A Sudden Concern About the Economy

Legal blogger Marty Lederman enumerates all the things Harman failed to do in her letter. Among them:

"She does not threaten to inform any of her colleagues in Congress about the shocking illegal conduct of which she has learned.

"She does not begin a public debate about whether such conduct is lawful and, if not, whether the U.S. should amend the law and therefore breach its treaty obligations.

"She does not question the classification of the techniques. . . .

"She is told that that there is videotape of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation 'that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry.' Although she 'urge[s] the Agency to 'reconsider that plan,' and warns that destruction 'would reflect badly on the Agency,' she does not question whether such destruction would be unlawful, nor ask why the videotaping was discontinued as to Zubaydah and other detainees, nor warn any of her colleagues about the destruction of evidence that she knows has been planned.

"Jane Harman, in other words (and three other members of Congress), had it in her power to blow the lid on -- and end -- the U.S. torture regime in early 2003, or, at the very least, to initiate a congressional and public debate about the issue."

As for where the new criminal investigation will lead, Greg Miller and Richard B. Schmitt write in the Los Angeles Times: "The advice that Muller and other administration lawyers offered on whether the tapes could be destroyed is likely to be a major avenue of inquiry for John H. Durham, the federal prosecutor named Wednesday to head the investigation.

"Federal courts in Washington have ruled that government lawyers cannot assert the attorney-client privilege to avoid testifying in grand-jury and other proceedings about advice they gave.

"Those rulings, which emerged during the myriad investigations of the Clinton administration, mean that Muller and other lawyers who once served on the Bush team, including former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, would have to submit to questioning from Durham's task force. . . .

"Under federal law, it is obstruction of justice to destroy evidence that might be relevant not only to a pending official proceeding but to one that is reasonably foreseeable. At the time the tapes were destroyed in late 2005, Congress was already moving to broaden restrictions on the sort of aggressive interrogation techniques that the tapes portrayed."

Middle East Watch

Matti Friedman writes for the Associated Press: "Bush is optimistic that Israelis and Palestinians can reach an agreement before he leaves office in a year's time, Bush said in a newspaper interview published Friday ahead of his arrival in the region next week. . . .

"The interview was published Friday, in Hebrew, in the Israeli mass-circulation daily Yediot Ahronot. . . .