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05-04-2009, 05:05 PM | #1 | |
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05-04-2009, 05:09 PM | #2 | |
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I've read some conservative commentators who think Bybee made a poor argument. That's fair game. But to say he committed conspiracy to break the law is really silly.
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05-04-2009, 05:13 PM | #3 | |
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Let me put on my tinfoil hat for even thinking of such an outrageously improbable thing. |
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05-04-2009, 05:17 PM | #4 | |
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You're talking about using the law to punish political differences. That's dangerous ground.
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"Have we been commanded not to call a prophet an insular racist? Link?" "And yes, [2010] is a very good year to be a Democrat. Perhaps the best year in decades ..." - Cali Coug "Oh dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got." - Brigham Young |
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05-04-2009, 05:22 PM | #5 |
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that's why we need an independent prosecutor. to investigate this.
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05-04-2009, 05:58 PM | #6 |
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"Political differences?" That is how you view the subject of torture now? Just another political difference?
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05-04-2009, 06:07 PM | #7 | |
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The debate about waterboarding (which is really what this is) is most definitely a political one.
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"Have we been commanded not to call a prophet an insular racist? Link?" "And yes, [2010] is a very good year to be a Democrat. Perhaps the best year in decades ..." - Cali Coug "Oh dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got." - Brigham Young |
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05-04-2009, 05:43 PM | #8 | |
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Let's take an extreme hypothetical: let's say Bybee wrote a memo that said it is ok for the president to commit murder. It clearly is not ok, but Bybee wrote a document purporting to give him legal justification to commit murder. That would certainly be conspiracy to commit murder (he wrote the document knowing it would be relied upon and knowing what he wrote wasn't an accurate statement of the law). Now back to this scenario: Bybee knew torture is illegal (he mentions that fact in his memo). His employer (the DOJ) had prosecuted many people in the past (successfully) for violating that law by waterboarding American citizens. Waterboarding has been declared torture by the US government multiple times in the past and has prosecuted people who waterboarded others. Now Bybee wants to claim he didn't know it really was torture or that the position his employer took routinely in the past was that it was torture? He knew it would be relied upon (that is the point of a legal memo), and knew (or should have known) that it was illegal. Conspiracy to commit torture. It isn't a stretch at all. Waters is exactly right when he says that is why Bybee is publicly claiming he really believed what he wrote. That is his only possible defense (if ignorance can be a defense to this form of conspiracy). What he is saying publicly doesn't square with what he is saying privately, by the way. |
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05-04-2009, 05:51 PM | #9 | ||
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Of course not. Which is why I explained my reasoning.
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No prosecutor is going to touch this. Moreover, the American people are not interested in seeing it happen either. This is a lose-lose for Obama, politically and legally.
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"Have we been commanded not to call a prophet an insular racist? Link?" "And yes, [2010] is a very good year to be a Democrat. Perhaps the best year in decades ..." - Cali Coug "Oh dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got." - Brigham Young |
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05-04-2009, 06:02 PM | #10 | |||
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