rush holt

Political candidates often invoke God and spirituality on the campaign trail, but Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign against Torture, would like more pols to live up to those professed beliefs once they’re in office. President Obama, for example, has spoken eloquently of his own religious awakening, and of the importance [...]

The conference report to next fiscal year’s defense appropriations bill includes a provision long — and I mean long — sought by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.): a requirement for military interrogators to videotape their interrogation sessions. (The CIA, which is no longer in the lead on high-value interrogations, has admitted to destroying nearly 100 videotapes [...]

Read Marcy Wheeler for a blistering takedown of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s Washington Post op-ed yesterday. The short version of Panetta’s argument is that he proved his good faith by informing Congress about the “significant actions” he shuttered, but Congress reacted with “a fresh round of recriminations about the past.” Stop the violence!
The op-ed itself [...]

To investigate the merits of a new Church committee to take a comprehensive look at intelligence activities, I asked someone who was part of the first one in the 1970s: retired Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.). While Hart saw significant differences between the Bush administration’s intelligence abuses and those of the Nixon administration, “in the sense [...]

Through the wonders of Twitter, Nick Schwellenbach sends along this piece he wrote way way back in 2007 about the need for a new Church committee. Consider it valuable background for my piece today. Basically, Nick argued, don’t look to the courts to save you:
After years of congressional acquiescence to the executive in many [...]

Speaking to Newark Star-Ledger columnist Bob Braun, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) goes to the absolute last place the CIA wants to go:
Holt said he believes the investigation, which he also called a review, should be as intense and comprehensive as the probe conducted more than 30 years ago — in the wake of the Watergate [...]

After interviewing Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) a few minutes ago, I think I want to revise and extend my comment this morning that most members of Congress alarmed over the revelation of “significant actions” by the CIA that Director Leon Panetta recently stopped were more concerned with not being briefed than by the actions themselves.
“The [...]

Remember how CIA Director Leon Panetta said in May that members of the House Intelligence Committee “will have to determine” whether the CIA accurately and appropriately briefed Congress about the agency’s “enhanced interrogation program”? It appears that Panetta reached a conclusion himself.
On June 26, six seven Democrats on the committee — Anna Eshoo (Calif.), John [...]

More important than anything Director of National Intelligence-nominee Dennis Blair and CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta said at their rollout this morning — it’s a rollout, after all, so you’re not getting anything controversial — were two things President-elect Barack Obama said that directly repudiate the intelligence regime of the previous administration. First, among the “tough [...]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) might be hating on Leon Panetta, but Rep. Rush Holt, the progressive New Jersey congressman who chairs the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, just put out this statement welcoming Panetta’s impending nomination to head the CIA: