Ignoring Republican fears of national safety, Attorney General Holder has appointed special prosecutor John Durham to do a preliminary investigation of suspected CIA abuse of terrorism suspects.

Durham will be asked to examine a small number of cases, which sources pegged at fewer than a dozen, involving allegations that CIA employees broke anti-torture and other laws in connection with the agency's interrogation program in Iraq, Afghanistan and other possible secret sites. He will ultimately make a recommendation to Holder about whether a full-fledged criminal investigation should be launched.

Senators Jon Kyl(AZ), Jeff Sessions(AL) and Kit Bond(MI), along with six other Republicans have signed a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The letter advises Holder not to seek an investigation of CIA interrogators who used torture, citing that it would make America unsafe:

The 9/11 Commission emphasized that keeping our country safe from foreign attack requires that the Justice Department work cooperatively with the intelligence community, but the appointment of a special prosecutor would irresponsibly and unnecessarily drive a wedge between the two…

Holder is said to be close to naming a Special Prosecutor to do the investigation, but the focus supposedly will be on those who exceeded the limits of what was then legal, rather than all interrogators involved.

To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old. "Has [Obama], on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor?"

Dick Cheney will appeal the CIA's refusal to declassify documents that Cheney claims prove torture worked.

Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied to Congress about the use of torture.

The Obama administration will revive military tribunals.

After initially promising to release more prisoner abuse photos, President Obama changed his mind and will "block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad."
Obama explained his reasoning at a short press conference on Wednesday.    Continues...

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts will hold a hearing entitled "What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration" on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been busy since leaving office, making media appearances where he defends the Bush administration generally and the use of torture in particular. These appearances and the number of them and their tone, especially when calling out the Obama administration, have been turning heads. Usually previous administrations remain fairly quiet about current ones.

His latest appearance was this past Sunday on Face the Nation (transcript), doing all of the above, but also something a bit different.    Continues...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the hot seat on torture as people ask "What did you she know and when?" She and Porter Goss were briefed on ehanced interrogation techiques (EIT) back in September, 2002, though there's no explicit mention of what was discussed.

The Justice Department is finishing up an inquiry into the memos written by Bush administration lawyers who approved torture as legal. It finds the lawyers did nothing illegal and shouldn't face criminal charges but suggests the state bar associations examine matter for possible disciplinary action.

The draft report is described as very detailed, tracing e-mail messages between the Justice Department lawyers and officials at the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. Among the questions it is expected to consider is whether the memos were an independent judgment of the limits of the federal anti-torture statute or were deliberately skewed to justify the use of techniques proposed by the C.I.A.

If the report is that detailed where it reconstructs the timeline of emails and that the memos were skewed to justify torture , I don't know how criminal charges can't be brought.

Don't feel bad for the lawyers though, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury. There's a behind the scenes campaign by former Bush officials to get the report "softened".

Ali Soufan, American Hero: How an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture

The memos the Bush administration wrote to allow torture have been released. Obama says there will be no prosecution of CIA officials who followed orders. The Atlantic has a few details from the memos.

The Woman Who Could Nail Bush: Forget nanny issues and unpaid taxes. The GOP is threatening an ugly fight over an Obama Justice Department appointee who wants to disclose more Bush-era torture memos.

Rachel Maddow Show: Jonathan Turley makes an impassioned case for prosecuting alleged torturers.

Abu Ghraib investigator Antonio Taguba talks to Salon about why he backs a commission to examine Bush torture policies.

Filed under "Duh":
The Senate released a bipartisan report stating the use of torture in Iraq was authorized by President Bush:

Conclusion 1: On February 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. Following the President’s determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions, used in SERE training to simulate tactics used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions, were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.

The report is only 19 pages and worth reading.

Rumsfeld blamed in detainee abuse scandals: A bipartisan Senate report calls decisions made by the former Defense secretary a 'direct cause' of inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Other Bush officials also are faulted.

US Interrogator in Iraq Says Torture Policy Has Led to Deaths of Thousands of American Soldiers

Obama's plans for probing Bush torture: President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations -- but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president.