John Manifold yesterday predicted that Scott Shane and the NY Times would follow up on their breaking story linking Dick Cheney to a CIA coverup with Congress. He was right.
Eventual investigations almost seem inevitable now. In addition to the flood of information that was ‘dumped’ with the Friday release of the Inspector Generals’ reports, more damaging revelations loom on the horizon:
By summer’s end, the Justice Department’s ethics office is expected to release a report on the former department officials who wrote legal opinions justifying brutal interrogations. The C.I.A. has said that at the end of August it will release part of the 2004 agency inspector general’s report on interrogation that questioned the legality and effectiveness of the program.
And an 18-month-old criminal investigation of the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of waterboarding and other brutal treatment during interrogation is still under way, with a number of former C.I.A. officials called to testify before a grand jury and at least the possibility of indictments.
The special prosecutor in charge of that investigation, John H. Durham, has been mentioned as a possible choice for Mr. Holder if he decides to name someone to lead a torture investigation.
The Beast Who Slumbers understands why approving Federal investigations would be an agonizing decision for the Obama Administration to make. Administrations generally achieve a lot of their signature accomplishments at the beginning of their terms. To add what would invariably be something that the Rethugs would seize on as a ‘partisan witch-hunt’ (as opposed to their ‘by-the-book fair and impartial investigation into Clinton lying about oral sex) to the equation could derail or delay those grand objectives.
Dubya is fond of saying that “History will be final the judge” of his administration.
Fair enough. However, if the Obama Administration fails to investigate the shredding of the Constitution, the use of torture in violation of Federal and international law, and coverups that made a mockery of the Separation of Powers, not only will history judge the Obama Administration harshly. History may ultimately define that failure as the specific point where America’s constitutional form of government began its final descent. And that, ultimately, would be the Obama Administration’s signature accomplishment.