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• Monday, December 1, 2008 10:10 PM

  John Dean: "A commission is . . . how to make it all go away without anybody having liability . . . A commission is passing the buck."

  Will Bunch:

  http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html

  Monday, April 14, 2008
  Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House

  Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question [...] The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects. [...]

  [...] Here's his answer, in its entirety:

  What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

  So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

  - - Barack Obama 04/14/2008

  - - Posted by Will Bunch

  * * * * *

  John Dean:

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28002772

  'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday November 26, 2008

  OLBERMANN: This is not that complicated. A, the Bush administration has acknowledged it waterboarded some terror detainees. B, even John McCain acknowledged that waterboarding is torture, therefore C, the Bush administration tortured people. [...] As for what President-Elect Obama will do as president, he's not expected to pursue criminal charges or take high level investigations in the absence of specific new evidence but he is said to consider a 9/11 style commission [...] Time now to call in John Dean, White House counsel in the Nixon administration, columnist now at findlaw.com. And also the author of "Broken Government" and "Worse than Watergate." Good evening, John.

  JOHN DEAN, NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Good evening, Keith.

  OLBERMANN: Are you surprised by the president-elect's idea of this commission? Does it seem that it's treating this issue a little academically?

  DEAN: Frankly, I am. I'm not sure it's academic the way they're thinking about it. It's clearly contrary to what we talked about earlier in a prior broadcasts how he told Will Bunch earlier this year, that immediately upon becoming president if he were elected, he would have his attorney general investigate this very question as to whether these war crimes are just stupid policies or very serious and egregious crimes. A commission is far away from that. A commission is passing the buck. And I've got to tell you also, Keith, in the unraveling of Watergate, we had many high level discussions about how to make it all go away without anybody having liability. We considered many times a commission.

  - - John Dean, with Keith Olbermann, 11/26/2008

  —sysprog Read sysprog's other letters
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