Tuesday, December 18, 2007

torture tapes: what are the odds that ALL their lawyers knew -- and they DIDN'T?


tonight, late, the new york
times is reporting new, deeply-disturbing
allegations about the white house
lawyers' discussions of the torture
tapes -- and. . . whether to destroy
the evidence of the same
. go read it
all
-- but, here i quoth meat of
it, from tomorrow's new york times:



. . .Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.

It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.

One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Some other officials assert that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes. Those officials acknowledged, however, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal.

now -- i ask you:

what are the odds that addington
knew all this (then cheney's lawyer),
gonzales knew all this (then bush's
lawyer), and not one of them informed
their clients of the tapes' existence?

yep -- slim to none.

slim to none.

there may yet be orange in
the future wardrobes of bush,
and one richard bruce cheney. . .

now -- if these lawyers were keep-
ing all of this from their clients,
in an attempt to organize a version
of some "plausible deniability" claim,
then -- and not entirely unimportantly,
each of these lawyers' law licenses
is likely in jeopardy. . . if not
their future liberty, as well. . .

much more to come -- of that much,
we can all be certain. . .


2 comments:

Unknown said...

hi nolo, thanks for your thoughts on this.

excellent post, as usual.

condor said...

i am honored, teddy!

thanks!

p e a c e