It’s a Republican who’s pushing for war crimes prosecutions.
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice released nine memos from the Office of Legal Counsel that revealed that Bush lawyers pronounced that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the Defense Department acting on U.S. soil, and that the First Amendment could be suspended by the President in wartime. Many of these memos may have been used to justify illegal conduct by Bush administration officials. According to a New York Times report, the Justice Department is planning to release more such memos soon.[...]
[Patrick] Leahy [Democratic chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee] yesterday re-iterated his call for “a middle ground to get to the truth of what went on during the last several years, in a way that invites cooperation. . . I believe that that might best be accomplished though a nonpartisan commission of inquiry. I would like to see this done in a manner removed from partisan politics.”
Judging from the reactions of the Republicans on the committee – or, at least from Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the only two Republicans who attended –– there’s not going to be much cooperation from the other side of the aisle.
Specter, the judiciary committee’s ranking Republican, decried the “commission of inquiry” as a “fishing expedition.”
[…]
The revelations, said Specter, who’s a former federal prosecutor, are “starting to tread on what may disclose criminal conduct,” he said.
[...]
“If there’s reason to believe that these Justice Department officials have given approval for things that they know not to be lawful and sound, go after them.”
Exactly. Go after them. “Commission of inquiry” my beehive. Sadly, it's likely that the Bush justices will be the highest officials to pay any price for the administration's illegal and immoral conduct, when perhaps their biggest crime was to ignore the law at the behest of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc., who will never have justice visited upon them.
Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.) also spoke in support of a truth commission. But the fact that only three senators on the Judiciary Committee asked questions, and only five showed up – and some didn’t even stay for the entire hearing – does not suggest overwhelming support for the idea.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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