More from the House Judiciary Committee Hearing

The House Judiciary Committee Hearing featuring John Yoo and David Addington just wrapped up. If you missed it, there was not a lot of information to be gained. Mr. Yoo repeatedly said he couldn't talk about much of his work at the Department of Justice and several Members of Congress complained that both of the witnesses were engaging in a game of beat the clock.

Addington and Yoo: The Lowlights

Here are some of the lowlights from this morning's testimony in the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Addington testified that he visited Guantanamo Bay to watch interrogations and see how the legal advice he provided was being implemented. But, at the same time, he asserted he did not recall discussing any specific interrogation techniques or the memo itself during his visit, an assertion that Representative Wassersman Schultz found difficult to believe.

Mr. Addington also let slip that he, John Yoo, and then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales had all met to discuss the topics that would later be addressed in the now infamous torture memo.

Finally, in another low point for legal reasoning, John Yoo couldn't say that an order to bury a person alive would be illegal.

CONYERS: Could the President order a suspect buried alive?

YOO: Uh, Mr. Chairman, I don’t think I’ve ever given advice that the President could order someone buried alive…

CONYERS: I didn’t ask you if you ever gave him advice. I asked you thought the President could order a suspect buried alive.

YOO: Well Chairman, my view right now is that I don’t think a President — no American President would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that.

CONYERS: I think we understand the games that are being played.

More to come this afternoon.

Yoo and Addington Testify

Today is the U.N.'s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. A new poll finds that American tolerance for torture is increasing, although a majority of Americans still support a total ban:

The number of Americans who would condone torture, at least when used on terrorists in order to save lives, has risen in the past two years to 44 percent, according to a poll. A narrow majority of Americans - 53 percent - think all torture should be banned, according to the nationwide poll of 1,309 people by WorldPublicOpinion .org, a project managed by the University of Maryland.

Also today, the House Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony from David Addington and John Yoo. You can hear audio of the hearing here. So far, Mr. Addington has declined to provide an oral or a written statement.

Update: You can watch the hearing online here.

Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Interrogation

The prepared statements of witnesses are here. The supporting documents are available here.


Reaction from the White House? Right . . . ."We don't torture."

Asked about today's hearing, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said it has
always been the policy of the government to treat detainees humanely. He said
abuse has never been the policy of the government and interrogation has helped
save lives.

Congress Gets to Work

Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding a hearing on the Bush Administration's torture policies. While most people would say that Congressional oversight is a good thing, the editors at the Wall Street Journal today take issue with the whole idea of checks and balances and blast the very idea of Congress doing its job. Here's the opening:

Nearly seven years after 9/11, the U.S. homeland hasn't been struck again and
American civil liberties remain intact. So how does Congress say "thank you"? By
trying to ruin the men who in good faith set the legal rules that have kept us
safe.

Who knew that Congress's job was to say "thank you" to the executive branch!? I must have missed that line in the Constitution.

Despite the rantings of the Journal, today's hearing promises to be informative. Here's the AP:

Military psychologists were enlisted to help develop more aggressive
interrogation methods, including snarling dogs, forced nudity and long periods
of standing, against terrorism suspects, according to a Senate
investigation.Before they were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, such harsh. techniques had drawn warnings from military lawyers that
they could be illegal, an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee
has found.

We'll be providing updates from the hearing throughout the day.

McCain and Obama Split on Gitmo Ruling

From the New York Times:

McCain and Obama Split on Justices’ Guantánamo Ruling

By KATE ZERNIKE

BOSTON — The presidential candidates took differing positions Thursday on the Supreme Court decision granting foreign terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay a right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. Senator John McCain expressed concern about the ruling, while Senator Barack Obama lauded it.

Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have both long advocated closing the Guantánamo detention center but have disagreed on the rights of prisoners there.

Mr. McCain said here Thursday morning that he had not had time to read the decision but that “it obviously concerns me,” adding, “These are unlawful combatants; they’re not American citizens.”

Mr. McCain said he thought “we should pay attention” to the dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which argued that the steps established by the administration and Congress in creating review tribunals run by the military were more than sufficiently generous as a way for detainees to challenge their status.

Still, the senator said, “it is a decision the Supreme Court has made, and now we need to move forward.”

Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the decision “a rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo” that he said was “yet another failed policy supported by John McCain.”

“This is an important step,” he said of the ruling, “toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.”

Mr. McCain, who was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was one of the chief Senate architects of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees a right to challenge their status in civilian courts.

During the drafting of that law, he pressed the administration to ensure legal protections against torture. But he also argued that the status review tribunals gave detainees adequate rights to challenge their detention, an argument the justices rejected Thursday.

Mr. Obama, who opposed the legislation, said Thursday, “I voted against the Military Commissions Act because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the court, once again, rejecting the administration’s extreme legal position.”

Senate Republicans Try to Shut Down Hearing on Torture

From Think Progress:

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the use of coercive interrogation techniques. Among other witnesses, the committee heard from the FBI’s general counsel and a former FBI special agent, both of whom decried torture as ineffective and impermissible.

Halfway through the hearing, the testimony of international lawyer Philippe Sands — who chronicled the Bush administration’s approval of torture in his book Torture Team — was suddenly interrupted, when Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) used an objection to force the Senate into recess and disrupt the hearing. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who were leading the hearing, were perplexed about the disruption:

FEINSTEIN: I must interrupt you. Apparently the Republican leader has just objected to committee’s proceeding. So for the moment, we will have to stop. And we will know as soon as it’s acceptable to go ahead. … Clearly, somebody doesn’t want this to go ahead.

WHITEHOUSE: So it would seem.

FEINSTEIN: It would.

WHITEHOUSE: I’m new here. I’ve only been here a year and a half. I’ve never seen this happen before. I’ve never seen a hearing interrupted by minority leadership.

FEINSTEIN: Very, very unusual.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor to denounce the conservatives’ obstructionist tactics. Watch it:

Reid blasted Senate conservatives for using the “very rare” objection, and called the tactics “part of a pattern of obstruction.” In fact, just today, they blocked a measure taxing Big Oil’s windfall profits and another that would have extended tax credits for renewable energy sources.

Announcing he would call the Senate into recess in order to continue the hearing, Reid said, “Republicans may not want these abuses to come to light, but I think the American people have the right to know.”

House Dems Ask for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Interrogations

In case you missed it, on Friday nearly 60 House Democrats wrote a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking for a special prosecutor to investigate whether members of the Bush Administration violated the law by authorizing torture or other mistreatment in the interrogation of detainees.

Evidence Destroyed at Gitmo

From the AP:

Detainee-Trial Evidence Was Allegedly Destroyed

By Michael Melia
Associated Press
Monday, June 9, 2008

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, June 8 -- The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defense lawyer said Sunday.

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, the attorney for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, said the instructions were included in a 2003 operations manual shown to him by prosecutors. He said they suggest that the United States deliberately thwarted evidence that could help terrorism suspects defend themselves at trial.

Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said he will use the document to seek a dismissal of war-crimes charges against Khadr, including a murder charge for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he was reviewing the matter Sunday evening.

In an affidavit signed by Kuebler, the manual is quoted as saying, "The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues."

Knickers in a Knot

Yesterday, Congressman Rohrabacher contributed his usual thoughtful, insightful analysis to the Congressional debate -- this time on the issue of torture and official cruelty. According to the AP, "In a debate Wednesday about detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay, the California Republican cited panties eight times." Hmmm . . . Mr. Rohrabacher previously has spoken out in favor of making prisoners "pick the fruit," now he thinks they should be wearing women's underwear on their heads? It keeps getting stranger. And, as Congressman Delahunt reminded Rohrabacher about the Congressional hearing, "This isn't about panties on the head. This is about physical pressure, waterboarding and other techniques that apparently were utilized at Guantanamo."

U.S. Reopens Torture Case

From the AP:

A leading Homeland Security Department investigator said Thursday his office is re-examining the conclusions of a probe that exonerated the government in the case of a Canadian engineer who was seized by U.S. officials, sent to Syria and allegedly tortured.

The chief of internal investigations at the Homeland Security, Richard Skinner, said at a congressional hearing that his office could not rule out that the United States wanted to send Maher Arar to Syria because it believed he would be tortured. He said that the U.S. Justice Department had been informed of that possibility and is currently investigating.

Skinner said that his office has new information that contradicts an earlier conclusion of its own investigation on the Arar case.

Guantanamo Bay

Here's my report on what has been happening at Guantanamo Bay.