Prosecuting CIA will be tough

NY Times:

The federal prosecutor who will conduct the inquiry into the brutal interrogations of terror detainees faces formidable legal hurdles and complex political dynamics that make prosecutions far from certain.

“I think it would be very difficult to mount a successful prosecution in any of these cases,” said John L. Helgerson, a former C.I.A. inspector general who first investigated abuses in agency jails and whose findings were made public on Monday. “Personally, I would not prosecute.”

Mr. Helgerson, along with legal experts and former federal prosecutors, cited gaps in evidence, lack of criminal intent and passage of time since the episodes occurred as some of the problems confronting John H. Durham, the newly appointed Justice Department prosecutor.

Justice Department officials privately acknowledge that Mr. Durham’s task is difficult. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said he believes he had no choice but to open the inquiry given the seriousness of abuse allegations — including deaths and cruel treatment.

...
Sure he had a choice and so did Obama. That is why they call it prosecutorial discretion and that is why the President is given the power to pardon. What these two have done is decide to free many terrorist and prosecute those who were trying to protect us. Voters should not be too forgiving of those choices. That is something that Democrats are going to have to live with in coming elections. There may be some kooks in the Democrat base who believe this is the right thing to do, but most voters will disagree.

Comments

  1. LonestarWhacko7:59 AM

    Merv, at what point does political opportunism become treason? If a Government Official has no reason to fear legal sanction for such treasonous actions, what can private citizens do to stop such betrayal of national interests? What is a legitimate penalty? What penalty would stop others from betraying us? What is the historic solution?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more