Leahy Proposes ‘Truth Commission’ For Bush Era

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called today for the creation of an expansive, independent commission to allow for the airing of possible Bush-era wrongdoings.

In a speech at Georgetown University, Leahy suggested the commission could have subpoena power and the authority to grant immunity from prosecution. He told reporters afterward that he envisions a panel that's bipartisan and looks at a wide variety of topics, including the Iraq war and politicization at the Department of Justice.

Others, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), have made similar proposals. Leahy’s comments (video from C-SPAN here) were his first endorsement of such an idea, and he would have a key role in shaping such a proposal because of his committee’s jurisdiction.

“We need to get to the bottom of what happened and why,” Leahy said. “The reason we do that is so that it’ll never happen again. One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process—a truth commission.”

President Barack Obama has not signaled much support for such a proposal, preferring to focus on implementing his own agenda. Leahy said he had not consulted the administration or Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. before speaking today. A White House spokesman declined to comment. A Republican spokesman also had no comment.

Leahy rejected the idea that Congress should move on.

“We shouldn’t abandon seeking ways of providing accountability for what’s happened in the past during a dangerous and disastrous diversion from American law and values, and I don’t want the focus to go off that,” he said. “Many Americans feel we need to get to the bottom of what went wrong. I agree. We need to be able to read the page before we turn the page.”

Some topics he said he would like to see investigated: the firing of U.S. attorneys, the treatment of detainees, and the use of waterboarding. Asked by a reporter if he would also want the commission to look at issues such as the Iraq war, he said he would. “There were lies told to the American people all the way back through. There were a lot of policies based on those lies. So let’s go back to them, find out what the lies were,” he said.

Leahy invoked the experiences of South Africa and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission following the end of apartheid, and of Greensboro, N.C., and a commission established there to investigate a 1979 massacre. He also drew a comparison with the Church Committee that investigated federal surveillance of civilians during the Vietnam War.

He did not suggest any individuals to lead the commission he was proposing but said its members should be people who are “universally recognized as fair-minded and without any axe to grind.”

And he qualified his endorsement of the idea by saying it would need board support to be successful. “We need to see if there’s interest in Congress and in the new administration. We would need to work through concerns about classified information and claims about executive privilege,” he said. “Most of all, we need to see if the American people are ready to take this step.”

UPDATE: A response from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), ranking GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee:

“No good purpose is served by continuing to persecute those who served in the previous Administration. President Obama promised to usher in an era of 'change' and bipartisan harmony. Unfortunately, the continued effort by some Democrats to unjustly malign former Bush Administration officials is politics as usual.

“We have already had a thorough investigation into the Justice Department, including a two year inquiry led by Democrats in Congress and an official investigation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General. The Inspector General made recommendations to prevent future wrongdoing and those recommendations have already been implemented. Rather than continuing to waste taxpayers time and money on fruitless finger-pointing, Congress should focus on the future and what we can do to help the American people during these difficult times.”

Comments

[Mica]

In a nutshell, I don't think this is the right time for a Truth Commission. We are not in a classic transitional justice situation where the nation can't move forward without airing the past. We are also not in a situation where our justice system would be overwhelmed by the volume of potential prosecutions of actors from the 'old regime.'

This type of justice forum is most useful in fulfilling the revenge instinct of a group of formerly oppressed people by allowing them (or actually a few of their representatives) to tell their stories.

Since I think few people actually know what these commissions do (and don't do), I have taken the liberty of explaining a bit on my blog (http://micatucker.blogspot.com/)

[bob klinck]

To add to Jeff's list, would one of the issues
addressed by this commission be the connection of all this wrong-doing to the influence of AIPAC?

Of course not. So the commission inevitably would just be another exercise in obfuscation.

[bushcokills]

if the Repuglicans continue to try to block any real reform, then, since there is no post partisan era, we need to begin a series of investigations into the Bush White House, including what really happened on Sept 11. Best case is gross incompetence and dereliction. Why did Cheney order the military not to defend the Capitol on that day?

[Bob Smith]

I think Leahy may really want to to a serious investigation. He was targeted in the anthrax attack.

We need a truth commission. Take another look at the secret energy meeting, 9/11, Allen Greenspan, Halliburton.....

[KL]

Would this be the same high (ha, ha) quality of "truth" that we got from the 911 Commission, and virtually every other commission put in place by US government, going back endless decades? The same quality of truth we get from virtually ALL of our politicians and their hacks, and talking heads, not to mention media in the US? That "quality" of truth"?
Spituey!

[justice4courtney.com]

For starters, the wardens and corrections officers who set-up and worked in the Abu Ghraib prison and Iraq prisons during the abuse and torture period should not come back to America's prison,jails, private prisons or detention centers. Ending the torture means ending this era of those who fostered and enabled the torture and abusive behavior. They can look for a different career like so many others who have lost professional careers during corruption and abuse of power. We need transparency here.

[abstractduk]

1. the rothschilds own your government. whoever takes the seat of president, they are owned 2. the rothschilds lend your government the bailout money. 3. your government pays the bulk of the bailout loan to banks...that are owned by the rothschilds. 4. you pay back the loan with your taxes via your rothschilds owned government back to the rothschilds. ...what do you not understand? why do you argue amongst yourself about trivia? rothschilds ARE the NWO. we have only one common enemy.

[bob]

the American people are ready for it but congress can`t face the truth

[Mister Jimmy]

If 'classified documents' imperil liberty, they should be leaked. And what far-right stooge classifies them in the first place? There never was any 'winning' of anything in Iraq to start with, so Reid was right. They haven't even stolen very much oil. Our bridges and roads crumble, kids not far from my house go to schools built in the l800's and we build roads and schools in Iraq. For what? We have lost, old buddy, by going there at all. We will soon learn of a massive 'loss' in Afghanistan too. We'll be at the end of a long line of foreigners who have failed to subdue the people of Afghanistan down through recorded time.

[John]

"Truth and Reconciliation" is a misnomer here. There is nothing to reconcile. What is needed is a "Truth and Repudiation Commission" (armed with the power of subpoena and contempt)that will expose all legal violations of the previous administration, no matter how long it takes, so that history cannot be covered up or distorted, and so we never, and I mean NEVER go back to the disastrous and unconstitutional policies of the previous administration. There will not be prosecutions, for lack of backbone, but at least the court of history can judge what we citizens allowed to happen in our name.

[Larry Linn]

Attempting to find truth and ethics in the Bush-Cheney administration is a waste of government funds. Truth and integrity did not exist in the Bush-Cheney Administration. It was based upon mendacity.

[Jeff]

The "truth" commission I'd love to see is an independent tax audit of every member of congress, the senate the SCOUS and every elected or appointed official in the White House. Both parties, no exceptions.

It's about time we hold these people to the standards of the laws that they pass.

[Mark Besse]

Will the so called 'truth' commission look into the leak of classified documents by a senator from Vermont?

I don't think so.

Will it investigate the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by democratic leaders and contributors?

No way.

Will it charge senators with aiding and abetting the enemy during the Gulf War 2, including "we have lost" Reid?

Are you really so stupid, you need another rhetorical question?