What Did Bush Know?

[Ed. note: Oh, don't give me opening lines like that.]

Always a good question. This time, it's tackled by Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice:

In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld was asked by the CIA for legal advice about how to extract information from captured alleged terrorists. Rumsfeld turned to the Justice Department, and a memorandum was prepared by John Ashcroft's Office of Legal Counsel—and shown as well to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.

The essence of this memo's language—as reported in a front-page June 8 Washington Post story—was very similar to the March 2003 extensive Pentagon justification of torture that broke in the June 7 Wall Street Journal. Ashcroft's office had said: "[It] may be justified" to torture captured Al Qaeda terrorists abroad "in order to prevent future attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network . . . " "Necessity and self-defense," said the Justice Department, "could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability."

It was this hitherto secret August 2002 memo from John Ashcroft's department that helped lay the groundwork for the much longer and more inflammatory March 2003 classified Pentagon report from a constellation of administration civilian and military lawyers. These attorneys, presumably graduates of top law schools, included participants from intelligence agencies and the Justice Department that have exploded the government's cover-up of its selective approval of torture.

That March 2003 report includes stunning analysis of the overwhelming extent of George W. Bush's power. As summarized by The Wall Street Journal, " 'constitutional principles' make it impossible to 'punish officials for aiding the president in exercising his exclusive constitutional authorities' and neither Congress nor the courts could 'require or implement the prosecution of such an individual.' "

[Ed. note: Emphasis mine. It's astounding.]