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George Tenet

Ex-CIA Directors To Obama: Shut Down Torture Probe

Zachary Roth | September 18, 2009, 5:35PM

Attorney General Eric Holder

Seven former CIA directors have sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to overturn Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to appoint a torture prosecutor.

Holder's decision, they wrote "creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute." they added that the probe "will seriously damage the willingness of many other intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country."

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Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, George Tenet, Justice Department, Porter Goss, Torture

CIA

White House Slipped In Key Passage To CIA Threat Assessment, Justifiying Surveillance

Zachary Roth | July 10, 2009, 4:06PM

Perhaps the key passage -- or at least the most interesting one -- from the just released inspectors general report on warrantless wiretapping is this one:

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Topics: CIA, George Tenet, Wiretapping

George Bush

Senate Releases Declassified Narrative Of OLC Torture Opinions

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 6:27PM

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) of the Senate Intelligence committee has just released a declassified narrative (pdf) of the OLC's development of its opinions on torture.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has already picked out a key excerpt, that sheds some light on just who in the Bush administration helped devise and approve the torture policies:

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Topics: Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, George Bush, George Tenet, Harriet Miers, Jay Rockefeller, John Ashcroft, Torture

Torture

Turley: We Need A Special Torture Prosecutor, Not Some Lame Commission

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 10:02AM

Jonathan Turley, the media-friendly George Washington Law School professor, who's an outspoken advocate of curbing executive power, gave a bravura performance on MSNBC's Countdown last night, on the subject of possible torture prosecutions.

Arguing that investigations aren't just necessary but long overdue, Turley made two important points that have been getting a bit lost in the rapid-fire debate lately.