Matt Ortega

ABC News dropped a bombshell of a news story on the principal members of the Bush administration approving specific interrogation tactics to be used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). To lift a line from the legendary Desi Arnaz as “Ricky Ricardo” in I Love Lucy — the Bush administration has some ’splainin’ to do.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. […]

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The principals included:

• Vice President Dick Cheney
• Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
• Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
• Former CIA Director George Tenet
• Former Attorney General John Ashcroft

So much for Senator John McCain’s (R-Arizona) secret weapon at Vice President?

Read the full story.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) revealed at a press conference that during the Republican-led 109th Congress, Vice President Dick Cheney informed Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

Amanda Terkel of Think Progress notes:

In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the [domestic surveillance] program’s legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:

In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation of powers, but it seemed to work at that time.

Revelations that Vice President Dick Cheney, who essentially declared himself the fourth branch of government in recent weeks, interfered in the investigative processes of the Legislative branch constitutes a major breakdown in the constitutional separation of powers.

Watch the video from C-SPAN, courtesy of Think Progress:

(Hat tip: Latino Blogger)