Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced today that he favors a bipartisan commission to investigate Bush interrogation policies that helped prevent another 9-11 style attack on Los Angeles.
FOX News reported:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Wednesday that he prefers to have a bipartisan investigation of Bush-era interrogation policies but that separate congressional investigations will go forward, including his own committee’s.
“I’m not one who feels we should turn the page if you haven’t read the page,” Leahy said.
Democrats on Wednesday defended the call for probes into the drafting and use of harsh interrogation techniques, a day after President Obama opened the door for potential prosecution of those lawyers who justified the tactics in legal memos.
“This isn’t a partisan witch hunt,” said Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., who also is on the Judiciary Committee.
An aide to Leahy said the senator is talking to Republican colleagues behind the scenes to try to build support for an independent commission, something Obama now says he would support.
According to The Politico, Senate Democrats were updated 30 different times on waterboarding and other interrogation techniques.
Speaker Pelosi also was one of 4 members of Congress who were briefed on waterboarding and never complained once at the time:
The Washington Post reported that in 2002 four members of Congress were given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and were briefed on interrogation techniques. The bipartisan group, which included Pelosi, was specifically briefed on waterboarding. None of the four complained, and one of them asked if the methods being used were tough enough.
The CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, including waterboarding and other interrogation techniques in 2002 and 2003. It is curious that lawmakers who were repeatedly briefed and raised no objections should subsequently criticize those very same policies.
** Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt)- in a 1985 television appearance Leahy disclosed classified information that one of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s telephone conversations had been intercepted. The information that Leahy revealed had been used in the operation to capture the Arab terrorists who had hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed American citizens, and the Union-Tribune claimed that Leahy’s indiscretion may have cost the life of at least one of the Egyptian operatives involved in that operation. Because of his several leaks he was forced to step down from his seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Today he is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
UPDATE: The New York Times actually reported today that Obama withheld information from the memos that were released last week.
UPDATE 2: Legal Insurrection– Enough With the Nazi Analogies.
