JUDGE MUKASEY REFUSES TO SAY IF WATER-BOARDING IS TORTURE

Judge Mukasey refuses to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee whether he considers "water-boarding" to be a form of torture. Dan Eggen writes for The Washington Post:

"Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey told Senate Democrats today that a kind of simulated drowning known as waterboarding is "repugnant," but he does not know whether the interrogation technique violates U.S. laws against torture."

Remember water-boarding has been around since at least the Inquisition as a method of making heretics confess they were in league with the devil. And, frankly, it succeeded in getting people to admit their connection with Satan.

If Judge Mukasey does not have enough information to tell whether it is torture and thus illegal, I have a suggestion. Your Honor, experience it for yourself. Have some CIA agents come around to your chambers with a board with straps for you to lie on and be strapped down. Then have someone put a towel over your nose and mouth and head. Then pour water on top of it so that you are ingesting and breathing in the water. Undergo this "experiment" for at least five minutes.

I am sure that after this test, Judge, you will be most certainly an expert on whether water-boarding is torture. You then will surely testify that water-boarding is illegal both under U.S. and international law because it inflicts terrible psychological pain and destruction upon the victim.

In the meantime, the Senate Judiciary Committee should refuse to vote to let your name out of committee.

MUKASEY ASKED TO RETRACT STATEMENT ABOUT WATER-BOARDING

In today's The New York Times, Philip Shenon writes that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Panel have signed a letter to Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee to be Attorney General, asking him to retract his statement about the legality of water-boarding.

Writes Shenon:

"All 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, on Tuesday for a clear-cut statement that the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been used by the C.I.A. against terrorism suspects, is illegal.

"In his confirmation hearings last week, Mr. Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York, declined to say if waterboarding was torture or was otherwise illegal; he insisted he was not aware of how the technique was carried out."

Mukasey should be rejected unless he answers truthfully and directly. To think a former federal judge on the Court of Appeals would not know if water-boarding was torture is simply beyond belief. Mukasey was obviously defending the practices of Bush and Cheney, the people who are appointing him.

By refusing to answer and say that water-boarding is torture, Mukasey becomes a dangerous nominee. The president for all his powers does not have the power to violate the Constitution and all our other laws. The president may not violate an individual's rights under the Bill of Rights. In other words, the president may not make torture a legal action on his say-so because the president is subject to the rule of law just as the rest of us. Because Mukasey fudges and obfuscates on this central principle of American democracy, he does not deserve to be the chief law enforcement official of the United States.

DOJ FINDS ONLY ONE E-MAIL FROM KARL ROVE ON U.S. ATTORNEY-GATE

I can't believe that the Department of Justice refuses to turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee more than one e-mail from Karl Rove regarding the firing of the nine U.S. attorneys.

Paul Kane writes today in the Washington Post:

"The Justice Department told Congress yesterday that a search of e-mails sent over 2 1/2 years turned up a single message in which the department's senior officials communicated with White House adviser Karl Rove about the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

"In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), a senior Justice official said the department scoured its computers in response to a subpoena and found just the single e-mail chain written earlier this year. It already had been released publicly.

"The possibility that Rove had a role in the removal of the U.S. attorneys has become a central issue in Congress's investigation."

The DOJ can find but a single e-mail? This is preposterous and clearly a case of refusing to turn over documents requested by a Congressional committee. Destruction or concealment of documents is a serious offense when the subject of a court order or request by a panel of Congress.

The response of the DOJ is reminiscent of Nixon refusing to turn over tapes of White House conversations involving the Watergate burglary. Things can only get worse for Bush & Co. and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as this matter develops.

COMEY TESTIFIES BUSH CONTINUED ILLEGAL SPYING PROGRAM FOR UP TO THREE WEEKS

Former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Thanks to Dan Froomkin in his White House Watch today for providing links to the testimony and to a video.

Comey describes an improbable scene at the intensive care sickbed of John Ashcroft after the president called Ashcroft's room to say that he was sending over Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and Andy Card, Chief-of-Staff to get Ashcroft's signature on extending the secret domestic spying and wiretap program. Comey rushed to the hospital because Ashcroft had handed over his AG powers to him, and they had both previously agreed that the domestic spying program was illegal. Comey knew that the White House was trying to take advantage of the disorientation of the sick Ashcroft in having him sign off on the legality of a program which the DOJ considered problematic.

Even though Card and Gonzales were pretty annoyed at Comey for refusing to sign off, after Ashcroft rose up from his bed to tell them that Comey was then the acting AG, Comey testified that the White House still went ahead and implemented the program for up to three weeks, during which time the authorization lacked the DOJ's and the AG's authorization.

So now we have it. Bush and Cheney continue a spying program which their own Department of Justice considers illegal.

This raises important and troubling questions. How many other illegal programs does the White House implement? What are these programs? How long are they been in existence?

It is necessary to stand back and put the testimony of Comey in perspective. If Bush and Cheney & Co. would continue an illegal spying program for up to three weeks without DOJ's sign-off, then we can better understand the mentality of the president and vice president in establishing and operating prisons like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and those other secret sites. Then we can evaluate the claims of torture and extraordinary rendition. Then when Gonzales comes out and tries to take away lawyers from those inmates, we can better appreciate the destruction of basic constitutional rights engineered by Bush/Cheney aided and abetted by many of their Republican followers in Congress and even by some Democrats.