Comments (30)

Dee Illuminati wrote on December 14, 2007 4:45 PM:

If Congress votes that torture is illegal does that allow DOJ to respond in this manner?

What type of current vote would it take?

LOL One I guess that the POTUS couldn't veto?

We have a sitting president with the distinction of vetoing an anti-torture bill....

Lets say that again to sink in:

We have a sitting president with the distinction of vetoing an anti-torture bill....

Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 4:50 PM:

What's with Mukasey's glasses? They're perpetually tinted and he looks one step away from those horse blinders that the elderly in Florida wear.

phred wrote on December 14, 2007 4:56 PM:

Schumer and DiFi must be very very proud.

nogo war wrote on December 14, 2007 5:04 PM:

Stunned...Shocked...and Floored...
"Who could have predicted?"

Mitch wrote on December 14, 2007 5:11 PM:

Leahy: I'm very angry. I'm going to send you a letter right now and then we're going to sit down and monologue back and forth about this in three months, ya hear?

Mukasey: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sounds of Dianne and Chuck polishing my [text deleted at insistence of counsel].

dfong63 wrote on December 14, 2007 5:15 PM:

the critics were right. Mukasey is a shill who's carrying on Gonzo's policy of protecting Bush rather than protecting the constitution.

chisholm wrote on December 14, 2007 5:36 PM:

This can't possibly be a surprise to anyone.

You know, as much as I hate everything Bush and Mukasey stand for--incompetence, corruption, torture, and the end of the rule of law--I respect them for their tactical brilliance. They have won.

dixiegrl wrote on December 14, 2007 5:54 PM:

Every time something like this has happened, I say to hell with participating in a sham election process, knowing full well that there is no significant difference between parties.
and then I find myself drawn to the headlines, the betrayals, again and again, with all the "I can't believe anyone would let them get by with that...." running thru my head,
and say I really really mean to hell with participating in a sham election process, etc.
Watching democracy disappear is a slow motion train wreck of horror and fascination.

Bob wrote on December 14, 2007 6:04 PM:

If Mukasey wants to obstruct a Congressional inquiry, then he and any others conspiring with him should be removed from office immediately.

Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 6:14 PM:

Bob wrote on December 14, 2007 6:04 PM

Yes, Congress can impeach Mukassey for this alleged obstruction. Agree to an impeachment of the new AG.

Dennis wrote on December 14, 2007 6:20 PM:

It's not that anyone expected different from Mukasey. To smooth over the coverups of the Bush administration and manny members of Congress is why he was appointed by Bush, supported by Republicans and affirmed by Democrats.

And the rights of Americans are continually being squeezed by illegal spying that began prior to 2001 because the American government is afraid of the American people.

We're becoming more like Soviet Russia used to be.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

linda wrote on December 14, 2007 6:25 PM:

so, chuck schumer got punk'd.

heh.

cjop wrote on December 14, 2007 6:39 PM:

Schumer, Fienstien and all. Did you fucking think bush would offer up someone that wouldn't protect his sorry ass? DID YOU?

heh wrote on December 14, 2007 6:53 PM:

well Lady Di did say Muck-asey was the best we were going to get. It almost sounded like one of those left handed compliments to Bush. Saying considering this president the Senate wasn't going to get anyone better.

After, Diane was shown walking with the presnut in the rubble from the California fires announcing a billion dollar federal help for the area. She did what she had to do to get that, I guess.

anon wrote on December 14, 2007 7:01 PM:

...so, chuck schumer got punk'd...

No. We all got punk'd by Schumer. Mukasey is--I hope, it's hard to imagine what could be worse--Schumer's legacy. Nothing that he's done so far will have anything near the impact of putting Mukasey in the AG's office. Schumer has lost my support and I'll actively work for his opponent in 2010.

I suspect the only effective tactic against Mukasey at this point is to investigate his actions during the 2001-2002 detentions in NY/NJ. I guess DoJ investigation is impossible but some brave Congressman might take a stab at it and/or various muckrakers. Mukasey has been part of Team Bush from the moment he signed off on the extra Constitutional detentions, if not before.

sailmaker wrote on December 14, 2007 7:10 PM:

Mukasey's secrecy should surprise no one, it is on public record.
The widely expected nomination of a former judge, Michael Mukasey, as attorney general could draw fresh scrutiny of his role in authorizing the secret detention of an unknown number of men without criminal charges following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch denounced the detentions as "Kafkaesque." The groups said prosecutors abused the material witness provisions to detain at least 70 men, often when they were suspected of crimes but evidence was lacking. Almost half were never bought before a court or grand jury to testify.

"I'm appalled at the choice," a lawyer involved in one material witness case before Judge Mukasey, Randall Hamud, told The New York Sun yesterday. "In a sealed courtroom that has since been publicized, he kicked my co-counsel out of court. I told him my client had been beat up. He told me, ‘Your client looks okay. File a lawsuit in a couple of years.'"

Mr. Hamud said senators considering Judge Mukasey's nomination should seek out the details of the hearings held behind closed doors in 2001. "The secrecy basically allowed him to run amok," Mr. Hamud said. "They should review every one of those sealed proceeding transcripts and see what this man was doing from the bench. These weren't criminal defendants. They were just witnesses." http://www.nysun.com/article/62750

anon wrote on December 14, 2007 7:46 PM:

Yup, putting Mukasey in the AG's office ensures that these investigations will go nowhere. What's he going to do? Put himself in prison? He has a very strong personal incentive to sit on anything that might focus on the detentions he supervised.

Not again wrote on December 14, 2007 7:50 PM:

To be expected from a Bush lackey. Another sad day for American democracy (can we even say we are a democracy anymore?).

Please let this Presidency end soon before any more innocent Constitutions are hurt.

phil james wrote on December 14, 2007 9:33 PM:

Mukasey confirmation hearing:
CS: If we confirm you, will you act independently of the White House to enforce the rule of law even if you have to confront the President?
MM: Yes.
CS: Are you aware that many other Bush appointees have testified here one way to get confirmed and then done a 180 and gone ahead and carried Bush's water anyway?
MM: Yes.
CS: So what you are saying is that despite this seemingly unending stream of Bush-yes-persons and flacks and incompetent liars, we are finally going to be able to confirm someone who doesn't lie to us one day to get confirmed and then knifes us the next day under Bush's orders?
MM: Yes.
CS: Did you just tell a lie?
MM: Bush appointees don't lie.
CS: Thank you, I'm voting for your confirmation forthwith.

nabalzbbfr wrote on December 14, 2007 10:59 PM:

Let me point out a hypothetical scenario as to why information about aggressice CIA techniques (**NOT** torture) needs to be kept highly classified. Consider the following scene described in Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather":

The two Capone men were bound hand and foot and small bath towels were stuffed into their mouths to keep them from crying out. Then Brasi took an ax from its place against the wall and started hacking at one of the Capone men. He chopped the man’s feet off, then the legs at the knees, then the thighs where they joined the torso. Brasi was an extremely powerful man but it took him many swings to accomplish his purpose. By that time of course the victim had given up the ghost and the floor of the warehouse was slippery with the hacked fragments of his flesh and the gouting of his blood. When Brasi turned to his second victim he found further effort unnecessary. The second Capone gunman out of sheer terror had, impossibly. swallowed the bath towel in his mouth and suffocated. The bath towel was found in the man’s stomach when the police performed their autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Now reimagine this scene with two Al-Qaeda operatives, say Abdul and Mohammed. Now the CIA can reenact the above with a **virtual** simulation of the above scene with a virtual Abdul as subject and the real Mohammed as horrified observer, and in another room the same with the roles of A and M interchanged. In virtually no time at all, A and M are singing like birds. And as former CIA agent John Kiriakou recently recounted, once they started singing they will continue to keep singing, without any further prodding. Moreover the reliability of their information can be cross checked against each other. On the other hand, once it became known to Al Qaeda that this was only a virtual simulation, this technique would become completely ineffective.

disgusted with earth wrote on December 15, 2007 1:42 AM:

'Umm, DOJ, is this illegal thing illegal?'

Snip wrote on December 15, 2007 1:54 AM:

I am unclear why TPM is even in the slightest bit impressed with expected standard boilerplate do nothing congressional correspondence anyways.

Admiral Fallon wrote on December 15, 2007 1:57 AM:

I just emailed this to Congressman Reyes and my Representative to stand up against murkasey:

http://wwwc.house.gov/reyes/contact_information.asp
Silvestre Reyes
El Paso Office
310 N. Mesa, Suite 400
El Paso, Texas 79901-1364

(Thank you for standing up to mukasey.)

Please stand up to mukasey along with Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, and Representative Peter Hoekstra,

The House of Representatives MUST issue subpoenas to get testimony and other information from the C.I.A.

It is true as Congressman Reyes said: "There is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work."

Don't stop with the CIA The Justice Department has had its share of investigations stalled. Maybe some inherent contempt citations against Justice officials would loosen up their attitude, and make the CIA a little more pliant.

Contempt of Congress is the route to follow.

The House Intell Committee is supposed to have testimony from the man who ordered the destruction of these tapes, Jose Rodriguez, and the CIA's lawyer, John Rizzo.

John Edwards called for a special prosecutor, he says it here on a TV inteview this morning. He says you can't trust DOJ to investigate this. Looks like he was proven correct very quickly.

We need a special prosecutor.

"The truth is the system in Washington is corrupt." John Edwards

This is no surprise - it's one of the reasons Bush appointed this radical Zionist (his wife Susan was one of the biggest fundraisers in New York for the illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land) to hide the torture. With his ties to Israel, he should be pretty good at this, as we're seeing already.

It does not end and we are NOT powerless. Petras' recent article titled US MILITARY AGAINST ISRAELI FIRSTERS shows that the Flag Officers are ready to act in defense of the Constitution and the American people.

parrot wrote on December 15, 2007 4:03 AM:

Good. Because when other nations have to bring out leaders to justice...because we, ourselves, are not apparently capable of doing so, there will be a good basis for the war crimes tribunals to proceed. Oh, there once was something called "IMPEACMENT" but that seems to have fallen off the table...probably due to a conspiracy to subvert the legal system of the United States.

bluestatedon wrote on December 15, 2007 8:24 AM:

"You know, as much as I hate everything Bush and Mukasey stand for--incompetence, corruption, torture, and the end of the rule of law--I respect them for their tactical brilliance. They have won."

I'm not sure it takes much tactical brilliance to deal with the most pathetically inept and morally flaccid group of Democrats in history. Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, Leahy, Feinstein et al have been nothing more than trembling enablers of Bush & Co. every step of the way.

jimijazz wrote on December 15, 2007 10:35 AM:

It also doesn't take much brilliance to be corrupt - you just have to be bought. Mukasey - attorney general John Mitchell redux.

jimijazz wrote on December 15, 2007 11:04 AM:

"After he became president in January 1969, Nixon appointed Mitchell attorney general while making an unprecedented direct appeal to FBI Director J. Edger Hoover that the usual background investigation not be conducted. As attorney general, Mitchell believed that the government's need for "law and order" justified restrictions on civil liberties. He advocated the use of wiretaps in national security cases without obtaining a court order and the right of police to employ the preventive detention of criminal suspects. He brought conspiracy charges against critics of the Vietnam War, and demonstrated a reluctance to involve the Justice Department in civil rights issues. "The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency," he told reporters. "It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society." Sound familiar?

Mr JJ wrote on December 15, 2007 12:31 PM:

Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor.

Jose Padilla"s lawyers argued before the Florida Federal Court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The DOJ dismissed Padilla"s allegations as "meritless," asserting Padilla"s legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured. Well, it"s clear now that they certainly COULD have, if the tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had been made available!

Now here is where Mukasey"s role comes into question. U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, was the one who signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. Court records show the warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah"s interrogation. So we have a problem Houston.

The Attorney General can only issue a warrant based upon legally obtained evidence, and confessions under torture are certainly not "legally obtained". So either Mukasey was misrepresented the evidence, and would be liable to be potentially a party in those who were presented with "perjured evidence"; or he knew that torture was used in obtaining the confession and ignored it.

In either case he is unsuitable to run an investigation, as it will, inevitably, involved himself. Thus a Special Prosecutor is necessary.

anon wrote on December 15, 2007 5:31 PM:

...Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor...

I suspect we'll see impeachment proceeding before we see another Special Prosecutor.

***

Nabalzbbfr's kidding, right? A good reason to both continue to torture and to keep it secret is it worked in a Godfather novel? Weeeeeeeee!

danger wrote on December 16, 2007 5:11 PM:

It amazes me. Absolutely amazes me.

Maybe I'm being too alarmist, but the Democratic leadership doesn't get the stakes here. They've been pussyfooting the Republicans since they took over Congress and haven't done a damn thing of substance to reign in Bush and Cheney and the entire GOP.

Do they not realize the endgame? How stupid are they??? If Bush and Cheney are allowed to leave the White House without being impeached, convicted and thrown in jail, they will pardon everyone who supported them for all of the crimes of the past 8 years. Their evil will be allowed to endure, and anything that this country used to mean and stand for will be dead.

Remove them from office, stop the war and stop the bleeding of this economy and the black hole their policies are creating. They should do it before it sucks the rest of the world into it and turns everyone against us for good.