Tomorrow the American Freedom Campaign, founded by Naomi Wolf, will hold an initial teleconference at 11:00 am EST as part of the "American Lawyers Defending the Constitution Campaign." An MP3 recording of the press conference will be available at http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.o...
We will discuss our frustration with congressional leaders who have turned their backs on Bush Administration malfeasance, and specifically how the Bush Administration's obstruction of justice is part of a pattern: over 5 million missing White House e-mails, the missing hit lists from the U.S. Attorney Massacre, the erased CIA videotapes. . . Remember the good old days when the Justice Department was prosecuting Enron and Arthur Anderson for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice? These days the Justice Department is too busy trying to shut down the House Intelligence Committee's plans to investigate the destruction of the CIA tapes documenting torture. Way to circumvent the little meaningful congressional oversight that exists! Would somebody please appoint a special prosecutor already?
On December 6, the New York Times revealed that in 2005 the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes of interrogations involving severe interrogation techniques that took place in 2002. This was the same time period in which a judge had ordered all Justice Department correspondence related to the interrogation of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, some of which I had written as a Justice Department legal ethics advisor. The Court's order was deliberately concealed from me. When I inadvertently found out about it and tried to comply, my e-mails had "disappeared."
The CIA videotapes documented agency operatives subjecting terrorist suspects to severe interrogation techniques. My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Abu Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding. John Walker Lindh was stripped, bound to a board, blindfolded and stuffed into a frigid steel shipping container. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed in part because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods.
On July 12, 2002, the Defense Department was apoplectic that its new policy on the torture of captives in the war on terrorism was going to be exposed. Lindh's suppression hearing was just days away, which was going to expose who did what to him and how. The Defense Department made it clear to the Justice Department that it wanted the suppression hearing blocked. Michael Chertoff, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (and now the head of the Department of Homeland Security) who was overseeing all the Justice Department's terrorism prosecutions, had the prosecution team offer a deal: the serious charges against Lindh would be dropped and he would plead guilty to just two technical charges AND . . .he would have to sign a statement swearing that he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his captors, and waive any future claim of torture.
The CIA and government withholding from the courts information about torturing terrorism suspects is not new and everyone's feigned surprise and outrage adds insult to injury. Not just injury to Zacarias Moussaoui or John Walker Lindh, but injury to the transparency that underpins Democracy.
P.S. The Justice Department also tried to shut down U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. from inquiring into the tapes. Kennedy refused. Coincidentally or not, Kennedy was the judge who presided over my lawsuit against the Justice Department for its conduct in the Lindh case.
UPDATE: To see the campaign's sign-on statement, along with the list of 80 prominent lawyers who were the original signatories, click here. The statement has already been signed by more than 1300 lawyers and law students. If you are a lawyer or law student, I encourage you to sign, too