Questions for the Attorney General
Eric Holder's apparent movement toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate Bush-era interrogation techniques has raised quite a stir. NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff has some questions for the A.G.
Attorney General Eric Holder, you've made quite a splash this week with the news that you’re “leaning” toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate brutal interrogations that took place during the Bush administration. But this disclosure has raised as many questions as it answers. Here are a few I would suggest you address in the next few weeks when, we are told, you are expected to make your announcement.
1. You have told one associate that some of what you read in internal government reports about interrogation abuses "turned my stomach." What was it you've read that caused such a reaction? And why have Justice Department lawyers recently filed motions (on behalf of the CIA) declining to release, or delaying the release, of these same reports? Doesn't the public deserve to know the full story about such abuses sooner rather than later?
2. You reportedly spent two days late last month closely studying one of those documents—the CIA inspector-general report completed in May 2004—and its findings "shocked and saddened" you. But this report has been in the possession of the Justice Department for more than five years. Why do you think your predecessors didn't have the same reaction to that report as you did? And given the fact that you were sworn in Feb. 3, and your obvious interest in this subject, why did it take you four and a half months to read the report?
3. Your aides have said this is only about investigating operatives and contractors who went beyond the "four corners" of Justice Department legal memos on interrogations. In addition, they have told us your planned probe will not investigate senior Bush administration officials—at the Justice Department, the CIA, and the White House—who gave the green light to the "enhanced" interrogation techniques that were authorized in the memos. If that is the case, don't you risk a repeat of Abu Ghraib, in which only low-level soldiers were court-martialed and their superiors walked free, with no penalties at all?
4. In a speech in Washington last March, you said the following: "Waterboarding is torture. My Justice Department will not justify it, will not rationalize it, and will not condone it." Do you still stand by that statement? And if so, please explain how you square those words with your decision to exclude the individuals who designed, approved, and ordered waterboarding from the scope of your investigation?
5. As you may know, the CIA inspector general referred the most egregious cases of detainee abuse to the Justice Department years ago. These cases were investigated by a task force, consisting of career prosecutors, in the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Va. But in all but one case, the task force concluded that there were not criminal prosecutions to be made because of a lack of witnesses, forensic evidence, and other problems. Have you consulted with any of the prosecutors who worked on these cases to determine why they reached those conclusions? And why do you think a new investigation years later will reach a different conclusion?
6. If whoever you choose as the prosecutor ends up declining to bring indictments, won't the net result be a Justice Department investigation that will forever be concealed from the public because of grand-jury secrecy? Or will you direct your prosecutor to prepare a public report—in much the same way independent counsels were previously required to do so by law—so the American people once and for all can know the truth about this subject?
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
Michael Isikoff has been an award-winning investigative correspondent for Newsweek since 2004. He has written extensively on the U.S. government's war on terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, presidential politics and other national issues. His book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," co-written with David Corn, was an instant New York Times best-seller when it was published in September, 2006. The book was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "fascinating reading" and "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" in the run up to the war in Iraq. Since January 2009, Isikoff has been an MSNBC contributor, making regular appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball w/ Chris Matthews.
Ever since the events of September 11, Isikoff has broken repeated stories about the U.S. government's war on terror and won numerous journalism awards. His blog "DeClassified: Investigative Reporting in Real Time," which appears regularly on Newsweek's Web site and is written with MarkHosenball, has become a must-read for senior U.S. intelligence officials. Isikoff and Hosenball won the 2005 award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best investigative reporting online.
Isikoff's June 2002 Newsweek cover story on U.S. intelligence failures that preceded the 9-11 terror attacks, along with a series of related articles, was honored with the Investigative Reporters and Editors top prize for investigative reporting in magazine journalism. He was honored, along with a team of Newsweek reporters, by the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal. For that coverage, Isikoff obtained exclusive internal White House, Justice Department and State Department memos showing how decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration led to abuses in the interrogation of terror suspects. Isikoff was also part of a reporting team that earned Newsweek the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002, the highest award in magazine journalism, for their coverage of the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
Isikoff's exclusive reporting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal gained him national attention in 1998, including profiles in The New York Times and The Washington Post and a guest appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." His coverage of the events that lead to President Bill Clinton's impeachment earned Newsweek the prestigious National Magazine Award in the Reporting category in 1999. Isikoff's reporting also won the National Headliner Award, the Edgar A. Poe Award presented by the White House Correspondents Association and the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. In 2001, Isikoff was named on a list of "most influential journalists" in the nation's capital by Washingtonian magazine.
Isikoff is the author of "Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story," a book that chronicled his own reporting of the Lewinsky story and was hailed by a critic for The Washington Post-Los Angeles Times news service as "the absolutely essential narrative of the scandal with revelations that no one would have thought possible." The book, also a New York Times bestseller, was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Book of the Month Club.
Isikoff came to Newsweek from The Washington Post, where he had been a reporter since September 1981. There he covered the Justice Department and the Persian Gulf War, reported on international drug operations in Latin America and worked on the Post's financial news desk. Isikoff graduated from Washington University with a B.A. in 1974 and received a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1976.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Comments