So who did Bush end up pardoning anyway?

[Chemical Ollie]

I can't believe there's a 3-page thread about Bush's legacy, without a single picture. Here's the only one you need...

[Darius871]

Didn't Bush sneak in some legislation months ago preemptively pardoning his torturers in case of future trials? I seem to remember something like that being brought up on Poly. In which case, Bush just plans ahead with his pardons. Pity he couldn't plan ahead in any other respect.

Yes, he did.

Don't be disingenuous. The MCA didn't give a 100% ironclad "retroactive immunity" or "pardon" to torturers regardless of an individual case's facts, but rather hinges on the factual question of whether an objectively reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances as the defendant would have believed that his/her methods were lawful at the time.

From the MCA:

(b) PROTECTION OF PERSONNEL. — Section 1004 of the Detainee 42 USC Treatment Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 2000dd–1) shall apply with respect to any criminal prosecution that—

(1) relates to the detention and interrogation of aliens described in such section;

(2) is grounded in section 2441(c)(3) of title 18, United States Code [the War Crimes Act making Geneva violations a domestic felony]; and

(3) relates to actions occurring between September 11, 2001, and December 30, 2005.

From the 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000dd-1 to which the MCA refers:

(a) Protection of United States Government personnel

In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an [agent] of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the [agent's] engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States, its interests, or its allies, and that were officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted, it shall be a defense that such [agent] did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful. (emphasis added)

As I'm sure you can imagine, no "person of ordinary sense and understanding" could possibly believe that attaching genitals to a car battery, cutting, sodomy, or even severe beating are legal, and there is certainly no favorable counsel advice on which to rely, so a CIA agent who did things that extreme would not be "pardoned" under this statute.

Borderline things like stress positions or even waterboarding might be safe since there was "good faith reliance" on DOJ counsel's "advice" in detailed memos about those particular methods, but of course the statute only makes legal counsel's advice a factor, not the conclusive factor. In the end, the individual case's judge and jury would have HUGE discretion on just what a "person of ordinary sense and understanding" would have thought and done in the defendant's circumstances.

So no, it's not black and white no matter what Daily Kos or whoever else had to say about it. It's just a question of whether the new administration chooses to aggressively investigate and prosecute such instances, and from the looks of it so far they won't. Won't, not can't.

[Chemical Ollie]

interrogation of aliens

Area 47 is for real?

[Darius871]

I think you're jumbling the area number with the year.

[Zkribbler]

Let's have a search contest. Let's find a list of all the people that Bush pardoned and all the people that Clinton pardoned and then we can do a sleaze comparison. I wonder who will end up looking more sleazy?

Marc Rich The search need go no further.

[Solomwi]

I think you're jumbling the area number with the year.

No he isn't. He just knows that Area 51 is merely the red herring.

[DinoDoc]

Marc Rich The search need go no further.

The new AG thought that was a OK.

[RGBVideo]

libby is a free man

The news said in 8 years, Bush pardon only 23 people. If you notice Bush did not pardon S. Libby

yeah, he was "commuted" instead of "pardoned" before his term ended (a difference which only exists in lawyer-speak, for all practical purposes the effects will be the same), while the media was sleeping.

i'm sorry, but i think that it's very obvious that libby was a sacrificial goat who took the bullet with pride and never got punished for it. the democrats had a watergate in their hands and they bounced their heads together instead of using it.

the only end result of this thing is that competent people in security & intelligence sectors won't look for government jobs in the future

[chequita guevara]

Don't be disingenuous.

Is that your new favorite word? I could have written, not, it was an executive order, he issued signing statements, blah blah, blah. What it boils down to is that he attempted to shield interrogators from being charged with torture, as well as those who ordered it. Obvious torture, such as attaching electrodes to genitalia, taught by the U.S. to various countries in the 60s and 70s, is not included. What Bush was going after was the not so "obvious" torture, like chilling prisoners or stress positions or waterboarding, which the administration argued was not torture, although I think most of us would say is.

So stop being disingenuous and imputing all kinds of hidden meaning to one line statements I make.

[Darius871]

Is that your new favorite word? I could have written, not, it was an executive order, he issued signing statements, blah blah, blah. What it boils down to is that he attempted to shield interrogators from being charged with torture, as well as those who ordered it. Obvious torture, such as attaching electrodes to genitalia, taught by the U.S. to various countries in the 60s and 70s, is not included. What Bush was going after was the not so "obvious" torture, like chilling prisoners or stress positions or waterboarding, which the administration argued was not torture, although I think most of us would say is.

So stop being disingenuous and imputing all kinds of hidden meaning to one line statements I make.

My post was more in reply to Elok's question than your one-line statement, but in any case you were both talking about "preemptively pardoning his torturers" and that's at best simplistic or at worst false, or maybe somewhere in the disingenuous middle ground, but fine, I'll quit using that word. The fact is that no court of law has ever grappled with the implications of that highly discretionary test so we have no way of knowing how often it'll free "obvious" torture perps or even "not quite" torture perps. It's really a dead letter until the Obama Administration decides how to deal with them.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Marc Rich The search need go no further.

Well, yeah, it should go further, he repaid Susan McDougal, who saved him from inditment for bank fraud by refusing to testify to a grand jury and undergoing about two years imprisonment for contempt of court for doing that. There were three witness that could have testified to Clinton's invovlment. Since they were all co-conspirators you had to have two of them (testimony of one co-cospirator is legally insufficient under a particular rule of evidence, it has to be co-oborated) The other two (ex governor Jim Guy Tucker, and Jim McDougall) rolled and fingered Clinton for his involvment, but Jim McDougall died before he testified to the grand jury. Susan McDougall refused to testify and prevented his Clinton's inditement. The critical evidence requiring the testimony of his co-conspirators what of the what he knew and when he knew it going to intent. The other elements of the bank fraud(money, bank loss, his benefit recieved) were already tied up with documentary evidence. Clinton pardoned her for all her federal offenses.
Clinton aslo would up pardoning several person wwho had served in his administration, as well as other political conections, not to mention his brother and a few guys who worked through his influence peddling brother in law.

[DinoDoc]

i'm sorry, but i think that it's very obvious that libby was a sacrificial goat who took the bullet with pride and never got punished for it. the democrats had a watergate in their hands and they bounced their heads together instead of using it.

Considering the fact they wasted all that effort going after Rove and the like instead of looking for the leaker, what did you expect?

[Zkribbler]

The new AG thought that was a OK.

I know!

We need a Constitutional Amendment saying that a President can pardon someone only with the advice and consent of the Senate.

[rah]

Then it wouldn't be called a presidential pardon.

[Kuciwalker]

I know!

We need a Constitutional Amendment saying that a President can pardon someone only with the advice and consent of the Senate.

That's ridiculous.