Did Pentagon Counsel Twist Arms to Aid White House Torture Bill?More details emerge about the allegations that the White House pressured top military lawyers to drop their opposition to its favored torture legislation.
It’s believed that William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon counsel who wrote the department’s infamous 2002 policies endorsing physical and mental duress during interrogation of terror detainees, was the man who applied pressure to top JAGs of the four branches to sign away their disagreements in letters to key senators.
“Jim Haynes, who’s the counsel at the Pentagon, convened this meeting and got these guys to write this letter and something they told people they didn’t agree with,” an unidentified reporter told White House spokesman Tony Snow in this afternoon’s briefing.
“It’s not the case,” Snow replied. “They were asked to write a letter that reflected their views and they edited and signed the letter.”
According to one Hill source, the allegation that Haynes pressured the JAGs came up in the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting today, with at least one senator suggesting a hearing devoted to the incident.
Haynes has a bad history with the JAGs — and with the Senate.
When he was putting the Defense Department’s interrogation policy together, he essentially cut the JAG corps out of the loop. His past caught up to him this July, however.
Nominated by President Bush for a federal judgeship, Haynes told a Senate panel that he had shown key drafts of the interrogation policy to the JAGs. But the Air Force’s judge advocate general, Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, told the panel that it simply wasn’t true. That ticked off several senators, including a number of Republicans.
Haynes was never confirmed; Bush renominated him for the judgeship Aug. 30.