Call on A.G. Holder to Launch a Full-Scale Investigation of the “Torture Memos”
The Alliance For Justice has produced this call for accountability.
Full Petition Text:
Dear Attorney General Holder:
For more than five years, we have known that senior lawyers in the Bush Administration wrote the infamous “torture memos” to provide legal cover for human rights abuses taking place. Since 2004, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has been investigating the authors of the “torture memos”–Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Yoo.
In a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in June, you said that this five-year investigation was close to an end and that OPR’s report would be ready in a “matter of weeks.” However, when you ordered a preliminary review into the interrogation of certain detainees in late August, you indicated that the OPR report would not be released imminently. And while you expanded Special Prosecutor John Durham?s mandate to investigate those interrogators who went outside the legal guidance provided by the Office Legal Counsel, you have failed to affirm that the investigation will follow the facts where the evidence leads, even if up the chain of command.
I urge you to authorize a full-scale investigation of those who ordered, designed, and justified torture. You can begin this public accountability process by immediately releasing the OPR report. Only by knowing all of the facts can our nation move forward and take the necessary actions to uphold the Constitution and the law.
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]
See also:
Tortured Logic by the ACLU
Political Film Blog 