Legal Commentary

Does President Obama Have The Right To Stop Torture Prosecutions?

By Big Tent Democrat

Many are outraged at the very thought that Rep. Jane Harman may have interceded with the Justice Department regarding the AIPAC prosecutions (Harman has denied the allegation and no one has stated that she did. To the contrary, the NYTimes reports that "David Szady, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s former top counterintelligence official who ran the investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman, said in an interview Monday that he was confident Ms. Harman had never intervened."), but when it comes to the intercession of President Obama regarding torture prosecutions, many of these same people are quiet as church mice. Why is it okay for, as Glenn Greenwald states it, to interfere with "the very important (and overlooked) duty of the responsibilities of the Attorney General to make decisions about prosecutions free and independent of the political desires of the President" but no okay for a congressperson to ask for clemency?

More . . .

Let's face it - some people simply will not criticize Obama. Me, I am not upset with the President interceding in the POLICY decisions of the Justice Department, be it by ordering that they waive the state secret privilege in the illegal wiretapping cases or foregoing torture prosecutions. I may disagree or agree with the decisions, but I do not see the act as extralegal. I think Greenwald is wrong on this point and indeed, somewhat hypocritical inconsistent (Glenn and I had an extensive e-mail exchange on the subject, and I think the better word to describe my view on this is "inconsistent." Glenn takes the view that policy on prosecutions should be done independently by the Attorney General. I disagree.) Glenn is quite critical of Obama when it comes to the Justice Department's decisions on the state secret privilege. But then there is a lot of hypocrisy going around these days.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 21, 2009 (boomark / email).