Constitutional Law

Holder Agrees Waterboarding Is Torture

Attorney General-designate Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture. As noted by The New York Times, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the committee, has been a longtime critic of the Bush administration’s approval of the torture technique used on detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leahy didn’t waste time in probing Holder on his thoughts on the matter. Holder said that waterboarding has been defined as torture for centuries and that he agrees that, “Waterboarding is torture.”

Talking Points Memo also reported that during this morning’s confirmation hearings, Holder said he would re-examine federal prosecutors’ decision not to lodge criminal charges against the former Justice Department official, Bradley Schlozman for politicizing hiring at the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ and then lying to Congress about doing so. Holder told the committee, “I want to know why the determination was made not to pursue charges.” The DOJ’s office of inspector general and office of professional responsibility issued a report earlier this week lashing Schlozman, a former top official at the Civil Rights Division, for seeking to hire ideologues even for nonpolitical positions. That report also concluded that Schlozman gave false statements to Congress about his involvement in the politicization of the division. C-SPAN has video of Holder’s morning session available here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on January 15, 2009 (boomark / email).