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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-24-09 06:00 PM
Original message
Why would you hire a bad lawyer?
Why would you keep him around?

--Keep those two questions in mind as you read this--

"Senator, that I don't recall remembering." With those six words uttered during the furor over his purge of U.S. prosecutors, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales likely etched his epitaph. But as it turns out, "hypothetical" may be the most important word Gonzales ever spoke to Congress. New revelations this week suggest that in the spring of 2002 then-White House Counsel Gonzales personally approved the use of waterboarding, months before the Justice Department's infamous Bybee memo blessed the practice. By labeling such questions "hypothetical" during his 2005 confirmation hearings, Attorney General Gonzales may well have committed perjury.

As NPR reported this week, Gonzales apparently played a central role in authorizing the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques months before the August 2002 Bybee memo defined torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." In April and May 2002, it was White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales who gave CIA interrogation contractor James Mitchell the greenlight to waterboard detainee Abu Zubaydah:

One source with knowledge of Zubaydah's interrogations agreed to describe the legal guidance process, on the condition of anonymity.

The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top-secret cable to the CIA's counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the administration's legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.

But that's not what Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his January 2005 confirmation as Attorney General.

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/did-alberto-gonzales-lie-to-congress
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Demeter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-24-09 06:03 PM
Response to Original message
1. Bush Hired Yes People
That's all he wanted. Prostitutes. And he went for quantity, not quality.

bush didn't want competent or good people. That kind of people would stop him from getting what he wanted.

The real question is why do Pelosi and Reid still hold public office and leadership positions in Congress?
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izquierdista Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-24-09 06:48 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. He wouldn't know competent
Who traded away Sammy Sosa? Who stood up for Heck-of-a-job Brownie? Who couldn't get laid in a whorehouse?
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-24-09 06:13 PM
Response to Original message
2. To give yourself grounds for appeal?
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-24-09 06:29 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. or
a fall guy so there is an end to any possible prosecution

(whisper) IT WAS HIM -----> :hi:
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