Alberto Gonzales (Getty Images)

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday clarified his recent comments about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to probe possible CIA interrogation abuses, saying he supports Holder’s authority to investigation but does not support the investigation itself, The Washington Times reported.

On Tuesday, Reuters and Main Justice reported that Gonzales supported Holder’s decision to investigate. His comments came during an interview with The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” radio show. During the interview, Gonzales said if people go beyond the established parameters for interrogations,  “I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are held accountable for their actions, even if it’s action in prosecuting the war on terror. ”

On Thursday, in a follow-up interview with The Times, Gonzales offered the clarification. “I don’t support the investigation by the department because this is a matter that has already been reviewed thoroughly and because I believe that another investigation is going to harm our intelligence gathering capabilities and that’s a concern that’s shared by career intelligence officials and so for those reasons I respectfully disagree with the decision,” Gonzales said.

Eric Holder (DOJ)

Regarding his earlier comments, Gonzales said he was not endorsing the investigations, but rather Holder’s right to conduct the probe. He said, “It’s an endorsement of his right to exercise his discretion,” adding, “I’m just saying I would have exercised my discretion in a different manner, given the information I have.”

Gonzales would not say what evidence was uncovered during the Bush administration that led him to deem Holder’s probe unnecessary. “This has been looked at, and I agree with President Obama that we ought to be looking forward,” he said Thursday.

Click here to read the transcript of the interview.

This post has been updated.

Alberto Gonzales (DOJ)

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday said he supports U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to probe possible CIA interrogation abuses, Reuters reported.

Gonzales’ comments came during an interview with The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” radio show. He said the Bush administration ”worked very hard to establish ground rules and parameters about how to deal with terrorists,” and “if people go beyond that, I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are held accountable for their actions, even if it’s action in prosecuting the war on terror. ”

“I’ve talked to friends of mine in the CIA, and there is a great deal of concern,” Gonzales said, adding, “People are scared about taking actions that might be legal but in any way controversial. They’re just not going to do it.” Read The Times’ article here.

Eric Holder (DOJ)

He added the possible offenses should be investigated despite the potential “chilling effect” the probe could have on future CIA interrogation sessions, Reuters reported. Gonzales said he believes Holder is only concerned about investigating officials who went beyond approved techniques.

Holder has come under fire from former Vice President Dick Cheney and other conservatives for re-opening an investigation that has been closed by the Bush administration. Some liberals, meantime, have also complained that Holder’s focus on CIA interrogators doesn’t hold accountable the Bush administration  officials who authorized brutal techniques such as waterboarding, which Holder and Obama have both called torture.

Cheney on Sunday said President Obama should be calling the shots on the interrogation matter and not leave the decision to a “political appointee” such as Holder. Click here to read our previous report.

But Gonzales, who resigned amid criticism he wasn’t independent enough of the Bush White House, endorsed Holder’s authority.  ”As chief prosecutor of the United States, he should make the decision on his own, based on the facts, then inform the White House,”  Gonzales said, according to Reuters. Gonzeles didn’t head the DOJ at the time the interrogation methods were authorized and the original CIA probe closed, but he was privvy to information about the methods as White House counsel.

Gonzales also said Holder appears concerned with the “one percent of actors” who went beyond Department of Justice guidelines, The Times reported. He added that the other 99 percent “are heroes and should be treated like heroes for the most part, not criminals.”

The former vice president said in an interview on “FOX News Sunday” that President Obama has final authority to make law enforcement decisions. Cheney, whose muscular view of executive power underlay many of the controversies of the Bush administration, referred to Holder as a “political appointee.”

Former Vice President Cheney on "FOX News Sunday"

The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He’s now saying, well, this isn’t anything that he’s got anything to do with. He’s up on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago he wouldn’t do.

The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman has done some sleuthing. He believes he’s uncovered an interrogation technique recommended by the Central Intelligence Agency for use against terrorism suspects that previously hasn’t come to light: diapering.

The recently released 2004 CIA inspector general report on the “enhanced interrogations” said the Agency had recommended 11 unusual techniques. What were they? Only ten received approval from the Bush admininstration’s Office of Legal Counsel, according to a 2002 memo by Jay Bybee and John Yoo that the Obama administration declassified in April. What was the 11th technique?

Ackerman examined Appendix E of the CIA IG report, which was a 2003 memo written by then-CIA Director George Tenet describing 11 techniques proposed by the Agency. In addition to the methods already revealed (“waterboarding, sticking insects in the suspects’ faces, “facial holds,” etc.), was an 11th technique: “the use of diapers for prolonged periods.”

The Agency apparently chucked the Pampers strategy after learning it would hit legal hurdles, Ackerman concludes, based on his close reading of the OLC memo and the CIA IG report.

The Republicans aren’t too happy about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether CIA officers and contractors broke anti-torture laws during the interrogations of suspected terrorists.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) flying from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan with security personnel. (Gov)

New York Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, used a few choice words in an interview with Politico today to express his disgust with the upcoming investigation.

“It’s bullshit. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on,” King told Politco adding that the probe was a “declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense.”

But he was only getting started.

“It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration,” King told Politico.

He then had a warning for the Obama administration.

“You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder’s hands,” he told Politico.

Other Republicans were more reserved in their remarks about Holder’s move. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Monday that Holder made “a poor and misguided decision.”

Democratic leaders in Congress applauded the appointment of a special prosecutor, but they said more can still be done. Connecticut Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham will be limited to determining whether there is enough evidence to warrant a full investigation into CIA officials who may have violated the law in their handling of suspected terrorists.

“As I have said for many months, it is vital that this special counsel be given a broad mandate to investigate these abuses, to follow the evidence where it leads, and to prosecute where warranted,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Judiciary constitution, civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee, in a statement Monday. “This must be a robust mission to gather any and all evidence without predetermination of where it may lead. Seeking out only the low-level actors in a conspiracy to torture detainees will bring neither justice nor restored standing to our nation.”

Attorney General Eric Holder will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate cases in which CIA members and contractors may have broken anti-torture laws during the interrogations of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department announced this afternoon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, a 20-year veteran of the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office, was tapped for the job. Read a Washington Post profile of Durham here. Durham is already investigating the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes that allegedly showed the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. He was tapped by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to oversee that probe.

In a statement, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said:

The President has said repeatedly that he wants to look forward, not back, and the President agrees with the Attorney General that those who acted in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance should not be prosecuted.  Ultimately, determinations about whether someone broke the law are made independently by the Attorney General.

Durham will determine whether there is enough evidence to warrant a full investigation into CIA officials who may have violated the law in their handling of suspected terrorists, according to the news release.

The Attorney General’s decision comes on the heels of the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation released today that urged Holder to reopen nearly a dozen CIA prisoner-abuse cases.

“There are those who will use my decision to open a preliminary review as a means of broadly criticizing the work of our nation’s intelligence community,” Holder said in the news release. “I could not disagree more with that view.”

He added, “That is why I have made it clear in the past that the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

Congressional Democrats including Senate Judiciary  Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-Mich.) and House Judiciary constitution, civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) applauded Holder’s decision. Leahy said he hopes this investigation will hold responsible the people who “undermined our values and our laws.”

“I recognize how difficult this decision has been for Attorney General Holder, and I am grateful that the Justice Department is finally being led by an independent Attorney General who is willing to begin investigating this dark chapter in our country’s history,” Leahy said in a statement. “I had no doubt that he would put the interests of the law ahead of politics, and he has demonstrated that.”

But they said that more must be done. Nadler said Holder’s decision was the “first step.”

“As I have said for many months, it is vital that this special counsel be given a broad mandate to investigate these abuses, to follow the evidence where it leads, and to prosecute where warranted,” Nadler said in a statement. “This must be a robust mission to gather any and all evidence without predetermination of where it may lead.  Seeking out only the low-level actors in a conspiracy to torture detainees will bring neither justice nor restored standing to our nation.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta got into a ”profanity-laced screaming match” with a White House staffer last month after learning of Department of Justice plans to investigate brutal interrogations, ABC News reported. Read the story here.

Leon Panetta

The report didn’t identify the White House staffer who was on the receiving end of Panetta’s rage, which ABC News said also included a threat by Panetta to quit. Panetta was reportedly angry about plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open criminal investigations of CIA officers who may have carried out interrogation methods that both Holder and President Obama have characterized as torture.

Holder also won out over Panetta in April, when President Obama sided with the attorney general and released largely unredacted versions of DOJ Office of Legal Counsel memos authorizing the brutal techniques. Click here for our previous report. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that White House counsel Greg Craig’s job may be at stake, in part because of Holder’s decision to release the OLC memos. Craig was an ally of Holder in pushing to release the memos, which kicked up a political controversy that reportedly displeased the president.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsiblity has recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder reopen nearly a dozen CIA prisoner-abuse cases, a person briefed on the matter told The New York Times. Read the NYT story here.

The revelation arrives at the confluence of several events that mark a further break with the Bush administration on the hot-button issue of interrogations.

The Washington Post reported in today’s paper that President Obama has approved a special terrorism interrogation team that would be housed at the FBI but report directly to the National Security Council, shifting oversight from the CIA to the White House. The special interrogation team, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, will comprise experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies and likely be headed by an FBI official, a senior administration official told the Post.

Also, the Obama administration is set to release today a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report detailing prisoner abuse.

But it is the long-awaited OPR report that is likely to have the most consequences. According to the Times, it is now all but certain that Holder will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged CIA abuses, despite Obama’s stated preference to move on.

The OPR report also examined the legal reasoning of the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who authorized interrogation techniques that Holder himself has called torture. It has already been reported that OPR recommended referrals to local bar associations for possible discipline against the OLC lawyers, but further information on the report’s conclusions about the OLC lawyers isn’t known yet.

According to the Times, the part of the OPR report focusing on detainee abuse will be made public after classified information is deleted. The allegations center on incidents reported mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Times said.

Said the Times:

“The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.”

The news of the OPR recommendations follows reports of CIA abuses, including officers carrying out mock executions and threatening at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill.  Under anti-torture statutes, it’s a violation of federal law to threaten a prisoner with imminent death, the Times said.

The first day of school can be rough for professors as they meet their students and start their courses for the semester. But former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo also had to deal with protesters gathered yesterday at University of California Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in order to make it to the front of his civil law class this semester.

John Yoo (Berkeley)

The protesters shouted “war criminal” at the tenured professor and “torture” memo author as he entered the law school building, The Associated Press reported. The demonstrators told The AP that Yoo should be prosecuted for war crimes, disbarred and dismissed from the university for his role in authorizing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Demonstrators also had a mock arrest of Yoo, according to The AP. A few wore black hoods and orange prisoner suits like the detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison photos, the news wire said.

“There is little doubt that John Yoo is a war criminal,” said civil rights attorney Dan Siegel, according to The AP. “John Yoo went to Washington and created the ideological, political and legal basis for the torture of innocent people.”

Yoo paid little attention to the protesters, according to The AP. Campus police arrested at least four people who not vacate the law school building, the news wire reported.

Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley Jr. said he would not consider dismissing Yoo unless the former Bush official was convicted of a crime. Read Edley’s 2008 statement here.

Yoo’s course is one of the law school’s most popular classes and is oversubscribed with 34 students on the waitlist, according to the San Francisco News.

The civil law class is the first course Yoo has taught at the Berkeley law school since 2008. He was a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange County in the spring.

The New Republic profiles John Durham, the special prosecutor from Connecticut appointed by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the CIA’s destruction of videotapes documenting brutal interrogations of terrorism suspects.

After Attorney General Eric Holder was quoted in Newsweek earlier this month saying he was leaning towards appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush-era interrogations, this Washington Post story by Carrie Johnson named Durham as a possible choice for the job.

Johnson wrote:

“Durham may be under consideration for an expanded mandate, given that he already has reviewed hundreds of sensitive CIA cables and other documents related to treatment of detainees.”

Read a more recent New York Times’s story about Holder’s deliberations here.

Quinnipiac law professor Jeffrey Meyer, a former colleague of Durham, told the New Republic: “Think of him as the second coming of Patrick Fitzgerald”– yet without the publicity hound aspect to him.

To us, the most interesting part of the profile is the unearthing of this blog post from a year and a half ago by Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman, a vocal critic of torture. Lederman is now a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, whose lawyers during the Bush administration produced the legal opinions authorizing torture.

Lederman was highly skeptical of Durham’s appointment, questioning his independence (Durham reports to the Deputy Attorney General in the CIA tapes matter):

But there’s nothing really “outside” about John Durham. He’s a career DOJ prosecutor, the number two official in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut. As the Attorney General explained today (see statement below), the case would ordinarily be handled by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, but that U.S. Attorney requested that his office be recused from the matter “in order to avoid any possible appearance of a conflict with other matters handled by that office.” (Hmm . . . what might that mean? That the investigation deals with whether there was obstruction of justice in cases being prosecuted by the E.D. Va., perhaps?)