John Yoo, David Addington Testify On Torture, Detention Policies (VIDEO)

David Addington, a longtime aide to Dick Cheney, and John Yoo, who helped write the infamous "torture memos," testified before the House Judiciary Committee today on the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies. Both men offered evasive answers to seemingly simple questions. Yoo, at one point, was asked several times by Cmte. Chairman John Conyers whether or not the President had the authority to bury a detainee alive. Yoo was unable to offer an answer.

Watch video from the testimony below, and read more at the American News Project.

Comments

[PAposter]

I think these guys should be prosecuted along with their respective clients.

[separatingwheatfromchaff]

It's Roberto Gonzalez in his Asian" lying lawyer" disguise.

[bamiman]

Are you giving Addington a free pass?

[jimmy2001]

LMAO... your right!

[soapington]

What a fantastically bizarre pair of men these are - I wouldn't give either of them a job in a slaughterhouse. Or on a pickled whelk stall, come to that.

[GOPorganizedcrime]

Why are they building POW camps in the northern midwest?

They are probaly being built to house 'political combatants' who just happen to be Democrats
or Independents should we ever become a police state.

[ErnestineBass]

Two that I know of have also been built in Alabama. The last I heard they were unoccupied.

[kellygrrrl]

*shutter*

[Wiredwilly]

Should we ever ? What do you THINK we are ?

[Indedave]

Pardon me for being late to the party, but can you point me to some source material regarding these structures? I really, really do not want to believe there are even plans for whatever contingency these could be used for.

[doneflyin]

Just google "detention camps Halliburton 385 million contract Homeland Security"

You will get several links. One is the NYTimes.

[Trittydi]

They're already built. Had to get them up ASAP. Too many possibilities to use them exist. Let's hope they've underestimated the coming resistance of the American people and how much they'll put up with - and back off from using them. But since Bush has given himself the legal right to declare martial law AND cancel elections -- I think they at least PLAN to use them right now.
*

[grailknight]

Why didn't the panel say answer the question or be held in contmept?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Bingo.
"Answer the question the next time I ask it, or spend the nite in jail and we'll try again tomorrow. WITH a waterboard­."

[JSquercia]

Probably because Mukassey would NOT prosecute any cases for CONTEMPT. What a disappointment he has turned out to BE . Thanks Diane and Chuck

[ErnestineBass]

Yoooooooooooooooo bastard.

[ObamAtomic]

Turf Yoo is a very short complicated lawyer,no wonder he masterminded *messy* memos.

[OlongapoEd]

Yoo and Addington are the poster children for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of conservatism in the USA.

[iheardthisbefore]

here, here....sc­umbags all.

[JLee]

Ugh. John Yoo makes me disgusted to be a Korean in the legal profession. That's way too much in common with a spineless creature who wants to destroy the Constitution, not to mention all the rules of civilized society.

[Leatherhelmet]

You count Al Quaeda as civilized society?

[ErnestineBass]

Leatherhelmet.

Well...tha­t explains the brain damage.

[jimmy2001]

NO!... we're the ones who are suppose to be civilized.­.. we would be no better than the terrorists if we allow ourselves to justify kidnapping, detention, torturing and killing of innocent people... we're suppose to be different, we're suppose to be AMERICANS!

[Soule23]

No, I think that it was a critique of the neofascist mentality of the Bush administration. They are like Al Quaeda though, aren't they?

[mkexplorer]

JLee, it's OK to be disgusted that John Yoo shares your heritage and profession, just don't be disgusted with yourself. One of the glories of our system is that we do not support the concept of collective guilt.

BTW, I almost ran the SOB over in San Francisco while he was crossing the street with his wife. It was at most a subconscious impulse, I assure you.

[Soule23]

You should have just taken one for the team...

[JLee]

Thank you for your kind words. Good call on not following through with your violent subconscious--Yoo is a spineless, gutless sellout who's not worth denting your car for, much less get in trouble over. I count him and Cho Seung Hui (Va Tech shooter) the two most shameful Koreans on American soil in recent history, and Cho at least arguably had the defense of being insane.

[BadChristian]

Pathetic.
Yoo sounds like he is about to cry, which is probably why GW's men figured he was the guy for the job. Absolutely no backbone, and capable of being cowed into advising Bush he could do anything he wanted to do. A consummate "Yes man."

[mathme]

I'm against torture, but there should be someone whose job it is just to slap people who give these evasive, and flagrantly so, answers. When he intentionally answers the wrong question (e.g. "could" becomes "would". .. TWICE) -- SLAP!

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

That wouldn't be torture; that would be "enhanced interrogation technique.­"

[Collielady]

You're right. It's NOT torture, according to their own admission, so there should be no problem "enhancing" our interrogation of them.

Better bring along the Depends. These punks will be wetting themselves just at the thought of pain.

[Annette]

I am willing to use enhanced interrogation on all the Bushie enablers like Yoo and Addington. Anything they are willing to have done to detainees should be done to them, and I might consider burying them alive. If they say it isn't torture seems to me it might be legal way of getting them to tell the truth. They think it works of others, why not them? And it has the benefit of not being torture.

[Dannydel]

Lying, chicken hearted rats...jus­t like their leaders...­and thats only their good points.

[coolkraft]

these investigations are always one big laugh...th­ey never do anything except blow smoke..how sad that our government has sunk to these lows....wh­at a wonderful legacy bushie and his cronies will have

[MarkieBee]

I think where Conyers was going was if he could get Yoo to admit that being buried alive and thereby drowning in sand was considered torture, then why isn't waterboarding considered torture.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Too subtle.

Conyers was shooting for the moon: "Is there NOTHING that the President can do that is illegal."

It's a variation on the old -- imperial -- "If the President DOES it, ergo, it's NOT illegal."

[Synoia]

The old really is

"If the Sovereign does it it's legal"

and that's what the founders wanted to eliminate.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

This putz is a disgrace to the nation, not to mention the University of California should have its head examined for hiring him.