Leahy to RAW: Torture memos will be made public

Brian BeutlerPublished: Wednesday December 13, 2006

United States Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee has informed RAW STORY that he will subpoena a controversial detainee treatment memorandum if his request that the Justice Department submit it to him is not met.

Leahy indicates that the document—acknowledged to exist in November by the Justice Department after a FOIA request by the ACLU—should have been sent to him many months ago, when he asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to provide him with all memos concerning detainee treatment.

That memo—a companion of sorts to the infamous Bybee memorandum, which broadened the range of permissible detainee questioning techniques—is said to outline actual interrogation procedures that have been approved by the Executive Branch. Many suspect that some of the procedures will be found to be forbidden by the Geneva Convention against Torture.

"I want to find out what is in the...memo," he indicated at a forum at Georgetown University. "I intend to continue to try to get it. I would hope we could get these without a subpoena."

But the senator indicated he is willing to use legal authority, if necessary.

"It is legitimately within our oversight," he insisted. "If we don't get these things which are legitimately within our oversight, I'll ask the committee to give me the power to subpoena them."

Should a subpoena reveal that key information has been classified, Leahy offered that he is also willing to pursue other means of obtaining the information. "I find it hard," he explained, "to think of what could possibly be in there of a classified nature. If something is classified you have the process within the congress to determine whether it can be declassified.”

Leahy also indicated that he would reinstitute the so-called Thurmond Rule, named for now-deceased Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), an informal understanding whereby judicial nominations are not brought up in the Senate between the party conventions and Election Day of a presidential year.

During Leahy's hour-long talk, he pledged to work to see habeas corpus rights that were removed by the recently passed Military Commissions Act of 2006 restored, as well as to put an end to the warrantless wiretapping policies instituted by the Bush Administration after September 11, 2001.

When asked in a question and answer session whether and when he'd summon Attorney General Gonzales to testify before the Judiciary Committee, Leahy said that during a lunch with the Attorney General, he'd told him that he could "expect an invitation," and declared that he would not "accept answers like 'I can't answer that', or 'we'll get back to you' because, of course, they never get back to you."

When pressed to say what he would do if faced with evasive responses such as those from Justice Department officials, Leahy said he would use his subpoena power to make sure he obtains all the information he seeks. “I expect to get the answers. If I don't then I believe we should subpoena...If the president wants to claim executive authority, let him do so and then we can go from there.”

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