The Obama administration hasn’t shown much interest in prosecuting those members of the Bush administration that committed war crimes. Even so, Republicans in the Senate are delaying Eric Holder’s nomination for Attorney General until they get absolute assurance of that. Spencer Ackerman found that Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri) is claiming that Holder privately assured him that there will be no prosecutions. Happily, Holder’s aide is denying that claim. I’m not really too concerned with which one is lying, a private verbal promise publicly denied can easily be broken.
Elena Schor over at TPM notes Holder’s written response to Sen Kyl (R-Arizona)
Prosecutorial and investigative judgments must depend on the facts, and no one is above the law. But where it is clear that a government agent has acted in "reasonable and good-faith reliance on Justice Department legal opinions" authoritatively permitting his conduct, I would find it difficult to justify commencing a full-blown criminal investigation, let alone a prosecution.
I think investigations, not necessarily criminal ones, are key for the agents. That said, prosecutions should focus on the higher ranking officials absent behavior so egregious it violates the legal standard Holder mentions. Practically speaking, I think we should probably be willing to trade amnesty for accurate testimony. I don’t think many of the key perpetrators would take that deal, which would leave them open to later prosecutions when political will was there. I expect most of the heavy lifting will be done at the behest of Speaker Pelosi. She’s our best hope at this point for American-based justice.
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