The White House tried in vain Thursday to maneuver past the controversy over declassified memos about CIA interrogation methods, but both Republicans and Democrats appeared determined to continue the debate.
President Barack Obama, who has repeatedly said he wants to look forward and not back on issues related to the wartime conduct of the prior administration, focused on other matters and said nothing publicly about torture.
But intensifying political conflict over the memos and how — or whether — to proceed with a legal probe of the Bush administration threatens to eclipse the president’s agenda on the economy, health care and climate change.
“The president believes, as both of us have said, that the release of the memos are not a time for retribution but to reflect on what happened, and that we’re all best suited looking forward,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Even so, rhetoric on Capitol Hill escalated, with Democrats clamoring for a truth commission or other inquiry, and Republicans invoking national security and accusing the White House of political motivations.
“The fact is that this administration keeps claiming they’re going to be bipartisan and everything will be transparent,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, told Fox News. “And then we get down to the reality of it, you know, they are bringing out documents, declassifying documents on political motivation.”
Republican leaders claim Democrats in Congress were briefed on the Bush administration’s authorization of enhanced interrogation tactics such as waterboarding — an assertion the Democrats deny.
“We were not, I repeat, we were not told that waterboarding or other enhanced methods were used,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Earlier this week, Obama signaled that the Justice Department could investigate whether the authors of the memos laying out legal justifications for harsh treatment of terror detainees broke any laws. Then he abruptly pivoted to other issues — Earth Day, Holocaust remembrance, credit card abuse and more.
But others are not moving on, and the torture issue appears destined to cast a long shadow as the president closes in on his first 100 days in office.
Matt Mackowiak, a Republican political consultant and former Senate staffer, said the administration has created its own “huge distraction.”
“I think they were trying to do something to make the liberals happy by releasing the memos, then trying to make the conservatives happy by saying they wouldn’t prosecute CIA agents,” Mackowiak said. “But what they have done is create more trouble than if they never released the memos in the first place.”
Gibbs tried putting some distance between the White House and any plans for a truth commission or congressional probe of the Bush administration, saying the process could easily become too politicized.
“The last few days might be evidence of why something like this might just become a political back and forth,” Gibbs said.
