Bush's Counsel Sought Ruling About Torture, NYT

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/politics/05gonzales.html?hp&ex=1104987600&en=ffaa199669f32a7e&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Bush's Counsel Sought Ruling About Torture
By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 5, 2005



Doug Mills/The New York Times
Alberto R. Gonzales, left, the White House counsel, with Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, in October 2003.



"WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 - Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain a legal ruling on the extent of the president's authority to permit extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security, current and former administration officials said Tuesday. . . .

Until now, administration officials have been unwilling to provide details about the role Mr. Gonzales had in the production of the memorandum by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Gonzales has spoken of the memorandum as a response to questions, without saying that most of the questions were his.

Current and former officials who talked about the memorandum have been provided with firsthand accounts about how it was prepared. Some discussed it in an effort to clear up what they viewed as a murky record in advance of Mr. Gonzales's confirmation hearings. Others spoke of the matter apparently believing that the Justice Department had unfairly taken the blame for the memorandum. . . .


But a senior administration official disagreed, saying that the memorandum's conclusions appeared to closely align with the prevailing White House view of interrogation practices. The official said the memorandum raised questions about whether the Office of Legal Counsel had maintained its longstanding tradition of dispensing objective legal advice to its clients in executive-branch agencies. "

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