SENATORS SEND LETTER TO PRESIDENT ENCOURAGING HIM TO LOOK FORWARD

As President Obama weighs the decision over whether or not to prosecute former Bush Administration officials who were involved in harsh interrogation tactics, one of South Carolina’s most prominent lawmakers has spoken up.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, Wednesday joined with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) in sending a letter to Obama strongly urging him not to prosecute government officials who provided legal advice related to detainee interrogations.

“Pursuing such prosecutions would, we believe, have serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice,” the letter said. “Providing poor legal advice is always undesirable, and the Department of Justice is currently conducting an internal ethics review of the OLC memos, but that is a quite a different matter from making legal advice with which we may disagree into a crime.”

The Justice Department released four memos last week that revealed some Bush administration officials authorized interrogation techniques that some have classified as torture.

The letter from Graham, McCain and Lieberman encouraged the president to move forward in a constructive fashion to address America’s significant challenges the issue of detainees.

“Given the great challenges that face our country in dealing with detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airfield, and elsewhere, along with detainees that will undoubtedly fall into U.S. custody as the result of future operations, we have every interest in looking forward to solutions, not backward to recriminations,” wrote the senators. “That is why we do not support the idea of a commission that would focus on the mistakes of the past.”

“We agree with your position that CIA interrogators, carrying out operations that had been deemed lawful by the Attorney General, should not be the subject of prosecution. Indeed, we addressed such a possibility in the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, which holds that “good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others,” when considering whether CIA interrogators had good reason to believe that their activities were legal.”

Obama at first said he was opposed to the idea, but yesterday backed off and said he was considering it.

Said the senators in their letter to the president, “As you have made clear, we are a nation at war. Appreciating that reality, we look forward to working with you on the panoply of detainee issues, ranging from interrogation standards to the disposition of detainee cases, which will engage our country going forward. In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America’s gaze must be fixed.”