AG Considers Torture Investigation

Posted on Jul 12, 2009

U.S. Dept. of Justice

Attorney General Eric Holder will decide in the next few weeks whether to appoint a prosecutor with “gravitas and grit” to investigate the Bush administration’s torture policy. Holder is aware that President Obama feels such a move would derail his agenda, but he told Newsweek “that can’t be a part of my decision.”

AP via Google:

Newsweek magazine, which first reported the development, said Holder was aware of the political implications of having a probe and preferred not to create unnecessary trouble for the White House. Still, the attorney general was troubled by what he learned in reports about the treatment of prisoners at the CIA’s “black sites.”

The probe would focus in part on whether CIA personnel tortured terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, 2001. Holder has said those who acted within the government’s legal guidance will not be prosecuted, but has left open the possibility of pursuing those who went beyond the guidance and broke the law.

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