Gonzales Sacked Levin, Lied to Senate Over Torture Policies
ABC News Thursday provided a new twist on Alberto Gonzales' role in the converging Bush administration torture and prosecutor purge scandals. According to ABC, the new Attorney General Gonzales in early 2005 sacked top administration lawyer Daniel Levin over his December 2004 memo declaring "torture is abhorrent," only to promise him a U.S. attorney slot to placate him. But lost in ABC's account is the fact just before he carried out his retribution against Levin, Alberto Gonzales lied to the Senate about President Bush's torture policies during his January 2005 confirmation hearings.
As ABC reported, the former White House Counsel and new Attorney General sought to punish - and then silence - Levin, who was then acting head of the DOJ's office of special counsel:
Gonzales, who was just taking over as attorney general, asked Justice Department lawyer Daniel Levin to leave in early 2005, shortly after Levin wrote a legal opinion that declared "torture is abhorrent" and limited the administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.
At the time, Levin was in the middle of drafting a second, critical memo that analyzed the legality of specific interrogation techniques, like waterboarding.
Gonzales, however, was concerned about how it would be perceived if Levin were ousted immediately after issuing the opinion - and just before he finished another - so he offered Levin a less significant job outside the Department of Justice at the National Security Council, sources tell ABC News.
Gonzales then assured Levin he would, at some point, recommend him for a plum job as the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, sources tell ABC.
As it turns out, Levin never got the U.S. attorney post, instead opting for private practice because "he never believed Gonzales was serious."
The rest, as they say, is history. Gonzales and Karl Rove started their discussions about replacing U.S. attorneys, which led to the prosecutors purge the following year. Levin was replaced in the acting role by Bush sycophant and torture apologist Steven Bradbury, whose confirmation has been blocked by the Senate. And as the New York Times reported last October, it was none other than Bradbury who penned two secret 2005 memos authorizing the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. Finally in December 2005, the President issued a signing statement to the Detainee Treatment Act, ensuing that "the decider" would retain the right to determine what constituted "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees."
(For the latest on the unfolding blight on the United States that is President Bush's detainee policy, see this week's devastating coverage from McClatchy.)
The United States Senate, however, never got an inkling of this during Alberto Gonzales' during January 2005 confirmation hearings. In claiming that an August 2002 memo had been "rejected by the executive branch," Gonzales almost certainly perjured himself.
As the Times details, beginning in August 2002, the infamous Bybee memo drafted by torture apologist John Yoo was the basis for the Bush administration's interrogation techniques for terror detainees worldwide. Defining torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," the White House endorsed brutal techniques up to and including waterboarding. But while Daniel Levin opened his December 30, 2004 memo by proclaiming simply that, " Torture is abhorrent to both American law and values and to international norms," the new Attorney General in February 2005 and again later that same year issued those secret memos which "provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures."
But that uninterrupted policy of detainee torture is not what Alberto Gonzales described to Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) during his confirmation hearing in January 2005. The August 2002 memo, Gonzales claimed had been withdrawn, and questions about the extent of presidential war powers eclipsing laws and treaties of the United States were merely "hypothetical."
FEINGOLD: The question here is: What is your view regarding the president's constitutional authority to authorize violations of the criminal law, duly enacted statutes that may have been on the books for many years, when acting as commander in chief? Does he have such authority?
The question you have been asked is not about a hypothetical statute in the future that the president might think is unconstitutional; it's about our laws and international treaty obligations concerning torture.
The torture memo answered that question in the affirmative. And my colleagues and I would like your answer on that today...
GONZALES: Senator, the August 30th memo has been withdrawn. It has been rejected, including that section regarding the commander in chief authority to ignore the criminal statutes.
So it's been rejected by the executive branch. I categorically reject it.
And in addition to that, as I've said repeatedly today, this administration does not engage in torture and will not condone torture.
And so what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation that...
As for Alberto Gonzales, the disgraced former AG finally found a job this month as a special master in a patent case. But as Bush's "Fredo" disappears into professional obscurity, his criminality will remain an unforgettable - and inexcusable - part of the Bush legacy.
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Gonzales lied? Tell me something I don't know.
Posted by Fierce on June 20, 2008 5:13 PMHe couldn't have just said that he couldn't recall? It worked all those other times.
So, when is Congress going to issue an arrest warrant for multiple counts of perjury?
Posted by SadButTrue on June 21, 2008 5:47 AM