Justice Dept. Investigators Say No Criminal Prosecutions for Torture Lawyers, Just 'Disciplinary Actions'

By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. Posted May 6, 2009.

The Post also reveals that early this year before Bush left office, Mukasey and then-Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip “wrote a 14-page letter to counterbalance the draft report. They described the context surrounding the origins of the memos, which were written at a time when government officials feared another terrorist strike on American soil:”

Both Mukasey and Filip were dissatisfied with the quality of the legal analysis in the wide-ranging draft report, sources said. Among other things, the draft report cited lengthy passages from a 2004 CIA inspector general investigation and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the questioning techniques, which sources characterized as far afield from the narrow legal questions surrounding the lawyers’ activities. The letter from Mukasey and Filip has not been publicly released, but it may emerge when the investigative report is issued.

One of the key Senators monitoring the progress of the Justice Department report, Richard Durbin, said, “It’s time to get to the bottom of the conduct of some of the key players… . It’s a question of responsibility. In this chain of command, how far up did it go?” However, Durbin, according to the Post believes it is “premature to call for a special prosecutor or the impeachment of Bybee.” Powerful Democratic Senators, including Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein, have called for closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. Feinstein asked Obama not to take any action for 6-8 months.

In contrast to Durbin’s remarks, in an interview Tuesday on Democracy Now!, Senator Russ Feingold said, he was “very open” to signing on to a letter from Rep. John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. “I want to see the letter,” he said. “That is one of the options that I agree with. I potentially agree with prosecutions. I agree with the idea of the truth commission. And I potentially would support a special prosecutor.” The CCR, ACLU and over 120 other organizations have called for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.

See more stories tagged with: cia, torture, bush administration, aclu, department of justice, michael mukasey, steven bradbury, john yoo, prosecutions, jay bybee, eric holder, john conyers, vince warren, jerrold nadler, mark filip, richard durbin

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at RebelReports.com.

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