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

[rkx13]

How bad, how evil would these two have to be before their law schools would speak up?
Does the Dean at Berkley have cable? Could he at least have a hearing?
Where is the legal profession hiding when they testify.
If the vt tech killer were a Harvard
law school graduate would they still cower.and remain silent.?

[Puller58]

Dog and pony show. Next.

[wm1066]

Conyers would know about being buried alive.
Isn't that what Pelosi and Hoyer did to him?!!!

[BrickSykes]

No doubt they both enjoy some sort of 'stipend' from their idealogical handlers. Who, you might ask? Well, likely the same folks who brought us the 1933-34 Fascist Plot to take FDR down and supplant Democracy with a "Bidness" model and Corporate Management. "America Should be Run Like a Business" they all said.

http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan1.htm

Never heard of it, huh? Wonder why? Couldn't have been that the MSM didn't want us to know could it?

Brick

[BrickSykes]

Both Yoo and Addington should face immediate censure and disbarment! Their brand of "Law" has no place in American Society; especially Addington's glib and arrogant lecturing to bona fide American LAWMAKERS! He's not fit to shine the shoes of any of the elected officials he was "Lecturing!" Has he ever been 'elected' to anything at all? The answer is "NO!" He and Yoo must be jailed for subversion of the Constitution if nothing else! White collar criminals of the first order.

The smug sandbagging they both carried out yesterday was beyond despicable; they should've been arrested on the spot and spend some time in the basement! I'll be happy to dock the boat and come to DC myself if need be...

Brick

[Nonamnesiac]

The Democrats have taken prosecution of war crimes off the table. They have put phony complaining about war crimes in word while funding war crimes in deed on the table in order to allow their "Good German" sycophants to vote for war crimes funders like Obama on the one hand while deluding themselve into believing they oppose war crimes on the other.

[wsb25]

If it takes waterboarding to get a straight answer from this gang, so be it....

[Barbyrah]

The following sent to the UCBerkeley student newspaper as Letter to the Editor:
Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich, to Yoo: "Is there anything the president cannot order to be done to a suspect in the name of national defense?"
Yoo: "I just want to make sure I'm not saying..."
Conyers: "Just answer the question ...you're wasting my time."
Conyers: "Could the president order a suspect buried alive?"
Yoo: "I don't think I've ever given the advice that the president could order someone buried alive."
Conyers: "I didn't ask you if you ever gave him advice. I asked you thought the President could order a suspect buried alive."
Yoo: "Well Chairman, my view right now is that I don't think a President . . . no American President would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that."
Conyers: "I think we understand the games that are being played."
June 26, 2008 Congressional Hearing
Enough said.
Then...I signed my name.
P.S. Also sent a letter to UCBerkeley's chancellor with a quote from Yoo's 2003 memo. The fact that Berkeley actually put this guy in their law school as a professor...words cannot express. Maybe some of you reading this will feel so inclined to follow up in similar fashion. Thanks.

[Nonamnesiac]

Virtually all of the Democrats, with Obama's support, just voted to fund torture and war crimes when they voted through war funding with no restriction on Bush. There are 2 funders of war crimes running for President and committees of funders of war crimes investigatng those whom they fund to commit war crimes. What alot of crap.

[BrickSykes]

Hey, fellow, YOU'RE a lot of Crap! The 'complicit' Congress has tried very hard to respect the Office of President. After all, George W. Bush, as low as he is, is still the 'duly' appointed President; we are all under Constitutional direction to respect the holder of that Chair. Americans are supposed to be able to TRUST their Chief Executive! No one ever imagined that this president, or any president, would be so UNTRUSTWORTHY! When he said we should go to War, where was the reason to Doubt Him? The President of the United States of America would not LIE to the People who had just 'elected' him, would he? And, if so, WHY would he LIE?

No, friend, no one was ever in favor of any kind of War. Just 'Your' President and his Co-Conspirators...

Brick

[kassandranobody]

GEORGE IS THE LITTLE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF AND WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM

CAN WE ALL TURN OUR BACKS ON THIS PATHETIC LOSER THAT EVEN HIS FAMILY MAKES FUN OF?

LETS LAUGH AT THESE PEOPLE

ALL OF THEM

ALL THE TIME

[MuchMadness]

The Congress did not take its responsibility seriously in October 2002. The majority voted to give the president authority to use military force at his own discretion, but it was largely out of fear of being painted as soft on terrorism shortly before the midterm elections. I saw Mario Cuomo on Hardball with Chris Matthews point out that under our constitution the Congress does not have the legitimate authority to delegate its war declaration powers to the presidency.

[Nonamnesiac]

Brick, you're anoher "Good German". You rationaize those who fund war crimes. Both parties fund war crimes. You turn a blind eye to Dems who vote to fund Bush's war requests (which include war crimes) but scream at Repubs who fund them. In reality, they're equally culpable -- they're bi-partisan war criminals. It amazes me how you "Good Germans" delude yourselves.

[AtheistAd]

A Despicable Experiment

Back in World War II, two Nazi soldiers ran a social experiment. They took two men out to a field where there was a hole dug. The ordered the first man into the whole at gunpoint. Then they ordered the second man to bury him alive. The man refused.

So the soldiers let the first man out of the hole and forced the second man into it. Then they ordered the first man to bury the second man alive. He complied. When the dirt reached the second man's mouth and nose, the soldiers ordered the first man to dig him out.

Once the second man was out of the hole, the soldiers forced the first man back in the hole. They then ordered the second man to bury the first one alive. This time he complied. The first man died.

George Bush and his entire cabinet are literally as bad as the Nazis. They do the exact same thing. All members of Congress who supported Bush directly or by not opposing his tyrannical policies are also guilty of crimes against humanity. Personally, I am disgusted and ashamed at America, and I will never lover her again. When history judges our country, it will not be kind.

[JonDev]

The time will come to deal with these two war criminals and the others. Once they are all out of power the piper will be payed.

[collprof]

Please...let's not rush to impeachment. Let's parade all of these neo-con religious fanatics in front of congress and the American people so that we all can see how we were duped into voting for Bush in 2004 based on fear. We are already aware that Bush lied for war and that Cheney outed a CIA agent and should be arrested for treason.

The more we find out about Bush and his people the more we all get to prevent this from happening ever again as we become educated as to the signals like signing statements, torture, warrantless wire tapping, etc.

Also, its ROTFLMAO time as Bush stands up in front of Israel one month and calls Obama an appeaser and then the very next month he plays Chamberlain and makes a deal with North Korea.

I say pull Cheney from his office and indict him for Plame. That has more play then an impeachment which would only be looked at as revenge anyway.

[kassandranobody]

IF THEY ARE UNDER INVESTAGATION FOR IMPEACHMENT WHEN THEY LEAVE OFFICE THEY CANNOT PARDON OTHERS OR THEMSELVES

THAT SEEMS A GOOD REASON

[JeanPaulSatire]

"Please...let's not rush to impeachment." --collprof

That has to be one of the (unintentionally) funniest things ever written on HuffPo! collprof actually characterized it as "rushed" even though the evidence of W's misdeeds have been in the public domain for YEARS, already.

So, collprof, how long must we wait before it *isn't* "rushed?" Until after Jeb gets his chance at making it a trifecta?

Also, a sitting VP can't be "indicted" as if the VP were just any other citizen. Rather, the VP must be impeached in the House and then tried in the Senate.

Finally, what's wrong with extracting retribution/revenge for the grievous wrongs one commits against society? Our entire penal system is based in large part on exactly that.

[HoosSane]

DIY Impeachment forms for BOTH Bush and Cheney are available at
impeachforpeace. org/ImpeachNow.html
Let's start with the top DOGS and keep going!

[MissingAmerica]

Why are we wasting the meager taxpayer dollars we have left on this, rather than go straight to impeachment? Bush's sycophants (otherwise known as sickos) will not testify and when they do, they say absolutely nothing. The White House starts claiming executive privilege. When will Congress stand up and claim citizen privilege? Our government has never been this secretive. It dawned on me that McCarthy would have had a field day with this administration! It's time to impeach!

[ThunderclapNewman]

There are not enough votes to convict in the senate.
An acquittal would energize the G*O*P and elect McGeezer.

There will be no impeachment, and there shouldn't be.

[underdog]

Correction, there will be no impeachment, but there SHOULD be.

Ignoring duty for the sake of politics is abominable.

[Sundialsvc4]

The Constitution does not say that the Congress must waste time with such things: the Constitution vests the Congress of the United States with "a terrible, swift sword" called Impeachment.

Well, it was intended to be such a sword, anyway.

Unfortunately, the Founders never anticipated "a million dollars a minute, 24/7/365, borrowed literally from nowhere, and 'damn the consequences.' "

They anticipated, perhaps, that a government-official or even one of their own Members could "turn rogue," but I don't think that they anticipated that the institutions themselves could become ... criminal gangs.

But that's what's happened here. For example, these Congressmen are manufacturing video sound bites, and people like Yoo are very well-paid actors. The real message being telegraphed here is "ineffectualness." The Congress is on-tape wringing its hands, asking intentionally- "That's Outrageous! (tm)" questions, and getting "suitable responses." The real message is hand-wringing: "there's nothing we can do." "Torture equals war-crime equals high-crime, but there's nothing we can do."

Now, go look at the ... truth. The Congressional Record, at http://thomas.loc.gov. Voting records, texts of bills, discussion-transcripts. Facts.

This is a smoke screen; all of it. Substitute the words "choose to" or "INTEND to," please, for "can."

Congress ... by definition ... "can."

[CheneysACoward]

This is one sick twisted Administration run by cowards and wanna be's.