NYT: "Republicans are now mounting an aggressive pushback" (against investigating torture) [View All]

Chart Shows Top Democrats Briefed on Interrogations

By SCOTT SHANE and CARL HULSE
Published: May 8, 2009

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Since April 16, when Mr. Obama released Bush administration legal memorandums describing brutal interrogation techniques, some Democrats have renewed their calls for investigation and possible prosecution of former officials who authorized the methods, which included slamming prisoners into walls, keeping them in cold cells and shackling them in a standing position.

Mr. Obama has said C.I.A. interrogators who were told the methods were legal should not face investigation or prosecution. But he said the Justice Department would have to decide the fate of the former department lawyers who declared the methods legal. A report on those lawyers by the Justice Department’s ethics office is expected to recommend against prosecution but call for possible professional disciplinary action by state bar associations.

Republicans are now mounting an aggressive pushback on several fronts: highlighting evidence that at least some Democrats in Congress failed to speak out against the harsh methods; accusing the Obama administration of endangering Americans by emptying Guantánamo; and suggesting that the counterterrorism policies of President Bill Clinton violated human rights.

At a hearing on Thursday, Republican senators pressed Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. about the practice in the Clinton administration of rendition, in which terrorism suspects captured abroad were delivered to prisons in other countries, including some that routinely use torture.

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