Republican Asks Dept of Justice to Investigate Pelosoi and Others Over Torture Briefings

Call it Karma. Pelosi, Rockefeller, and other Democrats knew for YEARS about the interrogation techniques being used against captured arch-terrorists, and they did nothing. They knew in great detail. Then when the interrogation techniques were revealed to the public, those same Democrats who had been briefed in great detail for years, pretended to be shocked. They claimed they didn’t know. They even attacked the Bush Administration for having used those interrogation techniques (though they themselves had been completely silent and approving in secret for years). Then, the issue faded away after the 2006 elections in which Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. It disappeared until 2009 when-on the eve of President Obama’s 100-days report card, the “torture” memos were released to distract people from his lack of accomplishments, his historically high spending, and his foreign policy failures. Unfortunately for President Obama and the Democrats…they pissed off the CIA too much. It was a lesson the Bush Administration should have taught them. The CIA fought back by releasing and leaking more documents showing that the so-called “torture” saved thousands-perhaps tens of thousands of Americans, and-worse yet-the CIA showed in several documents that the Democrats who claimed to have been so shocked and outraged….had known all along.

Now, instead of Democrats trying to use the Bush Administration as a scapegoat and distraction again via hearings, investigations, and indictments, it’s those Democrats who are coming under the legal looking glass.

During a scantly noticed exchange in a Thursday Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) asked Attorney General Eric Holder a potentially explosive question — given the furor over Nancy Pelosi’s 2002 interrogation briefing.

Alexander wanted to know if the AG would consider investigating what House and Senate members knew about torture and when they knew it. And Holder didn’t exactly reject the idea.

ALEXANDER: Should you follow these facts and continue in an investigation if you’re investigating lawyers at the Department of Justice who wrote legal opinions authorizing certain interrogations, wouldn’t it also be appropriate to investigate the CIA employees or contractors or other people from intelligence agencies who asked or created the interrogation techniques or officials in the Bush Administration who approved them or what about members of Congress who were informed of them or know about them or approved them or encouraged them? Wouldn’t they also be appropriate parts of such an investigation?

HOLDER: Well there is, as has been publicly reported, an OPR inquiry into the work of the attorneys who prepared those OLC memoranda. It is not in final form yet and I have not reviewed that report. I will look at that report and make a determination as to what we want to do with it. It deals, I suspect, not only with the attorneys, but people that they interacted with, so I think we will gain some insights by reviewing that report. Our desire is not to do anything that would be perceived as political or partisan. We do want to report, to the extent that we can do that, but as I said, my responsibility is to enforce the laws of this nation and to the extent that we see violations of those laws, we will take the appropriate action.

ALEXANDER: If you’re going to investigate the lawyers whose opinion was asked about whether this is legal or not, I would assume you could also go to the people who created the techniques, the officials who approved them, and the officials in Congress who knew about them and may have encouraged them.

HOLDER: Hypothetically that might be true