Republicans and a top Democrat are criticizing a Justice Department decision to investigate CIA interrogation tactics.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace,” called Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to name a prosecutor to investigate whether the CIA abused terror suspects “devastating” and said it would send a chilling message to the intelligence community that could harm the agency’s ability to do its job.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned Holder’s timing, suggesting on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that it could impede a bipartisan investigation her panel is conducting on CIA interrogation tactics.
“We are not going to be deterred from completing this study,” she warned. “And candidly, I wish that the attorney general had waited. Every day something kind of information dribbles out into the public arena. Very often it has mistakes. Very often it’s half a story. And I think we need to get the whole story together and tell it in an appropriate way.”
Holder’s move came months after President Barack Obama signaled that he was not interested in investigating the CIA over potential past potential abuses and the president has indicated that Holder was acting independently of his wishes.
Cheney questioned Obama’s distance from the probe.
“I think it’s an outrageous political act that will do great damage long term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions without having to worry about what the next administration’s going to say about it,” Cheney said.
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Holder was “crippling the CIA where they’re going to be unwilling to really take the risks that have to be taken during really crucial times.”
On the same day of Holder’s announcement, the Obama administration took control of terror investigations away from the CIA and handed it over to a new entity called the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, run by the National Security Council and operated within the FBI, though the CIA will be involved. The move gives the White House direct control over the interrogation process, which had become one of the most controversial aspects of President George W. Bush’s administration. Some of the interrogation tactics used during the Bush administration included waterboarding and mock executions denounced as torture by both Democrats and some Republicans.
Cheney said the creation of the HIG was “a direct slap at the CIA” and called the new agency “silly” and ill-prepared to deal with the kind of actions that would be needed in the wake of another terrorist attack on the United States.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Ma., appearing with Hatch, said Obama has been “unbelievably bending in the direction of trying to be careful about what happens to national security, protecting our national security interests, being very sensitive about the CIA’s prerogatives and needs,” and added that Holder’s decision to investigate showed there was tension between the Justice Department and the White House.
“That’s appropriate, because it shows that we have an attorney general who is not pursuing a political agenda, but who is doing what he believes the law requires him to do and we have an administration, on the other hand, that is balancing some of those other interests,” Kerry said.
