Posted on 10/13/2008 5:39:24 PM PDT by Red Steel
Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question that is on the minds of many Americans, yet rarely rises to the surface in the great ruckus of the 2008 presidential race -- and that is whether an Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted torture, or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House.
Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the law."
The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects.
I mentioned the report in my question, and said "I know you've talked about reconciliation and moving on, but there's also the issue of justice, and a lot of people -- certainly around the world and certainly within this country -- feel that crimes were possibly committed" regarding torture, rendition, and illegal wiretapping. I wanted to know how whether his Justice Department "would aggressively go after and investigate whether crimes have been committed."
Here's his answer, in its entirety:
"What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.
So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it."
The bottom line is that: Obama sent a clear signal that -- unlike impeachment, which he's ruled out and which now seems a practical impossibility -- he is at the least open to the possibility of investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House. To many, the information that waterboarding -- which the United States has considered torture and a violation of law in the past -- was openly planned out in the seat of American government is evidence enough to at least start asking some tough questions in January 2009.
Bush didn’t have much fight in him either, if you recall. But the Swiftboat Vets for Truth did. They hated Kerry.
Maybe McCain and Bush want to play by Queensbury Rules, but I don’t think the entire executive branch is going to roll over when they hear about this.
Leaks will come out. Sandy Berger for example. Anything that undermines the DNC. And it’s too late for Obmama to ‘change his mind’ about investigating Bush. No one will believe him, and Biden had said the same thing.
Isn’t there precedent that basically says that the President can’t be prosecuted for doing his job?
What about the World Court? If Obama gets to appoint two justices to the SCOTUS, guess what? World Court and UN treaties will trump the Bill of Rights. And do you think the UN would allow us to skip free from perceieved war crimes?
The good news is that the executive branch, I think, will begin leaking. I don’t think Bush can stop them. He’s been playing all kinds of DNC coverups close to the vest. But they aren’t all going to take it sitting down. Their loyalty toward President Bush will not allow them to follow the ‘new tone’ any longer.
A president cannot be prosecuted in matters of impeachment. That can be interpreted in a host of ways. Guess how the rats will interpret it?
And then there’s the world court. Constitutional law professors have been brainwashing their classes for decades that treaties trump the bill of rights. That can also be interpreted different ways. Once BO justices take over the SCOTUS, we could fall under UN and World Court authority.
That’s one reason why victory is the only option in this race. Now, I think, the executive branch will realize how true that is and start bucking the new tone regardless of what Bush tells them.
More like another crusade.
that’s a lot to look forward to . /s
the sandy bergers are hoarding their secrets.
This man WANTS to start a civil war in this country.
“the sandy bergers are hoarding their secrets.”
The Sloppy Sock buglar can’t hoard the eyes of those who saw him.
Fixed!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.