Bill Burton, the deputy White House spokesman who is with the vacationing president in Oak Bluffs, Mass., said that creation of the unit does not mean the C.I.A. is out of the interrogation business. The new unit will include “all these different elements under one group,” he said at the briefing, and would work out of F.B.I. headquarters in Washington.

In a background briefing about the interrogation unit, senior administration officials on Monday played down the notion that it would fall under direct, daily White House supervision. They also emphasized that while the National Security Council would provide it strategic guidance, the unit’s tactical operations would “be administratively housed within the F.B.I.” and involve officials drawn from many governmental agencies.

Office of Legal Counsel

Bybee served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the United States Justice Department from November 2001 to March 2003.[7][8]

I just didn’t see it before.

Now, the CIA is the scapegoat and Cheney slips through blameless? [Obama praised the CIA a few days ago, now has taken interrogation away from them and created a ‘czar of interrogation’…] I’m glad, wish Obama would wipe out the Murder Inc. arm of the CIA.

…one of the very few events described in the IG Report that involves Cheney is that July 29 meeting. Per the SSCI Narrative, the attendees were (from the CIA) Tenet and Muller and (from the National Security Counsel) Cheney, Condi, Ashcroft, the Acting head of OLC (?), Yoo(?), Gonzales, and Bellinger.

Sure are a lot of the National Security Council absent: the President, Dir DOD, Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury; leaving Cheney and Ashcroft really the only 2 heavy hitters.

Since all clandestine operations undertaken by the CIA are supposed to be at the direction of the NSC [not dreamed up by the CIA and approved by NSC]
, and given that this meeting was about a very critical and sensitive operation of the CIA, seems NSC membership attendance should have been the full list. Smells like rigged timing and attendance by Cheney and with Bush absent, then Cheney was in command.

President George W. Bush nominated Bybee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and he was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 13, 2003. He received his commission on March 21, 2003, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor administered the oath of office at the Supreme Court on March 28, 2003.

and more, from List of Assistant Attorneys General for the Office of Legal Counsel:

Jay S. Bybee (2001-2003), in charge when the OLC issued the “Torture memo”
Jack Goldsmith (2003-2004), professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Terror Presidency (after resigning from OLC)
Daniel Levin, served as Acting AAG from 2004-2005

So we know that, “Specifically the Principals were briefed concerning the number of times the waterboard had been administered to certain detainees” and we know that Congress (was advised openly and repeatedly that there had been three instances of waterboarding. So we know that the Principals who were briefed had actual knowledge that Congress was being lied to and said nothing.

As much of a disappointment as Levin is, he did at least make the correction. But until the release of the memos publically, most of Congress had been lied to or at best actively misled about the “three times” re: waterboarding and the Principals knew. So why did Tenet and Rice and Ashcroft in particular – allow Congress to be told that there had been three waterboardings, or to be told in such a way as to believe there had been three waterboardings? And why isn’t that obstruction would, I guess, be a next question.

http://www.reuters.com/article…..SN05178151
CIA says used waterboarding three times

The CIA on three occasions shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday

…
Those subjected to waterboarding were al Qaeda suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said.

He said waterboarding has not been used in five years

Since the article in Feb 5, 2008, he is saying no CIA directed waterboarding since Feb 5, 2003. Not that what he says and the truth necessarily intersect. Which does add that much more of a ?? to why Rizzo was asking Levin for a specific authorization to torture via waterboarding in 2004. Which would have been within the five years Hayden denies.

And TPM says that Ashcroft made millions as a corporate monitor. … the “then US Attorney Chris Christie, was a subordinate of Ashcroft’s at DOJ. Ashcroft was reportedly given the job — said to be worth between $28 and 52 million to the Ashcroft Group, at Zimmer’s expense — with no public notice and no outside bidding.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..sees_d.php

It seems weird that Muller would insert lines into a draft saying that Ashcroft had signed off on expanded torture techniques, and then later (in 2007) assist in the “deferred prosecution” scam to payoff Ashcroft.

I’m not sure about that. The OLC only has delegated authority – the AG is still the ultimate call. And if his position was later reduced to writing, in an OLC memo or in a not yet released (bc of privilege claims) memo to the WH or some other reason, you might have that aspect too.

But if you are looking at reliance opinions as reliance opinions, then a predicate for good faith reliance is that the advice was sought and obtained prior to taking the actions. So the weight of the AG vs an OLC opinion isn’t as much at issue as the “after the fact” aspect. If you are not going with the acutal “good faith reliance on advice of counsel” legal defense as established by courts (under which the OLC memos fail for a number of reasons, including the failure to get advance authorization, the failure to comply with the exact terms of the opinions, etc.) then the lack of a writing wouldn’t be more fatal to the Ashcroft verbal advice than the many lapses in the OLC opinions are to their advice.

Which then clarifies the issue that the “good faith” defense Obama and Holder are claiming for those who acted “within the four corners” of the OLC opinions is not in any way, shape or form the kind of good faith reliance on advice of counsel defense that would be acceptable in any court. It’s just something they have made up – so they can make up an “or like, ya know, if Ashcroft says something in a forest and no one is there to hear it, like, ya know, it’s still something that a torturer can rely on to torurter, ‘kaythnxbai” theory too I guess. If none of them ever get before a court and if Congress lets them, why not?

*sigh*