...Given the interrogation-tapes controversy, Mukasey is in a real bind on the torture question. If he finds the techniques used by the CIA to have been torture, which he said is illegal, then he will come under tremendous pressure to prosecute the interrogators and possibly even the administration officials who approved the illegal behavior. If he doesn't conclude that they're torture, he'll be embracing a politically convenient and euphemistic definition of the law.
Spencer Ackerman reports at Muckraker that Senator Russell Feingold today has asked the new Attorney General, who avoided discussing "enhanced interrogation" during his confirmation hearings, to come up with an opinion on whether the CIA's use of extreme measures are illegal. Attorney General Mukasey can no longer plead ignorance -- his department is right in the middle now, thanks to the revelations about destroyed videotapes.
Ball's in Mukasey's court. Which, by extension, is the administration's court. What are the odds here?
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