Senator Leahy is WRONG. 100% Wrong. His arguments make no sense. They are illogical and unexplainable. It's hard not to think he's mentally unstable when you hear some of the things he says.
He claims he wants to uncover the truth about what the Bush administration did, whether it's spying on Americans illegally, breaking international treaties, torturing, or intentionally lying to Congress. Sounds good. So far, we're on board, Pat...!
Now here is where he loses all rational reasoning: If/when any crimes are uncovered, he wants to let the perpetrators go free - just hand them a "get out of jail free card" without them even asking for it, and without getting anything in return. And somehow this will prevent future acts from being committed.
Is Leahy losing his marbles?
Leahy has said that granting immunity to people who have committed serious crimes will prevent people from committing similar crimes in the future. Leahy has said that somehow just getting people to admit what they did will prevent others from doing it. This just makes no sense. Zero. In fact the opposite is true. If you reveal what people did, and let them go, it's a GREEN LIGHT for people in the future to do it again. In fact they'll push the envelope even a little more next time, after learning how easy it is to get away with it. DUH!?
Leahy seems to think that the criminal justice system is not the proper forum for investigating and prosecuting crimes, and Congress should do it instead. This one comes as a real shocker because Leahy himself is a former prosecuting attorney. He's made all kinds of statements like "no one is above the law." Well, the way the system is supposed to work, is that when someone breaks the law they're supposed to be prosecuted in a court. I think I learned that back in 4th grade. If he could just remember back to his days as an attorney (maybe his memory is starting to slip?) he would know that we have a criminal justice system, and the very purpose of this organization is to investigate crimes and deal with perpetrators according to prescribed procedures. There are laws. There are sentencing guidelines. There are people called judges, juries, and lawyers who have built their entire careers around this type of stuff. Congress, on the other hand, has the primary purpose of passing laws. They're only supposed to step in with something like this as a "balance of power" thing, when one of the other branches of government isn't doing its job. NOT to step in BEFORE someone has a chance to do their job, which is what Leahy seems to want to do now that Holder is considering doing his job.
Many people have said we shouldn't "bog down the congress" with an investigation when there are many problems that they need to be working on. This is true. Well having Congress handle this instead of a special prosecutor, would ENSURE that it would turn into a partisan pony show. Anyone who thinks the Republicans are going to go along with it and do anything but complain that it's a witch hunt has not been watching american politics for the last 20 years. It WILL bog down congress, it will create more partisanship, and it will accomplish almost nothing.
In a nutshell, rather than letting the Justice Department do its job, my Senator, a former prosecutor, wants to immunize serious criminals and bog down congress in a partisan "truth commission" that will accomplish nothing but show future criminals there is no price to pay for these types of crimes. All while he's saying conflicting/opposite things like "no one is above the law" and "we want to send a serious message to people in the future who might consider doing these types of things" (paraphrased).
Has he completely lost his mind? With all due respect to my Senator, these irrational illogical statements warrant a serious mental evaluation.