Mukasey Pressured To Protect Bushco From Prosecution (Scott Horton)

[kpete]

The Torture Litmus Test
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED November 2, 2007

Several days before his first meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Michael Mukasey’s Justice Department handlers arranged a private meeting for him with a number of “movement conservatives.” Two different administration sources have described the meeting to me. During the meeting, Mukasey’s counterparts, largely figures associated with the Federalist Society, pushed him on two points in particular.

First, they wanted him to undertake that he would not appoint a special prosecutor to look into the U.S. attorneys scandal and related charges concerning political prosecutions. At this point it is clear that if an independent investigation were to be launched, it would quickly run head-on into some of the same figures who sat in the room with Mukasey. The email traffic which has surfaced already—and it is only a tiny fraction of the total—shows how Rove and Miers repeatedly relied upon the Federalist Society and its members to help them out in addressing recalcitrant U.S. Attorneys who would not debase their office by converting it into a political tool. Let’s be cynical and say that the first request they put to Mukasey was designed simply to protect themselves and keep their behind-the-scenes involvement with the Justice Department’s highest profile scandal so far out of the spotlight.

And second, they pushed aggressively on the torture question. They wanted Mukasey to pledge that he would toe the Administration’s line on “the Program,” that he would continue to protect those who authored the program with the cloak of an Attorney General opinion keeping them safe from prosecution.

more at:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001567

[Mojorabbit]

1. The committee

must know of this, no? And yet they cave?

[hatrack]

2. Yes, but they wouldn't want to be all "partisan" or "confontational", or "Constitutional", y'know?

:puke: on the lot of them.

I'm about ready to fucking give up on these venal morons.

[robinlynne]

7. There are 2 cavers: Schumer and Feinstein. only. direct your wrath at the right epople, and

quickly!

[Mme. Defarge]

3. The presidential candidate who can really tap into

American rage will win hands down. Better Al Gore than a demagogue like Hitler.

[seemslikeadream]

4. he would not appoint a special prosecutor to look into the U.S. attorneys scandal

I am so sick of this

[Solly Mack]

5. The US government tortures people

and nothing is being done about it

Well, nothing except continually enabling the guilty

[MADem]

6. Yep. It's in BushCo's interest to keep waterboarding under "Stress/Duress" and not torture. NT

[riderinthestorm]

8. These two issues again....

Torture and the attorney firings. I'm surprised that the Plame affair didn't also get mentioned but it's interesting what two issues "they" are the most concerned about the Dems potentially accessing information.

Interesting, enlightening and disgusting.

[indepat]

9. This story encapsulates how 'pukes operate holistically on every front and issue