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As David already discussed, constitutional-law expert Jonathan Turley joined Rachel last night to discuss the fate of top Bush administration figures involved in "harsh interrogation techniques." The White House has indicated that Bush will not be issuing blanket pardons, but the Wall Street Journal later reported that that's because it's "unnecessary" to do so.

Turley makes a critical point in the interview -- namely, that the moral burden of torture is on the backs of each one of us until these people are brought to justice. And it will be profoundly immoral to let them go:

"We have third world countries that when they have found that their leaders committed torture war crimes, they prosecuted them. But the most successful democracy in history is just, I think, about to see war crimes, do nothing about it. And that's an indictment not just of George Bush and his administration. It's the indictment of all of us if we walk away from a clear war crime and say it's time for another commission."

Turley lays out a powerful case that's pretty hard to argue with. A wave of reconciliation and forgiveness seems to be sweeping Washington, but sanctioning torture and destroying America's moral credibility around the world is something that can't simply be ignored. I'm not opposed to a commission per se, but the commission MUST be granted sweeping investigatory powers and a mandate to prosecute any and all wrongdoing found to have been committed. Anything less is unacceptable.

Full transcript below the fold:

(h/t Heather)

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From the Nov. 17, 2008 edition of Countdown, guest host David Shuster, filling in for Keith Olbermann, talks to Jonathan Turley about the possibility of George Bush issuing blanket pardons for the crimes committed by himself and his administration and what it means for the rule of law that remains in the United States.

UPDATE (Nicole): Does anyone actually believe that Bush won't thumb his nose at the rule of law? As Will Bunch notes, it's clear that Presidents and their aides are officially above the law.

However, that's not the thing that took my breath away in this clip. Listen as Shuster and Turley both matter-of-factly admit that one of the problems that Obama has in committing to close Guantanamo is what to do with the detainees there because some of them could not go through our criminal justice system due to lack of evidence to hold them or because they've been tortured. No outrage. No wringing of hands that these people still exist, years later, within Guantanamo, as we count down the days until George Bush is finally out of office.

Yet the media can get up in arms about Hillary Clinton can "subvert her agenda" to serve as Secretary of State and rehash that ad nauseam? We can have an academic discussion on presidential pardons (and not fail to mention Clinton, mind you), but when it come to authentic crimes against humanity that merit a full blown trial in The Hague, the media yawns, as if it's just par for course.

My god, when did we lose our moral compass that this kind of atrocity is an academic discussion instead of a rallying call for justice? Per Robert Jay Lifton, this is our American Apocalypse.

Jonathan Turley comes on KO once again to blast the umpteenth version of the compromise FISA bill that is being shoved down our throats. This time the Hoyer/FISA rollover bill is attached to the new GI Bill and extending unemployment benefits bill. Please don't forget to chip into our FISA Actblue page so we can take a stand against all atempts at subverting our rights. Anyway, it's being debated today so we'll let you know what happens.

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Turley: They repeatedly tried to cave it in to the White House only to be stopped by civil libertarians and bloggers and each time they would put it on the shelf, wait a few months, they did this before, reintroduced it with Jay Rockefeller's support and then there was another great dust up and they pulled it back. I think they're simply waiting to see if public's interest will wain and we'll see that tomorrow because this bill has no quite literally public value for citizens or civil liberties. It is reverse engineering. Th type of thing the Bush administration is famous for and now the Democrats are doing. That is to change the law to conform to past conduct. It's what any criminal would love to do.

As usual Russ Feingold isn't happy.

"The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President's illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home.

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On Tuesday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talks to Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley about the Supreme Court's decision to not hear the ACLU vs. NSA case on warrantless wiretapping.

OLBERMANN: Why would evidence like this entire AT&T room in San Francisco—we know the number of the room, we know the guy who hooked it all up. Why is that not sufficient to at least move this lawsuit on?

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TURLEY: Well, that’s part of the ridiculous element to all this. That we know there’s an NSA program; we know that it’s illegal. There’s been no showing nor is no showing possible that the President had the authority to order what he did. This is a crime, defined under federal law. So there’s no mystery to the program, there’s not a particular debate to its illegality. The only issue is standing: the ability of someone to come in and say, “I can show I was individually harmed.” And they can’t do that because the Courts won’t give them the information they need and Congress will do nothing to force out into the public the information needed to get this type of relief. And as you noted, the Congress is going further in the opposite direction; they’re trying to extinguish suits against telecom companies that have been successful.

This is why it is so critical that you contact your representative and let them know to NOT support telecom immunity. Anything less is enabling a crime against the country and its citizens.  The Gavel has compiled some experts and editorials on the FISA law. 

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Some days, it literally gives me a migraine to have to watch Bill O'Reilly.  This is one of those days...

On the heels of his ridiculous Talking Points Memo where he accuses the "hate America" crowd of rejoicing in the news of the destroyed CIA torture tapes--a statement that just reeks of the dumbing down of the electorate, Billo brings on GW Law professor Jonathan Turley to discuss the lawlessness of the tapes. Billo sees this as an opportunity to talk about how wimpy the left is and how accommodating they are to those scary terrorists.  When Turley objects to us becoming those we're allegedly fighting by adopting their tactics.

But big, bad, macho Billo will have none of that...watch him carefully, he's actually getting visibly excited at the thought of torturing, something I don't think I could be as silent about as Turley is.

You know, Bill, if you had a shred of intellectual honesty, I'd say you'd make a perfect candidate for your "Pinheads & Patriots" segment.  And for what it's worth, being for torture is NOT a patriotic stance.

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GWU Constitutional Law professor Jonathan Turley covered this and other civil rights issues last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Turley breaks down the lawless nature of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping programs and chides Congress for lacking the spine to go after him.    

Washington Post:

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. Read more...

Kagro X at DailyKos makes some great observations -- Bush has long contended that the illegal programs were undertaken in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but this revelation would mean he had something else in mind. And if, as Nacchio contends, the Bush administration began their illegal spying operations well before the 9/11 attacks, it proves the program failed to stop the attack.

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Keith Olbermann covers the breaking showdown between President Bush and Congress.   Can you believe that Mr. One-Full-Year-Of-My-Eight-Years-In-Office-Was-Spent-On-Vacation is complaining about Congress taking their August break instead of giving him the rubber stamp he's looking for his wiretapping program?  Note the playing of the fear card.  Jonathan Turley joins Keith and tries to make sense in this Bizarro World confrontation, and the complicit Congress isn't spared his scorn.

The ACLU has an action item: Tell Congress Not to Cave in to Fear

And more: Don't rush to modify FISA,  Stampeding Congress. Again. (reg. req'd)

Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers defied a Congressional subpoena last week and Congress is considering charging her with contempt of Congress. As we find out on Monday's "Countdown," if the DoJ does not uphold a contempt charge it is believed they will circumvent Alberto Gonzales and charge Miers with Inherent Contempt. According to Jonathan Turley, if charged with Inherent Contempt, Miers would be arrested by the Sergeant-At-Arms, frog marched directly to Congress and tried on the spot.

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On the topic of the Bush Administration's grotesque and unforgivable handling and cover up of Pat Tillman's death, Turley is as animated as I've ever seen him. He, like most Americans, is shocked at how the president has tortured Tillman's family by stonewalling the investigation.

Turley: "The White House seems to be invoking executive privilege if anyone is within a twenty-five mile radius of the building. It's as clever and as elegant as a meat cleaver. It is a rather bad way to go about this. Past presidents have compromised. On something like Tillman, I don't think past presidents would have said 'let's fight this out.'"

 Jonathan Turley outlines Libby's defense team strategy of pressuring Cheney to help him out of multiple convictions. Not that Cheney didn't plan to bail out his pal, but they made sure to turn the screws so to speak. Full transcript here...

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Turley: If you ask any criminal defense attorney, they said we would make Dick Cheney the focus of the trial. He is perfect. He’s all over this case.  It really was an investigation about what Dick Cheney ordered, what Dick Cheney said, what Dick Cheney did.  It’s just that Dick Cheney wasn’t indicted. 

So no one was that surprised when the defense team made it clear they were going to call him to the trial and they were going to take the gloves off.  And then suddenly, it changed and they said they were not going to call him. 

They barely talked about him in any sinister way.  And they adopted what could only be described as a passive defense.  They virtually walked Libby into a conviction.  I don’t mean to be too harsh, but it seemed to me a pretty passive performance.

Well some of us speculated at the time that it seemed to be preserving the chance for a pardon.  He was a loyal soldier.  He took the hit in court and he remained quiet even after his conviction and even after his sentencing. 

Greenwald writes "Lewis Libby owes his freedom to our corrupt political elite."

On Thursday's "Countdown," Keith Olbermann brings back George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley to talk about the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote on the Restoration of Habeas Corpus Act today. Armed with the truth, Turley smacks down the President and the previous Republican-led Congress for passing the Military Commissions Act and gives us this gem on the Bush legacy:

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Turley: "The greatest irony of the Bush Administration is that his legacy will be to show the dangers of walking away from those rights that define us. We're very much alone today. He can't go to Canada without people protesting, Miss America can't even go to Mexico without being booed. We're viewed as a rogue nation and it is a dangerous world to live in when you're alone."

Update:mcjoan has more:

Olbermann: The right to bear arms, to believe your religion or to not believe any religion at all, to say what you want, these rights get people fired up, no matter what side of the debate they're on. Is not habeas corpus essential to all of them? You don't have that, it doesn't matter what the second amendment says?

Turley: That's right.... all those rights are meaningless [without habeas corpus] because it's habeas corpus that allows you to get to a court who can hear your complaint. So without habeas corpus it's just basically words that have no meaning, and this president has shown the dangers of the assertion of absolute power. He has asserted the right to take an American citizen, declare them unilaterally an enemy combatant and deny them all rights. The courts have said otherwise and now Congress will say otherwise

We covered President Bush's painful presser yesterday, but nobody breaks it down like Keith Olbermann. On last night's "Countdown", Keith and Newsweek's Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe discussed the President's misguided statements about al Qaeda, terrorism and certain jouralist's children. They also touched on the Democrats, war funding and of course, the bird that clearly hates our freedoms...

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  George Washington University Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley says that the latest NSA warrantless wiretapping revelations --  wherein the administration knowingly broke the law and continued spying on American citizens after top DoJ officials refused to certify the legality of the program -- make this a "clear impeachable offense."

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"The problem comes down to the failure of Congress to deal with what is a very ugly and unfortunate fact. This would be a clear impeachable offense. I don't know of a more potential charge of impeachment within the modern presidency.

This quote from Glenn sums it up perfectly:

And, as I've asked many times before, if we passively allow the President to simply break the law with impunity in how the government spies on our conversations, what don't we allow?

Under FISA, spying on American citizens on American soil without a warrant is a felony. President Bush has been caught red-handed violating that law, and has even admitted as much. If there are no longer consequences for breaking the law, what has our country become?

(Guest blogged by Logan Murphy)

Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley appeared on "The Factor" last night to discuss Gonzalesgate and as the picture shows, BillO ends up losing it...again. Although this was actually a fairly civilized segment compared to some, as BillO realizes he's brought a knife to a gunfight, he does what he always does when he's wrong: he drowns out his guest.

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The real comedy gold begins when the topic turns to Alberto Gonzales' counsel and White House liaison Monica Goodling. Bill goes nuts trying to convince Turley that Goodling's decision to plead the fifth is a good idea. Bill completely misrepresents the facts in the Libby case as he attempts to use it to make his point, but as Jonathan points out:

Turley: "Well, see that's a bad thing to choose cause he's a convicted felon. A jury found him guilty of lying."

SilentPatriot: IMO, the best part of the entire interview comes when Bill tells his producers to "knock the music off." He should have cut his losses right there. If you want a lesson in responsible journalism, compare this segment with O'Reilly to this segment with Olbermann on the same topic. Granted it's a few weeks old, but you'll get the point.

Josh Marshall of TPMmuckracker, who has really led the charge on this entire scandal, tackles (and shatters) the "Lam was dismissed for not proescuting immigration cases" spin. I'll take a TPM factual analysis over a "Factor" one any day. BillO thinks the WH offer includes testimony under oath, for crying out loud!

Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley discusses the political pressures brought on recently fired US attorneys and it's potential implications on the US justice system.

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In my opinion, the most important (and alarming) part of the story is where the authority to do this derives from: The USA Patriot Act. How exactly does giving Bush the power to replace inconvenient prosecutors protect us from terror? Oh, wait, it doesn't. It just protects him and his cronies from prosecution. Talk about politicizing terror.

Christian Science Monitor: 

The Bush administration's controversial firing of eight US attorneys sets up a major clash between the White House and the new Congress, as Democrats step up efforts to rein in new presidential powers.

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Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was a busy man today. First, he delivered a speech before the American Enterprise Institute explaining why he believes the judiciary is unfit to rule on anti-terrorism policies, then he sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee outlining how the controversial domestic spying program will now be overseen exclusively by the secret FISA court, and then we learn the White House and DoJ are using a shady provision of the Patriot Act to remove ten Senate-confirmed US attorneys they fear may prosecute overzealously.

Keith runs through Gonzalez's day and talks to Jonathan Turley about the Constitutional implications of it all.

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Senator Leahy and Glenn Greenwald's reactions.