This article "Foxes Only --How not to investigate the destruction of the CIA tapes." at
http://www.slate.com/id/2180158/pagenum/all/#page_start has it right as "The Justice Department is telling Congress to keep out of the investigation of the destruction of the CIA tapes that recorded hundred of hours of torture of two al-Qaida captives. DoJ wants the federal judge who ordered the department to
preserve all evidence relevant to the detentions at Guantanamo Bay to keep out,too.
To Congress, the argument is: Trust us-we've launched our own investigation, and you'll only get in the way. In court, the government urges:
Keep moving, nothing to look at here, because no one has proved that these two al-Qaida guys were held at Guantanamo. Neither argument is convincing. And
neither bodes well for Attorney General Michael Mukasey's promise of a new day
at his department.
When Mukasey became attorney general this fall, he was supposed to usher in a new era at the Justice Department. Nothing that's happened so far in the fallout over the tapes has the whiff of petty (and not so petty) partisan corruption that Gonzales stood for. But the structural problems with the internal DoJ
investigation are disquieting. And the Keep Out message to Congress and the courts bears the familiar and tiresome marks of a Bush administration executive
power grab. "The government is trying to force Congress to leave the matter entirely to Justice Department and the CIA, both of which are implicated in the
destruction of the tapes and deeply interested parties," Remes wrote to Judge Kennedy. "Plainly the government wants only foxes guarding this henhouse." It's
time for the foxes to slink back to their dens."
Hoesksta as well as Specter are currently saying the right thing. Specter and Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Michael Mukasey, the new Attorney General, last week, asking for information about this joint DOJ/CIA investigation.
Specter said "I'm very disappointed in what the Attorney General did as it runs exactly counter to the assurances he gave us at his confirmation hearings very, very recently that he understood congressional oversight. On the law, it is conclusive that congressional action and congressional inquiries supersede the Department of Justice investigational and criminal matters because the Congress establishes the overall rules, whereas the Department of Justice investigation goes to specific cases. There are many, many precedents, and there is an outline of it giving the citations and authorities on the Supreme Court, which I took up with Judge Mukasey, now Attorney General Mukasey, when we had our conversation. He assured me that he respected that. So I'm surprised and disappointed, and we don't intend to let it drop. Senator Leahy and I are going to fight it."
We have all of these investigations stymied because GOP masters of hypocrisies make strident statements that they can show to their constituents, but fall apart when the puppet, big bro 43 challenges them!
Democrats, such as Senator Leahy will fight for our rights.
Do you think Specter will? He said these identical remarks back from 2000 to 2006 when he had Leahy's position. He never followed through then. Why would he now, when he has no power and can make the most progressive remarks which he has no intentions of backing up.
1 | 2
