This is nothing more than a distraction from that fact that Obama’s poll numbers are dropping; and that his Healthcare plan is failing.
The Story after the jump:
From the extremely Liberal LA Times:
U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.
A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.
Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.
Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.
Other potentially criminal abuses have already come to light, including the waterboarding of prisoners in excess of Justice Department guidelines, and the deaths of detainees in CIA custody in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003.
Opening a criminal investigation is something Holder “has come reluctantly to consider,” the Justice Department official said, emphasizing that Holder had not reached a final decision but noting that, “as attorney general, he has the obligation to follow the law.”
Others familiar with Holder’s thinking say that such an investigation seems all but certain, and that a prosecutor will probably be selected from a short list that Holder asked subordinates to assemble.
Such a prosecutor would examine cases that are generally at least five years old, and probably some that were previously reviewed by career prosecutors who concluded that they could not be pursued.
“I don’t blame them for wanting to look into it,” said a former high-ranking Justice Department official familiar with the details of the program. “But if they appoint a special prosecutor, it would ultimately be unsuccessful, and it would go on forever and cause enormous collateral damage on the way to getting that unsuccessful result.”
Bracing for the worst, a small number of CIA officials have put off plans to retire or leave the agency so that they can maintain their access to classified files and be in a better position to defend against a Justice investigation.
“Once you’re out, it gets a lot harder,” said a retired CIA official who said he had spoken recently with former colleagues. The inquiry would probably also target private contractors who worked for the CIA during the interrogations.
Current and former U.S. officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy that still surrounds Holder’s deliberations and the details of the interrogation files.
President Obama has repeatedly expressed reluctance to launch a criminal investigation of the interrogation program, but has left room for the prosecution of individuals who may have broken the law.
Obama and Holder have both said that they believe waterboarding constitutes torture. But an investigation would pose thorny political problems for the administration, and probably draw criticism over questions of fairness.
“An investigation that focuses only on low-ranking operators would be, I think, worse than doing nothing at all,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
An inquiry also would probably drive a new wedge between the CIA and the Justice Department, agencies with a fractious history that have struggled to work more closely together since the Sept. 11 attacks.
I am going to try to write this from Non-Partisan standpoint. I hope that it comes out sounding that way. The reason why having these trials is going to hurt America is this, the trial; or whatever Justice Department decides to do will be viewed by most people as a partisan witch-hunt. Besides, from what I have seen some liberals say, that if Eric holder is not really actually interested in totally prosecuting those who broke the law; then why even bother having a trial at all? Nothing says partisanship worse or better than to have a trial of some sort and then not actually prosecute the persons involved.
In the end, I believe that this trial or investigation into the events after 9/11 is going to be more about embarrassing the Bush Administration and not about serving justice. Because if this whole investigation was about serving justice, there would be actual punishments handed out, and not just public humiliation.
So, again, I believe personally that this is just some foolhardy attempt by the White House to boost the President’s approval rating among political independents and possibly to the placate the far left. However, The reality of it is this; what it will do is push President’s poll numbers down further. Because obviously, many Americans are not happy with the President’s and the Congress’s attempt to ram this healthcare bill through. This amounts to a massive overreach by this Administration. This is something that Democrats are infamous for; this happened during the Carter, Clinton, and Obama Administrations. You would think that the Obama Administration would have studied the failures more closely; but obviously, they did not. It will come at the peril of the Democratic Party.
Others: ATTACKERMAN, Pam’s House Blend, The Washington Independent, Matthew Yglesias, Zandar Versus The Stupid, JustOneMinute, The Volokh Conspiracy, The Political Carnival, The Swamp, Macsmind, Don Surber, Washington Monthly, Atlas Shrugs, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Patterico’s Pontifications, Emptywheel, Gateway Pundit, MyDD and NPR Blogs