7 Former CIA Directors To Obama: Stop It!

I thought this was pretty significant, so I wanted to pass it along to you:

Seven Former CIA Directors Tell Obama to Rein in Holder

This is a bipartisan group, including Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, Jim Woolsey, William Webster, and James Schlesinger. As they note at the beginning of the letter, these men have served presidents in that role for more than 35 years, and they "respectfully urge [Obama] to exercise your authority to reverse Attorney General Holder's August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigations of CIA interrogations that took place following the attacks of September 11."

And indeed those ivnestigations were investigated and closed "four years ago by career prosecutors." The questions that were raised have been asked and answered. The only obvious reason to re-open those investigations and devote precious resources to this witch hunt are political. The investigating US Attorney determined that prosecution was warranted in the case of one CIA contractor and he prosecuted that case, getting a conviction. "If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless."

More than that, the former CIA chiefs see an obvious potential for this to undermine US national security -- a potential which the Obama administration and the ACLU seem to be blind to."Not only will some members of the intelligence community be subjected to costly financial and other burdens from what amounts to endless criminal investigations, but this approach will seriously damage the willingness of many other intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country. In our judgment such risk-taking is vital to success in the long and difficult fight against the terrorists who continue to threaten us."

The former directors also worry that these individuals will be "subjected to costly financial and other burdens" as a result of Holder's investigation. Spencer Ackerman points to the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act and declares that this statement is factually incorrect as the "taxpayer foots the bill for any government employee under investigation for detainee abuse." But that isn't clear at all. As Jennifer Rubin wrote in THE WEEKLY STANDARD not long ago,

Former Justice Department officials suggest that the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) might cover agents' legal expenses. But that is problematic. One attorney explains that DTA protects agents if "the interrogations at issue were 'officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time they were conducted.' " But, he notes, there is a "fair argument" here that the DTA does not afford legal protection to "interrogations that went beyond techniques approved by the Justice Department, which is what Holder claims to be focused upon."

The letter closes with this admonition:

We support your stated commitment, Mr. President, to look to the future regarding these important issues. In our judgment the only way that is possible is if the criminal investigation of these interrogations that Attorney General Holder has re-opened is now re-closed.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this letter is that these officials are calling on Obama to rein in Holder using the executive power inherent in his office, though Obama seems determined to pretend no such power exists. Obama has tried to stay above the fray, insisting that the decision to prosecute will be Holder's and Holder's alone, and has even tried to claim some deniability for Holder's actions -- as if he himself would not pursue such a course but the matter is simply out of his hands. These very serious men obviously do not take such protestations seriously at all. The decision is Obama's, and he can't merely vote 'present' on this one. If Holder is allowed to undermine national security for political reasons, the buck stops with Barack Obama.

The only former directors who did not sign the letter are Stansfield Turner, who is nearly 90 years old, and George H.W. Bush, whose for obvious reasons has refrained from any criticism of Barack Obama.

Hit the link for the full text of the letter.

I'm not sure that Obama and Holder are 'blind to' the potential national security risks.  I think it's more likely that they don't care, or at least don't agree that this presents any risk at all, which is just as bad.

Bottom line: to get this sort of reaction from a bi-partisan group of ex-Directors, this must be very, very serious.  There is no doubt that Obama is allowing (translation: approving of) Holder's investigation into CIA interrogations under the Bush administration, so this is completely on him.  Hopefully, a warning from this particular group of people would be influential enough to dissuade him from pursuing the prosecutions without making him feel like he's losing face (not that I care, but he's not at all likely to do something if it makes himself look bad).

I doubt that he'll listen to them, but his response will be very enlightening to the American people, won't it?

There's my two cents.