Waterboarding

Cia Pick Pompeo Defies Trump, Says He Won't Waterboard

... waterboarding. Asked about the skepticism by Trump's opponents as to the legitimacy of the election and political division, Pompeo told the committee: "I have no doubt that the discourse that's been taking place is something that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin would look at and say, 'Wow, that was among the objectives that I had.". Copy this code to your website or blog. Earlier in the hearing, Pompeo said he believed a recent report from the intelligence community concluding that Russia tried to help Republican President-elect Donald Trump by "discrediting" his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, was "sound.". If confirmed as CIA director, he added, "I will continue to pursue foreign intelligence with vigor no matter where the facts lead.". A Rocky Start. As Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's ranking Democrat, was making his opening remarks, the power went out, prompting everyone to relocate to a different room. Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the committee's chairman, assured NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell the outage was the result of a central power failure affecting parts of the Senate office building, and not some nefarious cause. ...

Let's Talk About Waterboarding

... Bush to the CIA. "Are the techniques legal?" Bush said he asked his advisors when the waterboarding of detainees was under discussion. With Justice Department lawyers asserting that the near-drowning technique did not violate the law - in a series of verbal and written opinions that have since been discredited - the president apparently had the legal cover he needed to authorize the CIA's crimes. These memos served a purpose - they were used to facilitate torture. But their reasoning was shoddy; their citation of precedent was scattershot and unreliable; and their conclusions were simply wrong. A report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility issued in February 2010 firmly repudiated the memos' legal reasoning. It found specifically that, in drafting the memos, Yoo had "violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective and candid legal advice.". An Ongoing Investigation. Despite the crumbling of torture's legal facade, investigations into the crime of torture have made little progress. Durham, the special prosecutor who had been ...

President Trump On Waterboarding

... country safe. MUIR: What does that mean. TRUMP: When they're shooting - when they're chopping off the heads of our people, and other people. When they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East - when ISIS is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire. Now, with that being said, I'm going with Gen. Mattis, I'm going with my secretary, because I think Pompeo is gonna be phenomenal. I'm going to go with what they say. But I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question. Does it work? Does torture work - and the answer was yes, absolutely. MUIR: You're now the president. Do you want waterboarding back. TRUMP: I don't want people to chop off the citizens' or anybody's heads in the Middle East, okay? Because they're Christian or Muslim or anything else. I don't want, look. /. TRUMP: Now they chop them off and they put them on camera and they send them all over the ...

Trump's Cia Pick Said He Was Against Waterboarding. Then He Changed His Tune

... from taking any steps to authorize or implement any plan that would bring back waterboarding or any other enhanced interrogation [technique]." Pompeo gave a different answer this time. "I will consult with the experts at the Agency and at other organizations in the U. S. government on whether the Army Field Manual uniform application is an impediment to gathering vital intelligence to protect the country or whether any rewrite of the Army Field Manual is needed," Pompeo wrote. "If any such differences are justified, a fundamental requirement is that such differences fully comply with law, including laws governing the treatment and interrogation of individuals.". The written questions also elicited Pompeo's thoughts on the CIA's collection of publicly available information on Americans, a controversial practice given that the CIA is generally a foreign-focused intelligence agency that's supposed to engage in only limited domestic activity. "I made the __link__ the context of if 'someone's out there on their Facebook page talking about an attack ...

Donald Trump Cabinet Nominees Promise To Prohibit The Use Of Waterboarding

... people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say. The comments by Sessions and Kelly indicate that Trump may get pushback from his Cabinet members if he tries to reinstate waterboarding. “Senator Sessions has confirmed what the human rights community has emphasized for years: Waterboarding is ‘absolutely illegal and improper.’ . If confirmed as attorney general, Sessions will be responsible for upholding the law and must stand firm against any efforts to reintroduce such heinous practices,” said Sarah Dougherty, senior anti-torture fellow with Physicians for Human Rights. “Any other stance would violate or circumvent the absolute ban on torture.”. Want more updates from Amanda Terkel? Sign up for her ...

Sessions Reveals Whether He Thinks Waterboarding Is Legal

... General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said,’ What do you think of waterboarding?’. He said — I was surprised — he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’. And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And while Session’s testimony Tuesday indicates that it would be difficult for Trump to reinstate waterboarding as an interrogation tactic in the military, he did support it. During a 2008 speech, Sessions said he was relieved that then-Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey’s review of waterboarding did not include an unequivocal promise that it would never happen again. He said. I am glad he is able to say waterboarding was utilized only three times, that it had not been used in 5 ...

Dhs Pick Breaks With Trump On Controversial Proposals, Appears Poised For Confirmation

... with the idea of targeting individuals on the sole basis of their religion. Under questioning from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, Kelly agreed conducting surveillance of US mosques and creating a database of Muslims in the US raised constitutional issues. "I don't think it's ever appropriate to focus on something like religion as the only factor (in counterterrorism)," Kelly said. "I don't agree with registering people based on ethnic or religion.". Kelly was also pressed by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, on deportation priorities under a Trump administration, expressing the concern and fears that undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children feel. Kelly declined to elaborate on his priorities for deportation, but said law-abiding undocumented immigrants would "probably not be at the top of the list" and said "the law will guide me.". He noted that the incoming administration's immigration policies have not yet been set and said he has not been involved in those discussions. Kelly also addressed the issue of data collection several times during the hearing and said he is opposed to the "mass collection of data ...

Trump Says He'll 'rely' On Cabinet On Whether To Resurrect Waterboarding

... Middle East when crisis is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times. Would I feel strongly in waterboarding. As far as I'm concerned we have to fight fire with right now. That being said. I'm going we general matters I'm going with my secretary because I think pump it's going to be phenomenal. I'm gonna go with what they say. But I have spoken as recently. Is. 24 hours ago. With people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked him the question. Does it work does torture work. Idiots who was yes absolutely you're now the president do you want waterboarding. I don't want people to chop off the citizens or anybody's heads in the Middle East okay. Because there Christian or was local or anything else I don't want look now they chapel muff and put them on camera they send them along with the world. So we have and we're not allowed she doing. We're not playing an even field I will say this. I will relying on Pompeo and madness and my group. And it they don't wanna do that's fine if they do want to do. Then I will work toward that it will do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally. What do I feel ...

If Trump Wants Waterboarding, This Could Be Why

... just enough gas in the tank to do both), so that they could debate the pluses and minuses of their country’s aircraft later in a bar he had built specifically for his prisoners. After the war, Pentagon officials invited him to give lectures. It was hard work, he told them. He had to build extensive dossiers on each pilot and often made outlandish statements just so the POWs would feel compelled to correct him. In interrogations with 500 US and Allied pilots, he claimed to have elicited useful information from all but 20. In a research experiment based on Scharff’s techniques, participants overwhelmingly believed that they had revealed far less information to their interrogator than they actually had. Paying a price. For his part, Mitchell agrees that it is often in “fireside chats” following interrogations – in which he would tell detainees that the interrogation was over and he just wanted to get their input on how it went – that he has gleaned some of his best information. But such techniques without waterboarding would never work on ...

Will Donald Trump Bring Back Torture

... is particularly the case since, unlike Bush, Trump openly uses the word “torture”, which is unambiguously in violation of the laws of armed conflict and international human rights law. Trump will almost certainly need to consider the diplomatic fallout of open waterboarding policy, particularly with respect to intelligence-sharing and joint military activities. In both of these areas, American allies are likely to be highly resistant to finding themselves involved in cooperation that involves the use of torture. Counting the costs. In Trump, we have a president-in-waiting who openly advocates for torture, supported by the American public. Though he will face opposition from within the US government and legal system, if there are more successful terrorist attacks on American soil, the pre-existing public support for torture, combined with the momentum for the president to “do something”, might be difficult to overcome. Reversing the support for torture ...