Senate Democrats meeting with White House erupts in torture report fight

[kentuck]

<snip>
"It was a vigorous, vigorous and open debate -- one of the best and most thorough discussions I've been a part of while here," said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who served as intelligence committee chair before Feinstein, was furious after the meeting, and accused the administration of deliberately stalling the report.

“It’s being slow-walked to death. They’re doing everything they can not to release it," Rockefeller told HuffPost.

"It makes a lot of people who did really bad things look really bad, which is the only way not to repeat those mistakes in the future," he continued. "The public has to know about it. They don’t want the public to know about it."

As negotiations continue, Rockefeller said Democrats were thinking creatively about how to resolve the dispute. "We have ideas," he said, adding that reading the report's executive summary into the record on the Senate floor would probably meet with only limited success. "The question would be how much you could read before they grabbed you and hauled you off."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/21/1346497/-Senate-Democrats-meeting-with-White-House-erupts-in-torture-report-nbsp-fight?detail=facebook

[CJCRANE]

1. Sunlight...

[arcane1]

2. "how much you could read before they grabbed you and hauled you off."

Says a lot, doesn't it?

[Lurks Often]

3. "How much you could read before they grabbed you and hauled you off"

Am I correct in reading that a sitting, long time Democratic Senator just stated that he believes agents of the US government, probably FBI or perhaps the US Marshal's Service, would, at the direction of the President, come into Congress and drag him off the floor?

[grasswire]

4. yeah, what's that about????

[JDPriestly]

9. Totally against the Constitution.

That would be the ultimate end of constitutional government in this country.

To arrest a member of Congress for his conduct in the Congress would be such a gross violation of the underlying concept of separation of powers and the explicit wording and law of the Constitution that it would constitute a COUP pure and simple.

That is serious stuff.

The concept of separation of powers is essential to our government. No way. No way can a member of the Congress be arrested or removed for something they say or do in the Congress. The Congress does not have to obey the President's secrecy orders within the walls of Congress. If they did, Congress could be ordered to keep all kinds of things secret and would be unable to pass laws or order members of the executive branch to appear before it and answer questions.

Separation of powers is the basis of our government.

That is what is being questioned here.

[KingCharlemagne]

20. Well, the CIA already spied on the Senate and there were, AFAIK, zero consequences

for that tiny little breach of decorum.

Great essay on same by the illustrious Charlie Pierce:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-cia-john-brennan-031414

[JDPriestly]

27. Thanks. We owe this to Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman and above all, Eisenhower.

They constructed this secret government within our government.

[KingCharlemagne]

28. I'll agree to Truman and Ike (and Churchill in spirit, I guess). I'm going to

give FDR a pass on this, as he was dead when the National Security State metastasized in 1947.

(Assume you meant FDR and not Kermit.)

OTOH, Manzanar, so who knows where FDR would have ultimately come down on the issue?

[Rex]

10. I guess catching the CIA spying on Congress and NSA leaders lying to their faces, has them wary.

No doubt they took notice.

[billhicks76]

17. What The Hell Is Wrong With Obama?

How does it help him to suppress the truth about torture??? In my opinion it's safe to say Obama is most likely being threatened. Maybe it's a direct threat...maybe they have embarrassing information on his past personal life or others in his administration gleaned from spying. What's obvious is that he has been emasculated and that the intelligence agencies are the ones who truly run our government. Hillary or Jeb will be no different.

[Rex]

18. I don't really know what to think, we all knew years ago it involved torturing children

as well as entire families. What could be worse then that? They TOLD us that years and years ago...that the report was atrocious...that atrocities were committed. Just release the dam thing so people can absorb it already!

Yeah you and I both, we've got a plutocracy being run by a handful of owners and the alphabet agencies behind the scenes pushing all the buttons. What does that smell like?

[KingCharlemagne]

22. There were reports that female detainees at (IIRC) Abu Ghraib were

smuggling messages out to the Iraqi Resistance begging it to mortar the women's wing because American sexual assaults had so shamed the women detained there.

And there were indeed reports of children being sodomized in front of their parents to secure the parents' cooperation with and submission to the Occupation. Memories grow a bit dim, but IIRC, Seymour Hersh alluded to this, either in print or in a radio broadcast with Amy Goodman.

Just makes me want to go "USA! USA! USA!"

[billhicks76]

32. Holy Crap!!!!!!?????!!!!!

Yeah. They better release this. Unveil the evil.

[KingCharlemagne]

21. One of the official NSA whistle-blowers, Russell Tice, says that he

personally saw and held evidence that the NSA had been wiretapping Obama back as early as 2004. IOW, before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. (My guess is that, if Tice's allegations are true, that they were wiretapping Obama because of his opposition to the Iraq War. But it's just a guess. The NSA may have had a general blanket sweep of all state Democratic officials and Obama simply got caught up in the net.)

[tritsofme]

30. It could also be a not so delicate euphemism for the Senate entering private session.

Which if memory services only requires a motion be seconded. If the Senate enters private session, it would be impossible to continue reading the report into the public record.

[Autumn]

5. before they grabbed you and hauled you off? A United States Senator, a servant

of the people said that? Holy fucking hell. Who is this man we elected taking care of?

[Rex]

19. What the fuck is going on here?

Did he say that? I don't get it, we all knew years ago that the report would be horrendous...just release it already!

[spanone]

6. i bet the forces pressuring to keep this buried are awesome and powerful and dangerous.

[kelliekat44]

25. I bet they are the corporate-CIA-fascists-arm of the government that has unseen power over the

military and the WH.

[BrotherIvan]

7. Dons tinfoil hat: Scary stuff

I'm glad they're speaking up. Maybe a Senator of great courage will read it into record. Wow...

[JDPriestly]

8. People who approved or performed torture should not be working for our government in any

capacity. They have too much to hide. They could be easily manipulated or blackmailed. This is a dangerous situation. It is important that the truth be aired so that the facts cannot be held over someone's head. This is the material of blackmail. People need to think before they act so that they avoid conduct that can cause them great sorrow in the future. These men did not.

The CIA's use of torture has been a festering sore for this nation for a decade, a rot that goes to the very core of the agency. Which is, of course, what they're trying to hide by refusing to release this report. They want to redact out any information at all about personnel, who the report protects by using aliases. The CIA says that the pseudonyms aren't adequate protection for "officers—many of whom are currently serving with CIA" who "would be subject to threats and possible violence if their identities were revealed." Well, just maybe the officers who committed war crimes by torturing people should not still be serving in the CIA. It's finally time to expose this rot to some sunshine, and for the Senate to resume its constitutional obligation for real oversight.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/21/1346497/-Senate-Democrats-meeting-with-White-House-erupts-in-torture-report-nbsp-fight?detail=facebook

Let someone read it into the congressional record. The article is correct. The members of Congress are immune from prosecution while in the Congress. Let one courageous member read that report into the congressional record -- or at least enough of it so as to make the secrecy pointless. Torture is a crime no matter who does it. And now we see with ISIS that we are reaping the fruit of the seeds we have sown.

[KingCharlemagne]

23. Would you please stop being so god-damned 'sanctimonious' and start

'looking forward rather than backward'?



BTW, your response is truly awesome.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Did the matter of the torturers being "under a lot of pressure and real patriots" come up?

[lobodons]

12. If only

If only Bush had read that Daily Presidential Briefing Memo on August 6th 2001. (or of course if they'd a counted the F'n votes in Florida) Yes Freepers, I am accusing Bush. This country was doing pretty well until SCOTUS selected him and then all hell broke loose. And now we are living in Amerikkka.

[KingCharlemagne]

24. I think it was August 8 you're thinking of. The CIA 'briefer' actually read the

Brief (or a summary of it) out loud to Bush who reportedly said, "OK, you've now covered your ass."

[ReRe]

13. I'm telling you...

... someone needs to get the unredacted full report that the special Intel Committee toiled over all those months behind closed doors and they need to blackmail the NYTimes or the Washington Post into publishing the entire thing. And then read it into the record on the floor of the Senate,
straight out of the newspaper.

[Efilroft Sul]

14. Senator Udall, please release the report before you step down. n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

15. It's about time that Jay went out on a limb for

Last edited Tue Nov 25, 2014, 07:26 AM - Edit history (1)

justice.

I approve of his message! To turn our backs on the truth, gives our government zero credibility, as an advocate for human rights and the rule of law. It's my biggest disappointment in president Obama and his DOJ. I believe the torture of unarmed and restrained prisoners, is something that the Germans, Japanese, the North Koreans and Viet Cong did to people. And we were told, that those other countries were lawless and barbaric, when they were committing such morbid acts of cruelty and murder.

Iraq may have been "Liberated" by GW Bush, but Abu Ghraib stayed just about the same as it had been when Saddam had the keys. A place where torture and murder were SOP.

[sadoldgirl]

16. " the question would be ..."

Well, someone may correct me if my memory is totally wrong here. When he is talking about
being grabbed and hauled off; does that not remind you of the four members of the Intelligence
Committee of the Congress being allowed to read certain documents in a certain amount of
time without allowance for note taking?

If my recollection is correct, Rockefeller might refer to this.

[Jackpine Radical]

29. I recall what you're talking about, but this isn't that.

He's talking about expecting to be silenced if one tried to read the Exec Summary of the torture report into the Congressional Record.

[sadoldgirl]

34. As far as I have heard M. Udall did that already,

after his loss of course. The question I have then: Is the Congressional Record open to the public?

[Jackpine Radical]

36. Here's the quote from above that persuaded me he was talking about the CR:

reading the report's executive summary into the record on the Senate floor would probably meet with only limited success. "The question would be how much you could read before they grabbed you and hauled you off."

And I do think the Cong. Record is published & available (although some parts of it, related to secret proceedings, I would assume are not)

[Autumn]

37. Mark Udall hasn't read the Exec Summary of the torture report into the Congressional Record.

There is a movenment to get him to do so before he steps down but he hasn't.

[KingCharlemagne]

26. Torture is as American as cherry pie (with apologies to H. Rap Brown) - nt

[kentuck]

33. Robert Reich had this to say:

"Negotiations between the CIA and the Senate over how much of the Senate’s CIA torture report can be released blew up Tuesday night when the CIA refused to budge. "It appeared to our side they weren't actually looking for a compromise," said a Senate aide briefed on the negotiations. The sticking point is the inclusion of pseudonyms in the report. The CIA thinks the faked names might enable the media and the public to determine the actual identities of officials involved in sanctioning or carrying out the torture.

My suggestion to the Senate: Use their real names instead, and release the report right now. You don’t need the CIA’s approval. You're our elected representatives and this is supposed to be a democracy. (Remember when the CIA hacked your computers to get this report?) Torture is illegal under our own laws and under the Geneva Conventions, which we signed. The public has a right to know the names of likely war criminals."

[Rex]

39. So who runs the country? Congress or the CIA?

One must ask the question, why is the CIA dictating demands and not the other way around?

[JEB]

35. Fucking CIA.

Torture is not something you can just sweep under the rug. At least not in a free country.

[rhett o rick]

38. I think it should be clear that the CIA is running the show. I don't think the President has

any power over them at all. Just my opinion.

[WhiteTara]

40. If someone was dragged off the senate floor it would be worse than

allowing them to read this into the record. Sounds somewhat like a dodge to me.

[L0oniX]

41. Do the Mike Gravel on em!

[woo me with science]

42. kick