Quick! Let’s Change The Subject!
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move.
Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.
Durham’s mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.
The attorney general selected Durham in part because the longtime prosecutor is familiar with the CIA and its past interrogation regime. For nearly two years, Durham has been probing whether laws against obstruction or false statements were violated in connection with the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes including waterboarding of some of the agency’s high value detainees. That inquiry is proceeding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although lawyers following the investigation have cast doubt on whether it will result in any criminal charges.
This is a rather blatant attempt to shift the focus away from Obama’s rapidly-failing health care “reform” by starting a witch hunt against the CIA. Leon Panetta is not amused by this politicized hit job/attempted smokescreen against his agency:
According to ABC News, CIA Director Leon Panetta not only opposed the appointment of a prosecutor but served up a “tirade” against this move during a “profanity-laced shouting match” when the subject came up during a meeting in the White House last month. Panetta reportedly has threatened to resign. The White House denies this, but ABC News reports that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.
This is five year old news – yet everything old is new again if it distracts from Obama’s shortcomings. Panetta should resign, I think he’s basically an honorable man from everything I have read about him. And he should name names as to who is orchestrating the witch hunt – and why.
At this rate, the Democrats will still be running against George W. Bush in the 2040 election.
Obamantics | Gaius August 24, 2009
By daveinboca, August 24, 2009 @ 9:16 pm
This CIA witch hunt is a gigantic red herring to distract from Obama’s plummeting poll numbers. Why not investigate Holder for his malfeasance in recommending pardoning Marc Rich to BJ for a pardon? Isn’t White House supervision of a special “interrogations unit” that will play pattycake with suspects rather than subject them to the same conditions they put upon innocent people even more ridiculous than ? We know where this entire bogus snipe hunt—both the specious “investigation” and the new “interrogation units” will go, with “revelations” coming out in dribs and drabs to distract the public from this POTUS’s socialist agenda. Obama wants to change the public discourse with factitious detours away from his ObamaCare as it heads down the toilet into the sewage tank where it belongs. He’s “flooding the zone” with distractions to keep whack-jobs on the left from pillorying him in the press.
And “Green Czar” Van Jones is a self-proclaimed Maoist subversive traitor whose Color of Change is a version of ACORN or SEIU, dedicated to looting the public treasury following the rules of Chicago “Early and Often” political rules.
By crosspatch, August 25, 2009 @ 1:37 am
Quick, how many US Attorneys has Obama fired so far?
13
How many did Bush fire in his entire first administration?
0
What happened when Bush fired 8 of them in his second administration?
Congressional hearings.
How many calls have there been for Congressional hearings over Obama’s firings?
Exactly none that I know of.