Minnesota's foremost proponent of torture, Robert Delahunty may get off the hook. The University of Saint Thomas Law School professor may get off the hook because his collaborator on the infamous torture memo, John Yoo, may get off the hook as well. This memo was critical in the Bush Administration's rationalization that the Geneva conventions against torture didn't apply to people capture in the War on Terror.
The Holder Justice Department has filed a sweeping amicus brief in the Padilla v. Yoo case before the Ninth Circuit, seeking to make absolute the immunity granted Justice Department lawyers who counsel torture, disappearings, and other crimes against humanity. The case was brought by Jose Padilla, who claims that he was tortured as the direct result of memoranda written by Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley. At this stage, the case does not address the factual basis of Padilla's claims, but documents that have been declassified by the Department of Justice make it clear that the charges have a firm basis in fact. Here's the portion of the opinion authored by a lifelong Republican, Bush-appointed judge that the Justice Department found so objectionable:
"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct...."
The Holder Justice Department insists that they are absolutely not responsible, and that they are free to act according to a far lower standard of conduct than that which governs Americans generally. Indeed, this has emerged as a sort of ignoble mantra for the Justice Department, uniting both the Bush and Obama administrations.
(Harper's)
This is yet another instance of where Hope and Change meet the same ol' same old. Keith Olbermann discussed this on Countdown tonight with Jonathan Turley.
The ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), were among nine GOP senators who sent a letter last week to Holder urging him to back off from the idea of appointing the special prosecutor.(TheHill.com)
Way to go, guys!!! Ehrlichman, Haldeman, G. Gordon and the boys would have loved to have you in the senate, way back when!!!
Now, here's the exchange that "highlights" the GOP's position that when they break laws, laws don't matter:
FLOYD: That pressure has been on to investigate what went on in these interrogations since long before Eric Holder had this job. And yes, it is correct that Obama has said from the beginning that he wants to look forward.
O'REILLY: Yeah, and he's smart to do that. Right.
FLOYD: And he doesn't want to look back.
O'REILLY: Right.
FLOYD: And that's a political choice. And it's probably a wise strategy, but Eric Holder is not in a political job.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but he can get fired.
FLOYD: That's right, he can, but you can't make decisions as attorney general because you're afraid of getting fired.
O'REILLY: But how many attorney generals did Nixon fire? He fired one a week.
O
M
G.
Not only is Billo The Clown claiming that "prosecutorial discretion" should preclude Attorney General Holder from investigating torture crimes, Billo The Clown is using Nixon - NIXON - as a reason why Attorney General Holder shouldn't be investigating crimes of torure!!!
(I tried to wait, but this stuff is too good not to promote. I've had a couple of well-placed folks tell me there's probably nothing to this, but with research like this, it's becoming a bit more difficult to accept.....read on. - promoted by MNCampaignReport)
MNCR: Edited gently to make the images less site-layout-killing.
A week ago, I wrote a diary about Minnesota's new United States Attorney, Rachel Paulose, and her possible connection to the "attorney purge" scandal currently engulfing the White House and the Department of Justice. I speculated that the resignation of the previous U.S.A., Thomas Heffelfinger, was related to the current scandal, and it seemed clear to me that the 33-year-old Paulose was chosen because of her her political connections to the conservative establishment and the Republican Party rather than her being the most qualified candidate for the job.
On Tuesday, Minnesota Public Radio interviewed Tom Heffelfinger, and he claimed that politics played no role in his resignation:
The former U.S. attorney for Minnesota says he never felt political pressure from the White House that allegedly led to the firings last year of eight other U.S. attorneys around the country. On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted the firings were mishandled, but rejected calls for him to resign. Tom Heffelfinger stepped down from the Minnesota post a year ago, but he says politics wasn't the reason.
[...]
Tom Heffelfinger resigned his post as U.S. attorney in Minneapolis last February. He had served two stints -- the first from September 1991 to April 1993, and then again from September 2001 to February 2006.
He says no one ever pressured him to leave his post or asked him to leave. He resigned based on a personal decision, driven by his career and his family finances. Moreover, he says he was not pressured to investigate Democrats.
"I got no direction whatsoever at any time during this administration, or my last tour as U.S. attorney, to consider politics," he said. "To the contrary, partisan considerations are irrelevant to a public integrity investigation."
Is he telling the truth, or just being a good soldier for the Bush administration and the Republican team? Keep in mind that Heffelfinger is a Republican through and through, and thus has motive not to rock the boat by involving himself in this scandal. The City Pageslabeled Heffelfinger a "Republican spin doctor" for his role in an investigation into theft at Metropolitan Council Transit Operations. He was appointed as U.S. Attorney by both Bush I and Bush II, ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for Hennepin County Attorney in 1986, and donates heavily to Republican candidates. Based on my investigation into the internal Justice Department documents released recently by the House Judiciary Committee (available at their website), my investigation reveals that there is a good chance that Heffelfinger was one of the U.S. Attorneys originally targeted for dismissal by officials at the Department of Justice and the White House.
