Yesterday I kicked off an action item, asking people to call and write the members of the House Judiciary Committee or their California members of Congress, informing them that the largest state Democratic Party in the country has voted to support a Congressional inquiry into Jay Bybee and other lawyers for their actions justifying torture, and that they ought to carry this through. Many people have already contacted their members of Congress and you should do the same. One thing that would help is to get them on the record. If you receive any constituent correspondence from your Congressperson about this issue, please forward it to me at david-dot-dayen-at-gmail-dot-com. We need to build a list of who supports accountability and who does not, of who in the California delegation agrees with their own party and who does not. We’re starting to get some on-the-record statements, like this nonsense from Illinois Republican Donald Manzullo, who admits that waterboarding doesn’t work, who calls it “more torture than not,” as if there’s a torture continuum of some sort (the fact that CIA interrogators had to add a tracheotomy kit to the proceedings should tell you what they were up to with waterboarding), but who then says that “no laws were broken” (which is patently false), and that, even if there were, nobody should be prosecuted because the whole thing would get “messy.”
MANZULLO: Because then you are going to have to go back and you’re going to have to go through every single interrogation and every single memo and the whole purpose of this is to relive again the fact that somebody made the decision to allow this.
We need on-the-record statements like this for every California Democrat, preferably in writing or on tape.
In other news, John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler announced their support to Attorney General Eric Holder for a special counsel to investigate and prosecute anyone involved in the decision-making process in the Bush Administration that led to illegal torture of detainees. That letter is here.
Finally, I will be on Angie Coiro’s show on Green960 AM in San Francisco in the 7:00 hour tonight to talk about the CDP resolution, the need for an inquiry and impeachment of Jay Bybee, and the fight to restore the rule of law with respect to torture. Tune in if you can.