Mukasey gives Bush "Get Out of Jail Free" card: Special Prosecutor Limited. Torture off limits!!

[L. Coyote]

Does anyone smell a cover up at work?

Mukasey has acted in a manner that protects Bush (and Cheney) from the new special prosecutor by narrowing the focus of that inquiry.
Apparently, the torture itself is not to be investigated, just the destruction of the evidence of torture!

So, Where is justice now?? Still inside the political domain, it appears.
Does it matter who is investigating this matter if the investigator is too limited?

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Tale of the Tapes
By Chris Wilson - Jan. 3, 2008 - http://www.slate.com/id/2181317/


Tale of the tapes: Attorney General Michael Mukasey has announced a criminal investigation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010202082.html) into the destruction of CIA tapes that depicted harsh and controversial interrogation techniques used on two al-Qaida suspects. Congress has already announced its own inquiries.

At Captain's Quarters, conservative Ed Morrissey argues (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016517.php) that the fact that the CIA failed to provide any information about the tapes to the 9/11 commission, even by way of denying the commission's request for information, amounts to obstruction of justice: "Quite frankly, this is so fundamental to the rule of law that it shouldn't even be open for debate. Federal agencies of all kinds have to comply with Congress, the executive, and the judiciary; the destruction of these tapes (and the previous lies about their existence) defied all three." The post also draws on an e-mail that 9/11 commission executive director Philip Zelikow sent to Power Line (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/01/019438.php), in which Zelikow states that "it is important to understand that, under the applicable federal law, this is not a parlor game of "twenty questions."

At Talking Points Memo, Paul Kiel (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005013.php) is confident in John Durham, the federal prosecutor that Mukasey has appointed to oversee the investigation, but David Kurtz (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062515.php) is less optimistic about what the investigation will turn up: "he investigation may be circumscribed from the beginning, not because Durham himself is somehow compromised personally, but because his brief is limited to investigating the destruction of the CIA torture tapes—not what's actually contained on the tapes themselves, which reportedly depict the use of the most extreme 'enhanced interrogation techniques' ordered by the White House."

..................

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The Second Coming
By Paul Kiel - Jan 3, 2008 - http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005013.php

The papers take a look at John Durham, the prosecutor Attorney General Michael Mukasey tapped to investigate whether anyone broke any laws by keeping secret and then destroying the CIA's torture tapes, and find that even if he doesn't have the same independence as Patrick Fitzgerald, he's made from the same stuff.

From......

[grasswire]

1. I find it hard to believe that he's made from the same stuff...

....as he was appointed to the rocket docket of the Eastern District of Virginia, where Bush has sent every case that needed FIXING and where the previous USA was the ultimate FIXER, Paul McNulty.

[stillcool]

2. where is the legal community?..

why no input from state district attorneys? Or has their job already been out-sourced? I wrote a LTTE regarding this...time to write another.

[Supersedeas]

3. if only the Mainstream Media establishment had as much courage

[Richard Steele]

4. I should have known not to get excited. Mukasey is just another B*sh-enabling tool.

There is no justice to be found there.

[C_U_L8R]

5. there is no Special Prosecutor

they pulled in their own guy from out of state
and gave him the cute but meaningless title of
outside prosecutor. It's all quite bullshit.

[L. Coyote]

11. My suspicion is the same. SNOW job coming right up.

[Rageneau]

6. Schumer and Feinstein say the investigation will be fair and complete.

Otherwise, they would never have supported Mukasey. Right?

[BrklynLiberal]

9. Bwaahaahaa. What better confirmation could one want......???!!!

:crazy:

[MrCoffee]

7. spoliation of evidence a separate crime from whatever the tapes may be evidence of

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Bush would never have named someone as AG that he was not sure would help him cover his ass when

push came to shove...

[L. Coyote]

10. Indeed. An Mukasey's role in the whole legal chain is in question too! He was involved

in rulings that may be overturned if there was evidence gained by illegal torturing. There is a real problem with putting Mukasey into this position given his past rulings and this particular Bush crime. It is all very fishy.