've got to balance whether that kind of information exists. . . . You can't move forward if you don't have the evidence."
Keefe, who reached out to Durham several years ago to negotiate a possible settlement in a case involving fugitive financier Martin Frankel, praised the prosecutor for his sense of "perspective."
"The thing about the U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut is that they take the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt seriously in deciding whether to indict," Keefe said. "If Durham can't make a case beyond a reasonable doubt, he won't indict."
Obama spokesman announces interrogation unit
Aug 24 12:08 PM US/Eastern
By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writers
Obama spokesman announces interrogation unit
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has approved creation of a new, special terrorism-era interrogation unit to be supervised by the White House, a top aide said Monday, further distancing his administration from President George W. Bush's detainee policies.
The administration has also decided that all U.S. interrogators will follow the rules for detainees laid out by the Army Field Manual, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision. That decision aims to end years of fierce debate over how rough U.S. personnel can get with terror suspects in custody.
The new unit does not mean the CIA is now out of the interrogation business, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters covering the vacationing Obama at Oak Bluffs, Mass.
Burton said the unit will include "all these different elements under one group," and it said that it will be situated at the FBI headquarters in Washington.
The unit would be led by an FBI official, with a deputy director from somewhere in the government's vast intelligence apparatus, and members from across agencies. It will be directly supervised by the White House, but the senior administration officials insisted the unit's agency bosses will make operational decisions, not the White House.
The officials also said that in cases where terror suspects are transferred to other countries, the U.S. will work harder to ensure the suspect is not tortured.
Separately, Burton said that a recommendation now before Attorney General Eric Holder to reopen and pursue prisoner abuse cases is a decision solely for Holder to make without any intervention from the president.
The structure of the new unit the White House is creating would depart significantly from such work under the previous administration, when the CIA had the lead and sometimes exclusive role in questioning al-Qaida suspects.
Obama campaigned vigorously against Bush's interrogation policies in his successful run for the presidency. He has said more recently he didn't particularly favor prosecuting Bush administration officials in connection with instances of prisoner abuse. Obama still believes "we should be looking forward, not backward," Burton said Monday.
Nonetheless, the spokesman added, Obama believes the attorney general should be fully independent from the White House and he has full faith in Holder to make the decision on whether to reopen several such cases with an eye toward possible criminal prosecution. "He ultimately is going to make the decisions," Burton said of Holder.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said in an e-mail message to agency employees Monday that he intends "to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too," he said.
Panetta said some CIA officers have been disciplined within the agency for going beyond the methods approved for interrogations by the Bush-era Justice Department. Just one CIA employee_ contractor David Passaro_ has ever been prosecuted for detainee abuse.
"The CIA has played a vital role in the work of the task force, and its substantive knowledge will be essential to interrogations going forward," agency spokesman George Little said Monday.
Obama campaigned vigorously against President George W. Bush's interrogation policies in his successful run for the presidency. He has said more recently he didn't particularly favor prosecuting Bush administration officials in connection with instances of prisoner abuse. But the issue now before Holder for consideration would have the new administration do precisely that: reopen several such cases with an eye toward possible criminal prosecution.
The new interrogation unit will be known by the acronym HIG.
The administration was publicly confirming the new interrogation unit on the same day that the CIA inspector general was to unveil a report on Bush administration handling of suspects. Details were expected to show that highly questionable tactics were used.
Subjecting prisoner abuse cases to a new review and possible prosecution could expose CIA employees and agency contractors to criminal prosecution for the alleged mistreatment of terror suspects in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Holder reportedly reacted with disgust when he first read accounts of prisoner abuse earlier this year in a classified version of the IG report. And the Justice report is said to reveal how interrogators conducted mock executions and threatened at least one man with a gun and a power drill. Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws.
A federal judge has ordered the IG report made public Monday, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, told the Times that the recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the agency.
The accounts of the White House-supervised interrogation unit and the ethics recommendation to Holder were first reported, respectively, by The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess and White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this story from Washington and Associated Press Writer Phillip Elliott contributed from Oak Bluffs, Mass.
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