…The best summaries of the latest piece of Bush administration stenography are from Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald. Read them both in full.
The gist: if you actually read the leaked memos, and absorb the details of the NYT piece, you find the actual story: that the OLC lawyers were under enormous pressure to approve whatever Cheney wanted, were denied time to get the whole thing right, (Bradbury was even kept on probation until he spat out the "legal" approvals they wanted), were told that the president himself was pushing hard, and that a couple of them, Comey and Goldsmith, believed that the torture techniques, although technically "legal" in their judgment, were "simply awful" and would come back to haunt them. Among the political interference in the OLC process (eerily reminiscent of the pressure on the CIA with respect to Saddam’s WMDs), we learn the following:
This was the kind of political pressure applied to lawyers who were supposed to be interpreting the law, regardless of policy positions by their superiors, free of political pressure or duress. And this was long, long after the initial period of terror after 9/11 and in Bush’s second term. Moreover, the lawyers’ belief that combining all these torture techniques was extremely dangerous was completely ignored. Here’s Comey desperately trying to get them to realize the Rubicon they were crossing:
Notice how Rice was demonstrating the moral courage she recently showed in front of some amateur (i.e. not supine MSM) questioners on the question. She wanted to give the president anything he wanted while remaining in total denial – and deniability – on the torture question. In some ways, her position is more contemptible than Cheney’s. At least he knew what he wanted to do, and is now proud of his record of torture and abuse of prisoners. Rice simply facilitated everything, while closing her eyes to reality, and abandoning any moral responsibilty.
Glenn homes in on the critical revelation:Comey described exactly what was happening with this process: that the White House was demanding and pressuring the issuance of these memos, but that once the torture regime became public — as Comey warned that it would – White House officials would defend themselves by heaping the blame on Gonzales and other DOJ lawyers, deceitfully pretending that they were merely following in good faith DOJ advice about what was and was not legal.
This is their shell-game now. And it’s working! The lawyers were at the heart of the golden legal shield, and were willing to go through any legal hoops and shenanigans to call what is illegal "legal" because their political masters demanded it. (Notice that Comey even uses quotation marks around "legal" in a memo to Gonzales). He knows what’s going on, and while too cowed to actually call unlawful acts unlawful, he nonetheless tries to stop them – because he knew that if people actually knew what Cheney authorized, behind the euphemisms and legal shenanigans, then the Bush administration would go down in history as torturers and pariahs. As they should.
So they destroyed the evidence – the CIA tapes, the last interrogation tape of Padilla, the records at Camp Nama (overseen by McChrystal), and suppressed as many photographs from Abu Ghraib and elsewhere that they could. Without the Abu Ghraib photographs, they would have gotten away with all of it.
Actually, of course, they have gotten away with all of it, subjecting the reservists at the very bottom of the heap to take the fall, as they continue to spin and lie and dissemble and reinvent the past. All with the help, of course, of the New York Times. But Comey was right. This will all come out. And we must not flinch or falter in exposing every single aspect of it…
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… that the OLC lawyers were under enormous pressure to approve whatever Cheney wanted, were denied time to get the whole thing right, (Bradbury was even kept on probation until he spat out the "legal" approvals they wanted), were told that the president himself was pushing hard, and that a couple of them, Comey and Goldsmith, believed that the torture techniques, although technically "legal" in their judgment, were "simply awful" and would come back to haunt them.
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"… it was simply not acceptable for the Princip[als] to say that everything that may be ‘legal’ is also appropriate."
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… White House officials would defend themselves by heaping the blame on Gonzales and other DOJ lawyers, deceitfully pretending that they were merely following in good faith DOJ advice about what was and was not legal.
Comey Emails Illustrate Concerns Over Torture Policies
Monday 08 June 2009
by: Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t…On August 15, 2005, in his farewell speech, Comey urged his colleagues to defend the integrity and honesty of the DOJ.
I expect that you will appreciate and protect an amazing gift you have received as an employee of the Department of Justice," Comey said. "It is a gift you may not notice until the first time you stand up and identify yourself as an employee of the Department of Justice and say something – whether in a courtroom, a conference room or a cocktail part – and find that total strangers believe what you say next.
That gift – the gift that makes possible so much of the good we accomplish – is a reservoir of trust and credibility, a reservoir built for us, and filled for us, by those who went before – most of whom we never knew. They were people who made sacrifices and kept promises to build that reservoir of trust.
Our obligation – as the recipients of that great gift – is to protect that reservoir, to pass it to those who follow, those who may never know us, as full as we got it. The problem with reservoirs is that it takes tremendous time and effort to fill them, but one hole in a dam can drain them.
The protection of that reservoir requires vigilance, an unerring commitment to truth, and a recognition that the actions of one may affect the priceless gift that benefits all. I have tried my absolute best – in matters big and small – to protect that reservoir and inspire others to protect it."
Three newly-disclosed Justice Department e-mails thoroughly vindicate the most cynical suspicions about how former vice president Dick Cheney bent ostensibly independent Justice Department lawyers to his will and forced them to manufacture legal cover for his torture policies…
[just read it all. it’s perfect…]
I really wanted President Obama to hire James Comey, every gov’t needs a Comey.