Durbin and Whitehouse: Justice Department is Investigating Torture Authorization
Senate Judiciary Democrats Called for Inquiry into DOJ's Role in Overseeing CIA's Use of Waterboarding
Press Release of Senator Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Friday, February 22, 2008
[Washington, DC] – In response to a request by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the Justice Department has announced it has launched an investigation of the role of top DOJ officials and staff attorneys in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by U.S. intelligence agencies. The investigation is being carried out by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which is responsible for investigating employees of the DOJ who have been accused of misconduct with respect to their professional functions.
“The United States has always repudiated waterboarding as a form of torture and prosecuted it as a war crime. Justice Department officials who ignored this history -- even those at the highest levels -- must be held accountable for their actions,” said Durbin. “A hard look at DOJ officials who approved waterboarding as a lawful interrogation technique is long overdue and I am pleased that the Office of Professional Responsibility has undertaken this investigation. Congress and the American people deserve to know how these decisions were made and who was involved.”
“Within the question, how America could come to use interrogation techniques of the Inquisition, is the question how the Department of Justice could have overlooked its own precedents to authorize waterboarding,” said Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for Rhode Island. “This abject failure of scholarship suggests that the answer was preordained and the Department was driven by politics and obedience, not law and independence. I welcome OPR’s report in our continuing effort to reclaim DOJ from the ‘loyal Bushies’ who have besmirched a great institution.”
(Continued here.)
Press Release of Senator Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Friday, February 22, 2008
[Washington, DC] – In response to a request by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the Justice Department has announced it has launched an investigation of the role of top DOJ officials and staff attorneys in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by U.S. intelligence agencies. The investigation is being carried out by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which is responsible for investigating employees of the DOJ who have been accused of misconduct with respect to their professional functions.
“The United States has always repudiated waterboarding as a form of torture and prosecuted it as a war crime. Justice Department officials who ignored this history -- even those at the highest levels -- must be held accountable for their actions,” said Durbin. “A hard look at DOJ officials who approved waterboarding as a lawful interrogation technique is long overdue and I am pleased that the Office of Professional Responsibility has undertaken this investigation. Congress and the American people deserve to know how these decisions were made and who was involved.”
“Within the question, how America could come to use interrogation techniques of the Inquisition, is the question how the Department of Justice could have overlooked its own precedents to authorize waterboarding,” said Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for Rhode Island. “This abject failure of scholarship suggests that the answer was preordained and the Department was driven by politics and obedience, not law and independence. I welcome OPR’s report in our continuing effort to reclaim DOJ from the ‘loyal Bushies’ who have besmirched a great institution.”
(Continued here.)
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