Listen to the impeachment show here ---> The Impeachment of Dick Cheney

Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL), Bob Fertik (Democrats.com), Dave Lindorff (Case for Impeachment, Counterpunch Magazine) and David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet) join us to talk about impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney.

"The original policy authorized more than 40 Justice Department officials and 400 White House officials to know about ongoing investigations"

Mukasey cuts off White House access to information on probes
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael Mukasey Wednesday reversed a controversial Bush administration policy that had allowed numerous White House officials to know about ongoing federal investigations.

Congress Challenges Bush Over CIA Tapes
Dec 19, 4:21 PM (ET) By PAMELA HESS and LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a direct challenge to President Bush, a House panel said Wednesday it has prepared subpoenas to force CIA officials to testify about the agency's secret destruction of interrogation videotapes.

The Justice Department had blocked the officials from appearing at a closed hearing before the panel this week, citing the department's ongoing investigation into the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaida suspects in 2002. The CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005.

The House Intelligence Committee's threat marked the second challenge to a White House attempt to shut down independent investigations into the matter, and escalates a fight over which branch of government properly has jurisdiction. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected an administration effort to keep the courts out of the investigation, and summoned Justice Department lawyers to court on Friday to discuss whether destroying the tapes violated a court order to preserve evidence about detainees...

House Judiciary witness: Destroyed CIA tapes are 'ultimate cover-up'
David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Thursday December 20, 2007

DOJ representative is no-show at hearing

The CIA's official explanation for destroying at least two videotapes depicting severe interrogation techniques "fails the straight-face test," an expert witness told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

In a hearing focused on the Justice Department's role in the tapes' destruction and the legality of torture tactics, George Washington University Law School professor Stephen Saltzburg heavily rebuked CIA reasoning that the decision was made in part to protect the identify of interrogators.

"The rationale for destroying the tapes to protect the identity of the interrogators is almost as embarrassing as the destruction itself," said Saltzburg, who is also general counsel for the National Institute of Military Justice. He said that the tapes could easily have been modified to obscure the faces of those involved, and that regardless, the CIA keeps a written record of which officers interrogated detainees.

"And so the explanation for destruction fails the straight-face test," he said. "The only plausible explanation, I believe, is that the CIA wanted to assure that those tapes would never be seen by any judicial tribunal -- not even a military commission -- and they would never be seen by a committee of Congress."..

Official: Justice Dept. slowed probe into phone jamming
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

The phone-jamming operation was aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from rounding up voters in the close U.S. Senate race between Republican Rep. John Sununu and Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu's 19,000-vote victory helped the GOP regain control of the Senate...

A big lump of coal for Democratic voters and anti-war activists... the House followed the Senate's lead in capitulating to Bush, again....

House Approves $70 Billion More for War
Dec 19, 5:42 PM (ET) By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress approved $70 billion Wednesday for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bitter finish for majority Democrats who tried to force a change in President Bush's war policy.

The House's 272-142 vote also sent the president a $555 billion catchall spending bill that combines the war money with money for 14 Cabinet departments.

Bush and his Senate GOP allies forced the Iraq money upon anti-war Democrats as the price for permitting the year-end budget deal to pass and be signed. But other Democrats were eager to avoid being seen as not supporting troops who are in harm's way - and avoid weeks of bashing by Bush for failing to provide that money.

"This is a blank check," complained Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "The new money in this bill represents one cave-in too many. It is an endorsement of George Bush's policy of endless war."...

Bush May Be Forced to Explain Destroyed CIA Torture Tapes
By John Dean, FindLaw.com Posted on December 18, 2007

By my count, there appear to be no less than ten preliminary investigations underway, following the revelation that the CIA destroyed at least two sets of videotapes (containing hundreds of hours of footage) of "advanced interrogation" techniques being employed in terrorism investigations. In fact, every branch of government is now involved.

Within the Executive Branch, according to news reports, the CIA's General Counsel and Inspector General are investigating. The Department of Justice is investigating. On Capitol Hill, both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are investigating. In addition, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is inquiring as to whether the Federal Records Act has been violated. And Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, has made preliminary inquiries as well.

The Bush Administration has shown that it is not very good at investigating itself, so no one should hold their breath for the outcome of either the CIA or Justice Department investigation. And Attorney General Mukasey has dismissed an independent special counsel inquiry as very premature. The Democratic-controlled Congress could get to the bottom of all this, but one should bear in mind that our elected representatives have yet to get to the bottom of the political firing of U.S. Attorneys (although, to be fair, they did get former Attorney General Gonzales to resign). Today, Congress suffers from a degenerative spinal malady, and while they can bark, they appear unable to bite...

Justice's voting chief steps down amid controversy
By Greg Gordon Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department's voting rights chief stepped down Friday amid allegations that he'd used the position to aid a Republican strategy to suppress African-American votes.

John Tanner became the latest of about a dozen senior department officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who've resigned in recent months in a scandal over the politicization of the Justice Department in the Bush administration.

In recent months, McClatchy has reported on a pattern of decision-making within the department's Civil Rights Division, of which the Voting Rights Section is a part, that tended to narrow the voting rights of Democratic-leaning minorities.

Tanner has been enmeshed for months in congressional investigations over his stewardship of the unit that was established to protect minority-voting rights. He drew increased focus this fall after he told a Latino group: "African-Americans don't become elderly the way white people do. They die."...

Kucinich Says He's Preparing 50-Page Bush Articles of Impeachment
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2007-12-11 10:32. Impeachment

Kucinich addresses many issues at Reno rally
James Ball (JBALL@RGJ.COM), RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

Touching on issues ranging from Yucca Mountain to the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq, presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich spoke to a crowd of several hundred people in Reno Saturday.

Despite a steady snowfall outside, a standing-room-only crowd packed into two meeting rooms at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center to hear what the Ohio Congressman and Democrat had to say about issues he's most closely associated with: the environment and opposition to the war and the Bush administration in general. Those expecting Kucinich to deliver harsh words about the president weren't disappointed, as the half-hour campaign speech soon turned to talk of impeachment.

"On the way over here, I was reading a 50-page document that relates to Articles of Impeachment for the President of the United States," Kucinich said to a standing ovation. "And I want you to know that I'm actually preparing this document for submission to the House."...

Disentangling Torture TapeGate
By Larry Johnson on December 10, 2007 at 10:16 PM in Current Affairs

After querying former intelligence officers and reviewing the letter from the U.S. Attorney’s in Richmond, Virginia, I can clarify some issues surrounding what’s what with respect to the question of the “destruction” of interrogation tapes and speculate on others.

The bottom line is: Jose Rodriguez, the recently retired Deputy Director of Operations, has been fingered as acting unilaterally, but that is not true. He did check with both the IG and the DO’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes. Although Jose is a lawyer, he made the mistake of trusting fellow lawyers, and now is likely to get chopped up in the political meat grinder while trying to clear his name and reputation. (UPDATE: See today’s NY Times piece by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti confirming Jose got a legal opinion before destroying the tapes.)

Why destroy the tapes? It appears that the June 2005 decision of the Italian judge to issue arrest warrants for C.I.A. officers and contractors involved in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in 2003 may have been the precipitating incident convincing Jose Rodriguez that Agency must destroy video tapes of terrorist interrogations. That operation was conducted with the full knowledge and approval of the Italians. If the Italians could flip on us that meant anyone could.

Let’s follow the timeline:...

CIA has recruited Iranians to defect - The secret campaign was launched two years ago to undermine Tehran's nuclear program. It has persuaded a 'handful' of key officials to leave.
By Greg Miller, December 9, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The CIA launched a secret program in 2005 designed to degrade Iran's nuclear weapons program by persuading key officials to defect, an effort that has prompted a "handful" of significant departures, current and former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation say.

The previously undisclosed program, which CIA officials dubbed "the Brain Drain," is part of a major intelligence push against Iran ordered by the White House two years ago.

Intelligence gathered as part of that campaign provided much of the basis for a U.S. report released last week that concluded the Islamic Republic had halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003. Officials declined to say how much of that intelligence could be attributed to the CIA program to recruit defectors...

Another Bush torture victim speaks out...

Man Held by C.I.A. Says He Was Tortured
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — The first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

Lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident, released documents in his case on Friday. They claim he “was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture” to numerous detainees...

Here's comes the hit on the designated fall-guy - former CIA Director of Operations Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, now in business with the brother of Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence....

C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes
December 8, 2007 By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision “made within C.I.A. itself” to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed.

Curious timing on the release of this info, not really "new" news but timely nonetheless... the Gang of Four was really a Gang of Six as it turns out. What about the other four in the Gang of Eight that weren't included? And Granny Nancy knew about torture all these years?

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002 - In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen December 9, 2007; A01

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk...