Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) of the Senate Intelligence committee has just released a declassified narrative (pdf) of the OLC's development of its opinions on torture.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has already picked out a key excerpt, that sheds some light on just who in the Bush administration helped devise and approve the torture policies:

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The conservative movement may be dead -- but one of its key Washington lieutenants is launching a career in electoral politics.

Barbara Comstock, who ran oppo research for the RNC and chaired Scooter Libby's defense fund, is running for the Virginia House of Delegates, from the Washington DC suburbs, according to a website set up by "Friends of Barbara Comstock".

A staffer at the Fairfax County GOP headquarters confirmed to TPMmuckraker that Comstock will challenge incumbent Democrat Margi Vanderhye.

Comstock's resume as a GOP knife-fighter is beyond impressive.

She served as a lead investigator for the notoriously partisan House Government Reform committee during the 90s, chaired by GOP congressman Dan Burton.

In his 2002 book, Blinded By The Right, David Brock painted a vivid picture of Comstock's obsessive zeal to bring down the Clintons:

Late night calls from Barbara Comstock were not unusual. She often telephoned with the latest tidbit she had dug up in the thousands and thousands of pages of administration records she pored through frantically as if she were looking for a winning lottery ticket she had somehow mislaid ... She once dropped by my house to watch the rerun of a dreadfully dull Whitewater hearing she had sat through all day. Comstock sat on the edge of her chair shaking, and screaming over and over again, "Liars!" As Constock's leads failed to pan out, and she was unable to catch anyone in a lie, the Republican aide confided that the Clinton scandals were driving her to distraction, to the unfortunate point that she was ignoring the needs of her own family. A very smart lawyer by training and the main breadwinner for her charismatic, happy-go-lucky husband and kids, Comstock remarked that maybe she couldn't get Hillary's sins off her brain because "Hillary reminds me of me. I am Hillary." In this admission, a vivid illustration of a much wider "Hillary" phenomenon can be seen. Comstock knew nothing about Hillary Clinton. Comstock's "Hillary" was imaginary, a construction composed entirely of the negative points in her own life.

Comstock may have mellowed a bit over the years, but her passion for trench warfare on behalf of the GOP never cooled.

During the 2000 election, she served as the head of the RNC's opposition research team, digging up dirt on Al Gore. "Al Gore kind of gave us the liar thing," she told The Atlantic in 2004. "He had a problem with the truth, and that could be tied to bigger things and bigger issues."

While at the RNC, she became a "close associate" of Monica Goodling, the Christian conservative lawyer and Muckraker favorite who later would help keep the Bush Justice Department stocked with good Republicans.

Comstock herself also moved to the Bush DOJ, in 2001, to run the department's public affairs operation -- doggedly stiffing reporters as they sought information on the administration's aggressive tactics in the War on Terror.

After leaving Justice, Comstock spent some time helping then-GOP Majority Leader Tom Delay play defense on a host of ethics problems.

Next, Comstock helped run Scooter Libby's legal defense fund, formed to help Libby fight charges that he illegally leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame for political purposes.

Later that year, she was off to run damage control for GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis, who was wrapped up in the Duke Cunningham scandal.

And months later, she teamed up with another GOP spin master, Mark Corallo, to form the crisis management firm Corallo Comstock Inc. The firm opened its doors just in time to help defend scandal-tarred Republicans facing scrutiny from the new Democratic administration. As Corallo put it to Roll Call: "Just in time for subpoena season."

Comstock didn't return a message left at her PR firm, seeking comment on her new career. But a reader reports seeing a volunteer passing out flyers promoting Comstock's statehouse run this morning at a special election site in Fairfax County, Virginia. So her campaign appears to be well underway.

Northern Virginia is turning blue at a rapid pace, so she should have her work cut out for her. But something tells us she'll be up for the challenge.

The highest-ranking official flagged for breaking federal law in today's Department of Justice Inspector General's report was Kyle Sampson, a former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sampson routinely violated DOJ policy and federal law by using overt political and ideological considerations when filling key DOJ jobs such as immigration judges, according to the report today from the DOJ's Inspector General. Federal law and Justice Department policy require career officials to be hired on merit and prohibit discrimination based on political affiliations.

Federal immigration judgeships were especially targeted for politicization. In October 2003, shortly after Sampson started working at DOJ, then as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, he began to overhaul the selection process for immigration judges. "[We] were only considering essentially Republican lawyers for appointment," Sampson said, according to the IG's report. (It was not clear from the report whether Sampson said that to IG investigators or in another setting)

Prior to 2004, immigration judges were appointed in an essentially non-political bureaucratic process handled by the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. Vacancies were posted, resumes sorted, interviews conducted and decisions made by lower-level DOJ officials, according to the report.

Sampson's new process involved "coordination" with White House and an extra effort to get friends of the Bush administration into the judgeships when possible. Sampson circulated a document outlining the new process.

"Many lawyers seeking positions within the Administration, including judgeships, become known to the White House offices of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel, and Counsel to the President." The document stated that some lawyers might qualify to be IJs, and that "coordination" was needed to ensure that such lawyers were "informed of the opportunity" to become IJs.

Also, Sampson often called over to the White House personnel office seeking "ideas for immigration judge postings." Sampson told a staffer to "contact the White House to get any candidate ideas that they had for immigration judges".

In one case, Sampson pushed a prospective judicial candidate who was supported by White House political director Karl Rove.

Regarding that candidate, whose name was not disclosed, Kevin Ohlson, then deputy director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, told the IG's investigators that he was "fully aware of the fact" that Sampson was pushing Rove's pick and that was affecting the formal evaluation.

"The finger was on the scale," Ohlson said.

That candidate was ultimately appointed to be an immigration judge in October 2005, the report said.

When questioned, Sampson said he thought the Immigration judges were political appointees, not career positions, and therefore not subject to civil service rules. He said Ohlson and the Office of Legal Counsel told him that. But Ohlson said he never said anything to that effect and investigators from the IG's office found no evidence that OLC provided any guidance to Sampson on the matter.

Sampson's lawyer, Brad Berenson, said today the hiring decisions were an honest mistake and that Sampson "immediately agreed with the recommendation to put a stop to this process" when he first learned he may have been wrong.

Here's a clip of Sampson's testimony on Capitol Hill in March 2007.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are talking about a criminal investigation for DOJ officials -- Alberto Gonzales included.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said today's report about politicization in at the DOJ suggests that former AG Alberto Gonzales and other Justice officials may have given false statements under oath before Congress.

Conyers said in a statement this morning:

The Report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters. I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

A spokesman for the committee said the committee's lawyers are currently looking over the report and past testimony on the Hill.

That's probably not as dramatic as it sounds. Any criminal referral would be passed on to DOJ, which has so far refused to appoint a special prosecutor for the matter. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said he's not going to pursue contempt referrals from Congress.

The more we see of the back-and-forth between the Department of Justice and the CIA regarding the torture program a few years ago, the more it becomes clear that everyone knew it was a little shady.

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday released three previously undisclosed memos about the torture program from 2002 to 2004, which it obtained as part of its ongoing FOIA lawsuit with the DOJ seeking records on the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas.

One memo in particular appears to instruct the CIA in what agents should say if anyone raised the specter of criminal charges. For example: "To violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering. ...absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture."

"It read like an attorney preparing a mob client for a confrontation with the police," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "Why on earth would you instruct interrogators on the meaning of 'specific intent' unless you wanted to coach them as to what to say when confronted?"

The very existence of this extensive, documented legal exchange between the DOJ and the CIA underscores the intelligence officials' concern about the legality of their own program, said Herman Schwartz, a former civil rights attorney and law professor at American University.

"The CIA people knew this was shaky stuff -- that's why they kept asking for memos from the Justice Department saying this was OK. They were very scared they would have to face up to this in some way later on," Schwartz said in a telephone interview.

An August 2002 memo from DOJ came about the same time the attorney general had laid out a definition of torture so narrow as to only involved things like "organ failure." Specifically, the CIA wanted to know, how does that apply in practice?

Then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee wrote to the CIA: "You have asked for this office's views on whether certain proposed conduct would violate the prohibition against torture found ...[in] United States Code."

Virtually all of the "proposed conduct" was redacted with large black marks covering whole pages. In fact, more than 80 percent of the 23 pages released to the ACLU were blacked out, apparently concealing the names of agents involved in the program and the specific techniques in question.

The memo spells out a legal logic that rests not on the facts of what may occur during interrogation, but the "defendant's" state of mind (the defendant being anyone who may actually get charged with torture).

...If a defendant acts with good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent. A defendant acts in good faith when he has an honest belief that his actions will not result in severe pain or suffering.

So, hypothetically, an interrogator gets up in front of a grand jury and tells them he had the "good faith" belief that a few hours of waterboarding was not going to cause "severe pain or suffering."

What if a jury doesn't buy it? The memo goes on to say: "Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is reasonable basis for it."

About six months later, Tenet sent a memo to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel informing them that the interrogators were keeping copious records.

"In each interrogation session in which enhanced Technique is employed, a contemporaneous record shall be created setting forth the nature and duration of each technique employed, the identities of those present."

Turley called that a "C-Y-A memo."

It wasn't long after that that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft rescinded the key 2002 memos that provided hte legal foundation for the torture programs.

Maybe the most important question raised by these new memos involves the records of torture sessions that Tenet referred to.

"We know there are records of what happened. Then the next question is: Will they come to light and to what extent?" Schwartz said. "I have to wonder what would be the significance of a Democratic president? If he puts his person in as head of the CIA and he puts his person in at head of DOJ? Will they as most executives are likely to do, continue to cover up what happened because of bureaucratic imperative? Or the alternative -- to provide this to Congress?"

As we've reported , former Attorney General John Ashcroft was on the Hill yesterday, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.

Ashcroft's testimony called into question the timeline of the CIA interrogations and suggested that perhaps torture began before it was authorized by the DOJ. But it also shed some light on the DOJ's thought process about the authorization of the interrogations to begin with.

It was during Ashcroft's years as attorney general that the infamous "torture" memos were written. The memos approved the use of waterboarding and other forms of interrogation as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure."

While Ashcroft approved the memos initially, he later withdrew them out of concern that they overstepped the bounds of executive authority, a decision that he described this way:

It wasn't a hard decision for me to - when they came to me, and I came to the conclusion that these were genuine concerns - get about the business of correcting it.

Just one week ago the committee was host to the current Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

And just like Mukasey, Ashcroft was ever the artful dodger, citing a lack of memory, executive privilege or the classified nature of the information as reasons why he could not answer lawmakers' questions.

When asked asked repeatedly about waterboarding, Ashcroft described it as "very valuable," "not torture," and claimed that it "has happened three times."

"I have been aware of waterboarding," he stated in answer to questions on how he learned that the interrogation technique was being used. "I'm not sure how I am aware."

The former attorney general conceded his lack of recall as to the events in question during his opening remarks.

"It's been difficult . . . to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others," he said.

And indeed throughout the hearing, Ashcroft informed the committee that he couldn't remember. . . and that even if he could remember, he wouldn't tell them because of executive privilege.

One particularly rapid-fire stonewalling occurred during Rep. Linda Sanchez's (D-CA) five minutes of interrogation. It really can't be summed into words, so we have the clip here. Enjoy.

Did the CIA start using torture before the DOJ authorized it in the infamous torture memos?

That's what it sounded like according to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was on the Hill yesterday testifying on interrogation techniques before the House Judiciary Committee.

It was during Ashcroft's years as attorney general that the infamous "torture" memos were written. The memos approved the use of waterboarding and other forms of interrogation as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure." The first memo-- often called the Bybee memo -- was dated August 1, 2002 and was written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, who also testified before the Judiciary Committee in an earlier hearing in the series on torture.

But at least four months prior to the publication of that memo, the CIA captured al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah on March 28, 2002. Zubaydah's detention and interrogation has garnered much publicity, as it was thought to be especially brutal and involved waterboarding.

The CIA has long denied employing harsh interrogation techniques before it received authorization via the legal memos provided by the DOJ, but Ashcroft's testimony yesterday called that timeline into question, and raised the possibility that "the CIA started torturing at least one detainee before any of the memos were even written."

From Salon's War Room:

But during questioning, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pointed out that the abuse of Zubaydah had reportedly begun weeks, if not months, earlier. "Did you offer legal approval of interrogation methods used at that time ... prior to August 2002?"

"I have no recollection of doing that at all," Ashcroft responded. He added that he did not remember anyone else at the Justice Department doing so either. He said later in the hearing that Zubaydah's interrogation "was done without the opinion that was issued on the first of August."

Video of the exchange below:

If this doesn't set the tone for former Attorney General John Ashcroft's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on interrogation methods at Guantanamo, I don't know what does.

In his opening statement, Ashcroft admitted that he had "limited recollection" of the events pertinent to the committee's inquiry. Specifically, "it's been difficult . . . to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others."

Before these hearings commenced, I had but a limited recollection of many of the events pertinent to your inquiry. In attempting to prepare for this hearing, I have reviewed testimony from prior hearings, I've read portions of publications recounting some of the timely events, and I must admit, it's been difficult for me sometimes to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others. As a result, what I hope, what I say will be of value to the committee. Reliance on my statements and observations aught to be tempered by these awarenesses.

For smart guys, there sure seems to be an awful lot of lack of recall in the Bush administration.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft left the Department of Justice more than three years ago, but he's still in the news and will be up on Capitol Hill this morning for testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

This morning's Washington Post takes us back to to 2003 and shows how the White House insisted on getting its own man inside the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.

In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft's list reached the White House, President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.

Ashcroft's refusal created a tense standoff and was the only time in the attorney general's tenure that Bush was called upon to resolve a personnel dispute, the sources said.

Ashcroft's testimony starts at 10 AM ET. We'll be watching and posting, so stay tuned for updates.

Inspector General Glenn Fine's report on the politicization of the Justice Department's Honors Program was just released, and states that the OIG did find evidence -- surprise! -- that politics and ideology were weighed in the selection of candidates, but that only Michael Elston, the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, and Esther McDonald, former counsel to Associate Attorney General and member of Honors Program Screening Committee, were involved.

From (pdf) the report:

The evidence in our investigation - including the documentary evidence, the testimony of witnesses, and the analysis of the applications of candidates who were selected for interviews and who were deselected by the 2006 Screening Committee - supports the conclusion that political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates from the Honors Program and SLIP.

As discussed below, we concluded that while Daniel Fridman did not use political or ideological affiliations in his evaluation of candidates, the evidence indicates that both McDonald and Elston did. As a result, many qualified candidates were deselected by the Screening Committee because of their perceived political or ideological affiliations.

McDonald, who worked with Fridman (an assistant U.S. Attorney from the
Southern District of Florida who was detailed to the deputy AG's office) to screen applications before they were sent to Elston, would often notate the applicants ideology (from page 73):

When Fridman asked McDonald how she obtained the additional information, she told him she conducted searches on Google and MySpace, and read law review articles written by the applicants. For example, Fridman recalled that one candidate had written a law review article about the detention of individuals at Guantánamo, and McDonald noted on the application that she perceived the applicant's viewpoint to be contrary to the position of the administration. On another application, McDonald noted that she found information on the Internet indicating that a candidate was an "anarchist."

We'll have more on this as we look over the 110-page report today.

[Late Update: Chief of Staff for the Deputy Attorney General, Michael Elston was named in the report as being in violation of federal laws for weighing "political and ideological" leanings in the hiring process. Elston and Esther McDonald, a former DOJ lawyer, were both found in violation of DOJ policy.]

The first in a series of inspector general reports investigating the politicization of the Justice Department is expected today, and the Washington Post has a sneak peek.

The report to be released today by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine will, according to the Post, chronicle how young conservative law students were favored hires in stocking the DOJ's prestigious -- and heretofore non-partisan -- Honors Program.

Under former Attorney General John Ashcroft, oversight for the Honors Program, which had traditionally been the responsibility of senior career officials, fell under the purview of Ashcroft's key political advisers.

The honors program, which each year places about 150 law school graduates with top credentials in a rotation of Justice jobs, historically had operated under the control of senior career officials. Shifting control of the program to Ashcroft's advisers prompted charges of partisanship from law professors and former government lawyers who had worked under Democratic administrations.

Critics complained that the honors program favored conservative applicants, and turned down highly qualified prospects because of left-leaning affiliations:

One Harvard Law School graduate said that when he applied for the honors program a few years ago he was warned by professors and fellow students to remove any liberal affiliations from his résumé.

Concerned Justice employees also raised alarms last year by sending a letter to lawmakers who had been examining whether political considerations led to the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Keep an eye out for Michael Elston in the report today. The former chief of staff to the deputy attorney generalwas named as a central figure in the politicization of the honors program over a year ago:

Allegations concerning political hiring for the Honors Program -- the Department's historically rigorous program for hiring entry-level lawyers -- have centered on Michael Elston, the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general. A group of anonymous Justice Department employees raised alarms with Congress last month, complaining that Elston rejected hundreds of potential applicants to the program last year seemingly based on their political backgrounds.

Following the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the FBI role in Sept. 11 detainee interrogations, high-level administration officials have been implicated in the debates over torture tactics. Now, besides the DoJ's investigation, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller are facing private suits from the detainees.

From the AP:

The Supreme Court says it will decide whether former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller must face a lawsuit that claims prisoners detained after Sept. 11 were subject to ethnic and religious discrimination.

The lawsuit was filed by Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim who spent nearly six months in solitary confinement in 2002. Iqbal, since deported from the United States, says Ashcroft, Mueller and others implemented a policy of confining detainees in highly restrictive conditions because of their religious beliefs and race.

A federal appeals said the lawsuit could proceed, but the Bush administration says the high-ranking officials should not have to answer for the allegedly discriminatory acts of subordinates.