Dick Cheney and his lawyer, David Addington, pressured the Justice Department in 2005 to quickly approve a torture memo that authorized CIA interrogators to use a combination of barbaric techniques during interrogations of "high-value" detainees, despite objections from senior officials in the Department of Justice, according to e-mails written by James Comey, the DOJ's former Deputy Attorney General.
In the emails, Comey also wrote that then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was “weak” and had essentially allowed Cheney and Addington to politicize the Justice Department. [The emails can be found here: Documents: Justice Department Communication on Interrogation Opinions].
"The AG explained that he was under great pressure from the Vice President to complete both memos, and that the President had even raised it last week, apparently at the VP's request and the AG had promised they would be ready early this week," Comey wrote. Gonzales “added that the VP kept telling him ‘we are getting killed on the Hill.'”
“It leaves me feeling sad for the Department and the AG… I just hope that when this all comes out, this institution doesn't take the hit, but rather the hit is taken by those individuals who occupied positions at [Office of Legal Counsel and [Office of the Attorney General] and were too weak to stand up for the principles that undergird the rest of this great institution.”
The New York Times obtained the e-mails, but the newspaper appears to have seriously mischaracterized some of the content of the communications in a story published Saturday.
Read on.
1 comment:
As some Cheney supporters do their best to spin/lie for Dick it's now clear that Dick was behind the torture and used the Law Makers. NOw we'll see what other bomb will drop from the lies told over the 8 year crime wave by the Bush/Cheney team.
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