The New York Times yesterday revealed the existence of two memos that contradicted Bush administration claims that it was not engaging in torture.
From the story:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.
Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.
The revelation has Congress — well, actually, Democratic lawmakers — calling for copies of the memo as a prelude to a potential investigation.
That would be a start. But given that the memos appear to condone behavior that violates the Geneva Convention — and, therefore, United States law — it is imperative that we go beyond simple investigations and put the I-word (you know: impeachment) on the table.
If we are to value the governmental structure we’ve created, one that shares powers among equal branches and that values the rule of law, then we cannot allow this kind of imperial attitude to stand.
Neal Katyal, who represented several Guantanamo detainees before the U.S. Supreme Court, told Keith Olbermann last night that the memos are more evidence of a White House that views itself as above the law.
He shouldn’t be. And we shouldn’t allow him to be.
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Hank Kalet 