The New York Times’ front-page story Sunday reporting the unanimous agreement among Justice Department lawyers that the “harsh” interrogation techniques approved by the Office of Legal Counsel for use by the CIA were legal relies on the classic journalistic “battle of the experts”: one “outside” expert says the CIA interrogation More…
So Ari Shapiro’s NPR story yesterday placed then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales — a.k.a. God‘s gift to Talking Points Memo — at the center of the decision to torture Abu Zubaydah in the spring of 2002. Gonzales didn’t respond to Shapiro’s request for comment. But More…
A classic example of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s interview style here, as she eggs on Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to demand the resignation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). First question:
There are some who are saying, given her statements all over the board on this, and an
I keep trying to get confirmation of what former Sen. Bob Graham has been been saying about the CIA keeping erroneous records of what it told Congress in 2002 about “enhanced interrogation” techniques. A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the briefings — and who requested that attribution — More…
It’s a rhetorical gambit predicated on a mostly false hypothetical that pretty much assumes its conclusion: There’s a bomb set to go off but you don’t know where. You’ve got a detainee in custody who knows where it is. He won’t talk. You’re running out of time. When are you More…
“Do you know a guy named… K-I-R-I-A-K-O-U,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asks Ali Soufan, referring to a former CIA official who alleged that — at an interrogation he never portrayed himself as attending — Abu Zubaydah broke after his initial waterboarding.
“Last week he retracted that,” Ali Soufan responded.
Graham: More…
According to Ali Soufan, the battle lines in the internal debate at the CIA facility where Abu Zubaydah was to be tortured broke down this way: “FBI and CIA all had the same opinion that contradicted with the contractor.” The “contractor” is most likely James Mitchell, a former SERE psychologist. More…
David Luban, a law professor and expert on legal ethics at Georgetown University, just called the torture memos written by the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel “a legal train wreck.”
“The rules of professional ethics forbid lawyers from counseling or assisting clients in illegal conduct,” Lujan, the first witness More…
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) doesn’t really like this hearing. He says he doesn’t “question the chairman’s motivation,” which is an elegant locution, and proceeds to assert what Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) calls “facts not in the record” — that torture worked, basically. Graham fears the criminalization of a policy debate More…
Former Bush administration officials are urging the Justice Department to soften the criticisms contained in an ethics report examining the work of the lawyers who justified torture and other harsh interrogation techniques, reports The Washington Post.
According to two anonymous sources, lawyers for the subjects of the investigation — More…
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