The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable – A Must-Read

David Cole’s new book is two things: First, a collection of six of the previously-published “torture memos” written between 2002 and 2006 by lawyers at the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel. Yes, the ones that used law to justify the “enhanced interrogation techniques” now so well known. And, second, Cole’s commentary on this distortion of the law and its implications for our society

Spanish Judge Resumes Torture Case Against Top Bush Administration Lawyers

The Spanish newspaper Público reported exclusively on Saturday that Judge Baltasar Garzón is pressing ahead with a case against six senior Bush administration lawyers for implementing torture at Guantánamo.

The Fifty Top U.S. War Criminals Who Need To Be Prosecuted

In hopes that it may be of some assistance to Eric Holder, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, active citizens, foreign courts, the International Criminal Court, law firms preparing civil suits, and local or state prosecutors with decency and nerve is a list of 50 top living U.S. war criminals. These are men and women who helped to launch wars of aggression or who have been complicit in lesser war crimes. These are not the lowest-ranking employees or troops who managed to stray from official criminal policies. These are the makers of those policies.

Conyers May Call Rove, Miers to Testify Publicly About Attorney Firings

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers may call Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify publicly before Congress sometime in the fall about their role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and what President George W. Bush knew about the plan and when he knew it.

Rove ‘Driving Force’ Behind U.S. Attorney Firings

Political adviser Karl Rove and other officials inside George W. Bush’s White House pushed for the firing of a key federal prosecutor because he wasn’t cooperating with Republican plans for indicting Democrats and their allies before the 2006 election, according to internal documents and depositions.

The evidence, which House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers released Tuesday [...]

New Docs Implicate Rove, Miers in Attorney Firings; Criminal Charges Possible

Please see our in-depth report on Rove’s role in the firing of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias here.
Editor’s note: The House Judiciary Committee has just released more than 5,000 pages of new documents that the panel said implicates former White House poltical adviser Karl Rove in the firings of several U.S. attorneys dismissed for [...]

Iglesias: ‘Long Suspected Rove’s Fingerprints Were All Over’ US Attorney Firings

In an interview Thursday, Iglesias said he was “not surprised” Bush “got involved in the decisions to dismiss the prosecutors.
“For something that became this politicized it had to get his input his approval,” Iglesias said. “I suspect when all the evidence comes out he wasn’t just in the loop he approved it.”
Iglesias said he has [...]

Petition Opposing Hiring of Alberto Gonzales Gaining Signatures

Seventy professors at Texas Tech University have signed a petition protesting the hiring of Alberto Gonzales and accused the college’s chancellor of nepotism in bringing the disgraced former attorney general to campus to teach a political science class.
According a copy of the petition obtained by the Texas Tech’s student newspaper, The Daily Toreador, the nine-page [...]

Cheney Pressured Bush to Authorize Use of Military On U.S. Soil

Former Vice President Dick Cheney Cheney pressured George W. Bush and other top administration officials to deploy U.S. soldiers to a Buffalo NY suburb to arrest suspected terrorists, according to a report.
Using American soldiers for domestic law enforcement purposes would have been unprecedented. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the armed forces from [...]

Gonzales Memo Advised Bush How to Avoid War Crimes Charges

On Jan. 25, 2002, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised George W. Bush in a memo to deny al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners protections under the Geneva Conventions because doing so would “substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act” and “provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.”
Two weeks later, [...]