CIA Directors Want Torture Investigation Shelved
It’s not news that the CIA does not want the torture investigation to go forward. It’s who they are lobbying to achieve that end that is truly egregious:
But what’s most notable about this letter is that it is not addressed to the individual charged with making decisions about whether an individual should be prosecuted: namely, the Attorney General of the U.S. Instead, it is addressed to the President himself, and they “urge [him] to exercise [his] authority to reverse Attorney General’s August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations.” What so-called ”authority” are they talking about?
The way our criminal justice system works is that the President has the authority to set generalized policy priorities for the DOJ (e.g., spend more resources on drug and terrorism offenses but less on pornography and gambling), but decisions about whether specific individuals will or will not be prosecuted are supposed to be immunized entirely from White House influence, and are the province of independent Justice Department prosecutors (led by the Attorney General). That’s what it means to have an apoliticized justice system: the President doesn’t order specific people to be prosecuted or shielded from prosecution. Only Justice Department officials, assessing purely legal factors, make those determinations.
In fact, the entire U.S. Attorneys scandal was grounded in exactly this concern: that Karl Rove and the Bush White House were directing that certain prosecutors be fired either for criminally investigating specific Republicans or refusing to prosecute specific Democrats. Decisions about specific prosecutions aren’t for the White House to make. No DOJ official with the most minimal integrity would allow the President to block specific criminal investigations as these CIA Directors urge.
Richard Nixon tried that and it led to the Saturday Night Massacre, when he ordered his Attorney General and (when the AG refused) Deputy Attorney General to fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Prosector, after Cox had refused to accept White House limitations on his investigation. Both the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General resigned rather than let Nixon interfere with their independence in making decisions about prosecutions. Similarly, it has been reported that public decrees earlier this year from White House political advisers (led by Rahm Emanuel) that there would be no CIA torture investigations infuriated DOJ officials because that’s not the White House’s decision to make. It was the DOJ’s anger over this Emanuel-led usurpation of its responsibilities that led Obama to make publicly clearthat decisions about prosecutions are the DOJ’s to make, not his.
What these CIA Directors are urging would be completely improper. In fact, one could plausibly argue that where (as here) the DOJ determines that serious crimes might have been committed and an investigation needed, it would constitute obstruction of justice for the President to intervene by quashing any possibility of prosecution. As former aide to Condoleezza Rice, Philip Zelikow, put it in April of this year: “I really don’t think the President should have opinions on who should or should not be prosecuted — full stop.“
Emphasis is Glenn’s. More commentary at Memeorandum, and more still at Blogrunner.
7 Responses to “CIA Directors Want Torture Investigation Shelved”
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Well well, the CIA headed by democratic appointees seems think pretty much like the CIA run by Republican appointed nominees on this issue.
Leonidas, you are really so tiresome in your uninformed foolishness. Certainly there's plenty of blame to spare for the Obama administration's handling of the CIA's torture program under Bush, but clearly you did not bother to find out who the seven CIA directors are. It took 10 seconds for me to do so on Google, and as you will see, only three of them served in a Democratic administration. One of those (George Tenet) served under a Republican administration as well.)
Do you have anything to say about the substance of the issue?
Kathy, out of 7 CIA directors, 3 serving under Democrats is pretty good. And Robert Gates is the only living CIA director from 1973 who didn't sign, and he cannot due to the fact he now works for President Obama's administration.
Good post Kathy. You are exactly right. The AG and the DOJ were fully intended to be free of political interference. I'm not thrilled at all that Obama has meddled as much as he has. The mandate of the AG should be nothing but to enforce the law of the land, investigate substantive allegations of crimes and prosecute when justified. Those who argue otherwise can relinquish their “constitutionalist” credentials.
Leaving aside the merits of the investigation of course it's reasonable for Obama to have “opinions”. While I would agree in the normal course of business the Justice Department should be independent the reasonable questions of the effect on national security makes this a different situation. It seems to me the limited nature of the inquiries shouldn't cause this much grief, but that says something doesn't it. That instead of a reasonable investigation it's seen as some wide spread investigation and that belief is half crippling the CIA. So that there may come a point that the damage that might be done is to much for the good that is possible. That decision should be the Presidents.
I don't know what you mean by “pretty good,” Charlie. My only point in identifying the party affiliations of the 7 CIA directors is that this letter has nothing to do with Democrats wanting to bury torture investigations just as much as Republicans. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but this request by the CIA directors to shelve the investigation has nothing to do with party affiliation. Because, as I wrote, there are 7 CIA directors and they are not all Democrats. LOL