Senate Republicans Delay Holder Confirmation Over Torture Prosecutions

Senate Republicans delayed a vote on the confirmation of Eric Holder to become attorney general for at least a week in order to pressure him to say whether he will prosecute intelligence agents for torture if they were following orders and acting within what they believed to be legal guidelines.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, convened the panel Wednesday and asked for an immediate vote to send Holder's nomination to the Senate. Republicans called for a one-week delay, permitted by committee rules.

Holder told the Judiciary Committee last week that waterboarding is "torture" and therefore illegal. Susan J. Crawford, the top Bush administration official overseeing the trials of detainees, told the Washington Post that at least one individual held at the prison center at Guantanamo Bay was "tortured."

The question Republicans want answered before Holder is confirmed: Will you prosecute those who took part in that torture?

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said that he would block committee proceedings, scheduled to resume at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, if he did not receive answer from Holder. "I'm not going to allow things to proceed," he said. He added that it was "physically impossible" for Holder to get the answers to him by then, thus assuring a conflict would ensue.

Other GOP members of the committee, said Cornyn, are also concerned about the potential for prosecutions. The intent of the Military Commissions Act, he argued, was to provide immunity from prosecution if agents believed they were acting lawfully.

"Part of my concern, frankly, relates to some of his statements at the hearing in regard to torture and what his intentions are with regard to intelligence personnel who were operating in good faith based upon their understanding of what the law was," said Cornyn.

"There were provisions providing immunity to intelligence officials based up on good faith and what they understood the law to be," said Cornyn. "I want to know if he's going to enforce congressional intent not to second guess those things in a way that could jeopardize those officials but also could cause our intelligence officials to be risk averse -- the very kind of risk aversion...that the 9/11 commission talked about when they talked about what set us up for 9/11."

Sen. Leahy said that Holder can't predetermine who he'll prosecute.

"I think no prosecutor should say, 'This is who I will prosecute and this is who I won't prosecute,' and he knows that as a former prosecutor," said Leahy of Cornyn's demand.

Leahy noted that Republicans "enthusiastically support[ed]" Bush's appointee, Michael Mukasey, "who couldn't even say that waterboarding an American abroad would be torture," and also "enthusiastically support[ed] Alberto Gonzales, the least qualified attorney general in decades."

Having supported those men, said Leahy, it's hard for them to be against Holder. "To say they want to hold up Eric Holder, the most qualified, I'm wondering, 'Why the double standard for this person above all others?"

UPDATE: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, agreed with Leahy that Holder can't rule out prosecutions before he becomes the top prosecutor.

"What I believe we should do is not politicize this, the idea of prosecutions coming from the hard left. Making a commitment that we'll never prosecute someone is probably not the right way to proceed, either," he said. "I think President Obama's administration is going to have a forward look on this, unless there's something egregious out there I think they'll move on. But no I don't expect him to rule it in or rule it out."

"In individual cases, if there's allegations of mistreatment judges can handle that and you can determine what course to take," he added. "If we've committed -- if we've made mistakes in the past, let's clean them up. But this idea of criminalizing policy differences would be bad for the country and would create a bad precedent."

Comments

[CSMBARR]

07:46 PM on 01/24/2009

It's against the Geneva convention and International law to torture POW's President Bush authorized torture of civilians. So what laws if any cover that? Can a civilian be moved across international lines to secret prisons some President Obama probably isn't aware of and then tortured? Or is that legal? After WWII the British had the held the Nuremberg Trials where the United States and Russia had Hitler's men put on trial for torturing our soldiers, and when found guilty some were hung to death. And after Vietnam we put some of our own soldiers on trial for torturing POW's. So how can President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and attorney General Gonzalez. get away with torturing civilians called enemy combatants?

[research]

06:45 PM on 01/26/2009

Bush Tortured. There is no serious legal question.

Bush Violated the Geneva convention.

Again, no serious legal question.

[William Reiff]

05:02 PM on 01/22/2009

If we do not prosecute the torturers because they were following orders, do we have to apologize to all of the Nazis that we hung?

[ajax2]

01:10 PM on 01/22/2009

Torture has become the little blue pill for many Republicans.

[loki]

01:03 PM on 01/22/2009

GOOD. This guy is like someone who would be on Cheney's staff and not Obamas. He actually submitted in a case that there is no definition on what a Terrorist is, so his client ( Chiquita ) should not be charged with supporting Terrorist because Chiquita paid a US classified terrorist group over a million dollars a year for protection,and helped bring in thousands of arms and ammo in through private Chiquita ports. This is the type of person we want in such a great seat of power? Might as well bring Gonzo back.

[pammygamherst]

12:50 PM on 01/22/2009

how can someone ask an AG candidate if he intends to prosecute someone? if he doesn't prosecute he becomes complicit in the crime that was committed. cornyn, as far as i'm concerned, is attempting to block a potential federal investigation into possible war crimes.

[pjburke]

12:03 PM on 01/22/2009

Senator Graham, January 21 2009: "If we've committed -- if we've made mistakes in the past, let's clean them up. ... this idea of criminalizing policy differences would be bad for the country and would create a bad precedent."

Senator Graham, January 16 1999:
"The problem with keeping this president in office, in my opinion, is that these crimes can't be ignored by anybody who looks at the evidence. They can be explained away and they can be excused, but they have far reaching consequences, far reaching consequences for the law. And in his role of chief law enforcement officer of the land, how can we say to our fellow citizens that this will not be 20 months of "do as I do" -- "don't do as I do, do as I say"? "

Mister "Rule of Law" Hypocritical Partisan Windbag.

Perjury -- alleged, never proved -- is an impeachable "high crime" (its not... its a garden-variety 'low' crime), while authorizing torture -- a war crime -- to Graham is a "mistake." A "policy difference."

Shame on you, Senator Graham. Shame On You.

Shame on your naked partisan hypocrisy...

Shame on your apologia for war crimes and war criminals.

Shame on you for dishonoring and defiling both the uniform you wear and the offices of public trust that you hold.

[thirteen13]

12:11 PM on 01/22/2009

Let's give Senator Graham a standing ovation. The law does not apply to the law makers.

What a crock of

[DACC]

03:33 PM on 01/22/2009

It would appear by Mr. Graham's actions and statements since 1/20 represents that, unlike his counterparts, he has a conscience.

[pjburke]

01:25 AM on 01/23/2009

I'm hoping that more people throw Senator Graham's rank hypocrisy right back in his face, and keep doing so until he's shamed into doing the right thing this time.

[SteadyOn]

11:59 AM on 01/22/2009

Here's the link which JOKE Cornyn thought was classy......such a shame. http://www.oliverwillis.com/2008/06/27/big-bad-john-cornyn/

[Chiron090]

11:45 AM on 01/22/2009

"...operating in good faith based upon their understanding of what the law was"

That says it all!!! IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THE LAW!!!!!!!!

So if I commit a crime but I didn't know it was a crime them I don't have to be punished??
Too bad one of the guiding principles of our legal system is "Ignorantia juris non excusat", or "ignorance of the law does NOT excuse"

Hey, since this obviously doesn't apply anymore, why don't we all go out and do a bunch of ethically questionable and obscure reprehensible things that may or may not be legal and when we get caught just tell the cops that ignorance DOES in fact shield us from the law so they have to let us go. Yeah, that will work.

The whole point of Ignorantia juris non excusat is to keep justice blind.

[CarmenCameron]

11:37 AM on 01/22/2009

Hasn't the GOP heard that the "I was just following orders (in good faith)" defense was discredited at Nuremburg?

You simply can't make most American citizens believe the idiocy that those intelligence officers (or whomever) who used torture "in good faith" actually thought that it was legal in the USA.

Because if they actually HAD believed it, they wouldn't have had to go to Gitmo to DO it!

[Oldchef]

11:30 AM on 01/22/2009

Perhaps the Republicans (and some Democrats) fear being exposed as having gone along with the former administration's criminal acts. I'm sure that various committee members were briefed on exactly what the Bushies planned and went along, whether happily or reluctantly, with the plan.

[breakfast]

11:17 AM on 01/22/2009

There is no "criminalizing of policy differences" going on here, as Republicans like Graham are suggesting. It is a matter of the Bush administration having implemented policies which are clearly criminal and which should be prosecuted.

Torture is only one of many instances of the criminality of the previous administration. Prosecute them!

[bruster55]

11:05 AM on 01/22/2009

The main question at this point.

Are the Republicans trying to interfere in a criminal investigation?

There is a fine line between legal conduct and criminal conduct concerning this matter.

So the question remains.

Are the Republicans intefering in a Federal Criminal Investigation?

[Ergon]

10:22 AM on 01/22/2009

I'm not sure they're worried about a few low level functionaries being prosecuted for torture, do you? Look at Lynddie England.

[Apov]

10:19 AM on 01/22/2009

How can this joke of a senator think he is honoring his oath of office to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States?

Do all Republicans or just Texans feel they should receive special treatment?

Justice is blind.
Do the crime, do the time.

[springsm]

10:13 AM on 01/22/2009

Cornyn is running to be the president of the GOP caucus...he needs to make himself known. If being negative and causing delays which are just that...delays...he must be buiding "capital" with his group. I would be terribly embarrassed at these childish acts from an elected grown man if I were his groupies. The other part of this is that the GOP knows who might be charged for approving and encouraging certain acts of torture and are scared spitless. W and his rotten garbage have not "left" WA DC. They will actively haunt the Government agencies for many years to come. UNLESS those who can be the solution on both sides stop those that are the problem. Texas...get rid of this senator of yours. Faye could go too, she doesn't know how to bend out of the rhetoric.