“War crimes” on The Daily Caller

The bar’s “priesthood” has been offended—and now they are on the attack. A group of 19 lawyers, including conservatives like former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and Bush administration lawyers Bradford Berenson and Larry Thompson, are denouncing Liz Cheney’s group “Keep America Safe” for asking questions about Department of Justice lawyers who once defended suspected terrorists. “We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counter-terrorism adjudications,” they wrote in a statement released earlier this week. (more)

MI5 would have acted on the intelligence gained by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the September 11 attacks, even if they had known how it was gained, sources say. (more)

Republicans stopped a provision that establishes criminal penalties for CIA officers that use cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods from making it into the Intelligence bill passed Friday — but the leading Republican on the House intelligence committee said that provision is hardly dead. (more)

No one has been more active in the Democrats’ war against our intelligence community than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (more)

Bush administration lawyers who wrote memos that paved the way for waterboarding of terrorism suspects and other harsh interrogation tactics “exercised poor judgment” but will not face discipline for their actions, according to long-awaited Justice Department documents released Friday. (more)

Marc Thiessen begins his new book, “Courting Disaster,” with something of a disclaimer: For reasons of security and classification, he says, he should not have been able to write it. He’s right. He shouldn’t have been able to write it. But I’m glad he did. (more)

After five weeks of exercising his “right to remain silent,” the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has finally begun cooperating, and according to The Washington Post is now “providing FBI interrogators with useful intelligence about his training and contacts.” Administration officials are hawking this development as a vindication of their patient approach to Abdulmutallab’s questioning. The Post even declares that this “[r]esult counters recent criticism of the case’s handling.” (more)

Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for  George W. Bush and author of the new book Courting Disaster, claimed this week that senior Al Qaeda terrorsit Abu Zubaydah actually thanked interrogators for waterboarding him because it “lifted a moral burden from his shoulders, the burden to resist.” Thiessen says Zubaydah, reportedly the first terrorist to be waterboarded under the Bush administration, “spilled his guts” after interrogators waterboarded him. (more)

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations. (more)