Monday, April 06, 2009

GOP threatens Obama’s legal nominees over release of torture memos.

Thinkprogress:

Harper’s Scott Horton reports that the Senate Republicans are determined to protect the Bush torture legacy, “promising to ‘go nuclear’ and filibuster [President Obama’s] legal appointments” if he releases legal memos regarding the previous administration’s torture policies:

A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy.

It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

1 comment:

markie said...

threat away, little boys.