Reply #13: Leahy: lawyers had “reversed themselves & reinstated a secret regime, in essence reinterpreting th [View All]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/14cnd-interrogate.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

........Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it appeared that the Justice Department lawyers had “reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime, in essence reinterpreting the law in secret.” He said his committee had been seeking information about the Justice Department’s legal interpretations of the law for two years without success and urged the administration to cooperate.

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, requested that the Justice Department’s opinions be turned over to the House panel as well and asked the department to make available for a hearing Steven G. Bradbury, of the department’s office of legal counsel, who signed the 2005 opinions.

Mr. Leahy also said his committee would hold confirmation hearings on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be attorney general on Oct. 17.

Officials at the White House and the Justice Department said the 2005 legal memorandum did not change the administration’s statement in 2004 that publicly renounced torture as “abhorrent.”