Investigate Eric Holder & Leon Panetta!

Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly mulling whether to investigate the Bush administration's alleged abuse of terrorist detainees. And CIA Director Leon Panetta is currently prodding lawmakers to investigate the Bush administration's alleged directive to the CIA to keep a secret counter-terrorism program hidden from congress.

However, before the US Justice Dept. and Congress follow the marching orders of Eric Holder and Leon Panetta, proper protocol would dictate that they first investigate whether Mr. Holder and Panetta, while working in the Clinton administration, had any knowledge of the Clinton administration's extraordinary renditions program.

Bear in mind that in 1993, Leon Panetta was chosen by President Clinton to be Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget. In 1994 Mr. Clinton appointed Panetta to be his Chief of Staff, a position which he held until 1997.

As chief of staff, Mr. Panetta sat in on the daily intelligence briefings, and in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget, he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs.

Eric Holder was Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General from 1997 till 2001.

In May of 2009, during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, then-Attorney General nominee Eric Holder was grilled by Senators Lamar Alexander and Richard Shelby about his role in the CIA's "rendition" program under Bill Clinton:

Didn't that [extraordinary renditions] happen during the Clinton administration? [They asked]

Yes, Holder said.

"How many did you approve?" they asked.

Holder said he'd check the record....

Heh....

According to MSNBC, The senators were suggesting that if any criminal investigation were to be opened by Mr. Holder, "Republicans would push to get it expanded beyond events during the Bush administration."

The following are but two examples of extraordinary renditions that took place under Bill Clinton:

Talaat Fuad Qassim, a leader of al-Gamaa Islamiya, the Egyptian jihadist group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, in the 1990s, was subjected to extraordinary rendition. In late 1995, he was kidnapped in Croatia, interrogated by US agents on a ship on the Adriatic Sea, then handed over to Egypt. Human rights experts believe he was tortured, then executed - no record of any trial exists.

In July 1998, several members of the Egyptian Jihad organization - which at the time, was merging with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network - were nabbed in Albania by Albanian security agents. They were then flown on a CIA-chartered plane to Cairo, where they were beaten and tortured. Two of the detainees were subsequently hanged in an Egyptian prison yard.

Some of the detainees reported that Egyptian interrogators had applied electrical shocks to their nipples, genitals and feet while suspending them in mid air by their limbs....

Incidentally, former CIA agent Robert Baer was once quoted as saying: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt."

Surely, Eric Holder [he even conceded to it at his confirmation hearing] and Leon Panetta must have been aware of the CIA's secret renditions program. Mr. Holder, after all, was Deputy Attorney General at the time and Leon Panetta was Clinton's Chief of Staff. Panetta sat in on Mr. Clinton's daily intelligence briefings. [Which was the reason Barack Obama said he had appointed Mr. Panetta to be CIA Director.]

Thus, this begs the question: Why didn't Mr. Holder, in his capacity as Deputy head of the Justice Dept, open up an investigation into the Clinton administration's misconduct? And why didn't Leon Panetta at the time prod members of congress to investigate the CIA's secret program?

Did they even bother to inform members of congress about the program? And, if they did, who did they tell, and why didn't these members of congress investigate the matter?

Clearly, Eric Holder and Leon Panetta - and perhaps members of congress - were aware of the program, and in their silence, they were accessories to the crime.

Thus, I say, let the investigations begin! However, Eric Holder and Leon Panetta must take the witness stand first and explain what role they played in the Clinton administration's secret renditions program.

I beseech readers of this blog to take a few minutes of their time to email one or more of the following lawmakers [or if you prefer, email your own senator or district representative] and ask them to open up an investigation into the role that Eric Holder and Leon Panetta might have played in the Clinton administration's extraordinary renditions program.

Simply copy and paste the URL address [permalink] of this blog post
[http://obamareport.blogspot.com/2009/07/investigate-eric-holder-leon-panetta.html] and add the following sentence: "Investigate Holder and Panetta!" That's it! When emailing Senators Lamar Alexander and Richard Shelby, remind them of the exchange they had with Mr. Holder during his confirmation hearing.

Jim DeMint

Lamar Alexander

Richard Shelby

Connie Mack