It sounds like Sheldon Whitehouse is focusing primarily on the upcoming OPR report–and tomorrow’s hearing will pave the way for that report.

McCain is lecturing Nancy Pelosi about all the things she should have done had she been briefed on waterboarding. But that lecture is coming from a guy who promptly capitulated to Bush demands that he water down the Detainee Treatment Act after being briefed on torture.

Jello Jay has finally resorted to explaining things to journalists reeeaaalllly slowly, so they can understand the things he revealed in the SSCI narrative on torture.

Cheney gave an incredibly hedged answer when asked whether Bush knew about and authorized torture. Of course, Bob Schieffer didn’t ask the obvious follow-up to figure out WTF it meant.

Since Andy Worthington reported on Sheikh al-Libi’s death over the weekend, a few more details on timing have come out.

Ibn Sheikh al-Libi Died in the Last Two Weeks

The first important point is that al-Libi died sometime after April 27, when a Human Rights Watch researcher ran into him in a Libyan jail.

Bob Graham appears to go even further than Pelosi denying he was briefed on torture. There may be reasons for that. But the big point remains: the Bush Administration and the CIA did not fulfill legal obligations to brief Congress on torture.

The torture apologists want you to believe that the CIA never referred any torture for criminal investigation. But that doesn’t seem to be right.

We have been talking heavily about torture, renditions and the legal and motivational justifications therefore nonstop for the last couple of weeks. But one of the earliest entries in this sordid tale (witness the December 18, 2001 entry on Marcy’s Torture Timeline) was the capture and torture of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi. Now he is dead.

The CIA and SSCI disagree about key details on Senate torture briefings. So why isn’t Pat Roberts clarifying the issue?

The GOP squeals and Obama greases their detainee wheel. On May 1st, the New York Times warned that President Obama was contemplating reinstating the tyrannical Bush/Cheney military tribunals for Gitmo detainees. Today we are one step closer to return of the tribunals, a regrettable turn away from the appropriate standard of American justice and due process.