Conyers disappointed at Mukasey for not appointing ASUSA as Special Counsel.

Memo to Conyers: Mukasey was not going to appoint a Special Prosecutor in the tape torture case unlike the the Plame case. In reality, the ASUSA is not an independent counsel.

From Conyers' website:

For Immediate Release

January 2, 2008


(Washington, DC) - In response to the Attorney General’s announcement that he would be tasking the Assistant United States Attorney from the District of Connecticut to investigate matters involving the destruction of tapes of detainee interrogations, congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement:

While I certainly agree that these matters warrant an immediate criminal investigation, it is disappointing that the Attorney General has stepped outside the Justice Department’s own regulations and declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter. Because of this action, the Congress and the American people will be denied – as they were in the Valerie Plame matter – any final report on the investigation.

Equally disappointing is the limited scope of this investigation, which appears limited to the destruction of two tapes. The government needs to scrutinize what other evidence may have been destroyed beyond the two tapes, as well as the underlying allegations of misconduct associated with the interrogations.

The Justice Department’s record over the past seven years of sweeping the administration’s misconduct under the rug has left the American public with little confidence in the administration’s ability to investigate itself. Nothing less than a special counsel with a full investigative mandate will meet the tests of independence, transparency and completeness. Appointment of a special counsel will allow our nation to begin to restore our credibility and moral standing on these issues.