Holder to investigate bush administration on interrogation?

Newsweek is reporting that "four knowledgeable sources" have told them that Attorney General Eric Holder is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate "the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices." He reportedly has asked for a list of 10 possible prosecutors: 5 from within the DoJ and 5 from outside.

The article carefully lays out Holder's dilemma:

Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. "You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort," Holder says. "But the reality of being A.G. is that I'm also part of the president's team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values." . . .

Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision." . . .

Holder well knew how politicized things could get. He worried about the impact on the CIA, whose operatives would be at the center of any probe. And he could clearly read the signals coming out of the White House. President Obama had already deflected the left wing of his party and human-rights organizations by saying, "We should be looking forward and not backwards" when it came to Bush-era abuses. . . .

But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general's thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Department office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as "the dark side." He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was "shocked and saddened," he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America's name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.

It is a momentous decision that means going against Obama's stated preference and the fierce opposition of those like Rahm Emanuel.

In favor of his ultimate decision to appoint an investigator is the fact that in the internal debate on whether to release the torture memos, Holder was in favor of releasing them -- and ultimately that was the decision. One of his arguments was: "If you don't release the memos, you'll own the policy."

That understanding is augmented by the increasing furor aroused by the new revelation of the CIA withholding information from Congress. Republicans have less and less grounds for protesting an investigation. I also believe that Holder does strive to run an independent DoJ and is ideologically motivated to do the right thing, both legally and morally. All of this, I think, is in favor of a decision to appoint a prosecutor.

Besides, it's my guess that Newsweek's sources really were sending up a trial balloon, and I don't think Holder would have done that if he weren't ready to go ahead.

And what better way for Holder to prove that he is truly an independent AG and that he has rescued the DoJ from the bush era politicization?

Ralph