Breaking!!!

MSNBC just reported that Attorney General Eric Holder will in fact appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture and prisoner abuse from our war on terror.

As the saying goes, stay tuned!

Update: From the Washington Post

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move.

Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

Durham's mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.

The attorney general selected Durham in part because the longtime prosecutor is familiar with the CIA and its past interrogation regime. For nearly two years, Durham has been probing whether laws against obstruction or false statements were violated in connection with the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes including waterboarding of some of the agency's high value detainees. That inquiry is proceeding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although lawyers following the investigation have cast doubt on whether it will result in any criminal charges.

Another Trial Balloon?

If Eric Holder is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture allegations I wish he would do it already and get it out of the way, rather than constantly having these trial balloons leaked to the media.

From The LA Times:

Reporting from Washington -- U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.

A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized" in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.

Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.

Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.

Other potentially criminal abuses have already come to light, including the waterboarding of prisoners in excess of Justice Department guidelines, and the deaths of detainees in CIA custody in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003.


Opening a criminal investigation is something Holder "has come reluctantly to consider," the Justice Department official said, emphasizing that Holder had not reached a final decision but noting that, "as attorney general, he has the obligation to follow the law."

Others familiar with Holder's thinking say that such an investigation seems all but certain, and that a prosecutor will probably be selected from a short list that Holder asked subordinates to assemble.

There is a lot to pick through here. Obviously it will be chickenshit if they just go after the CIA agents who carried out the torture and not the people who ordered it. But more disturbing to me is this sense of cowardice that I get from reading all of these trial balloons. I don't for the media to keep portraying Attorney General Holder as some kind of tortured soul or something. He is SUPPOSED to make tough decisions and he shouldn't be factoring in potential political cost. That is not why people supported him to be Attorney General and its not what his job is supposed to be all about. I keep hearing all this talk about "rule of law" from this administration and about how no man is above it. Well its time for them to put their money where their mouth is and investigate the whole thing from top to bottom.

Ill try to take it apart a little more later today or just link to Glenzilla or Marcy Wheeler should they offer their insights and opinions on it.