34 Senators: End DOJ Investigation of CIA Interrogators

[Geee]

Weekly Standard:

Thirty-four Republican senators will send a letter to Barack Obama, calling on the president "to finally end the DOJ’s unwarranted investigations of CIA interrogators, whose work led to one of the most defining moments of the Global War on Terror."


This letter to the president comes after the killing of al Qaeda founder and chief Osama bin Laden, and after various intelligence officials, including Obama's CIA director Leon Panetta, acknowledged that “a multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation… Clearly some of it came from detainees and the interrogation of detainees...they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees.”

The senators commend President Obama, as well as George W. Bush and national security professionals, for their action. But "find it extremely troubling that your Attorney General is apparently continuing to pursue charges against some of [the national security professionals] for their actions during the previous administration."

"These Americans did their jobs at the direction of the President of the United States," the senators write. "Punishing them for their actions, which likely saved lives by helping avert other terrorist attacks, will continue to have a chilling effect on the critical work of their colleagues and other national security professionals in the U.S. Government. Our nation cannot afford these politically motivated investigations to continue."

The letter was signed by the following senators: Cornyn, Blunt, Sessions, Chambliss, Burr, Boozman, Graham, Barrasso, Enzi, Hoeven, Risch, Inhofe, McConnell, Portman, Moran, Heller, Alexander, R. Johnson, Hutchison, Kirk, Coats, Thune, Johanns, Wicker, Crapo, Ayotte, Hatch, Vitter, Grassley, Rubio, Lee, Isakson, Roberts, and Corker.