Sens. in both parties question Leahy idea of ‘truth commission’

Several prominent Republicans and Democrats are rejecting Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) idea for a “truth commission” charged with investigating allegations of wrongdoing committed by the Bush administration.

Republicans are denouncing the idea as needless politics, while prominent Democrats on the Select Committee on Intelligence, which announced a similar investigation last week, are guarding their turf.

{mosads}One GOP lawmaker is puzzled by Leahy’s label for the panel, suggesting a truth commission is not the sort of thing you’d find in a first-world democracy.

“It’s something a Third World Soviet-bloc country would do,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said. “To keep investigating the Bush administration is ridiculous. Everything he did is in the light of day and he was criticized for it every day of his administration.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Intelligence Committee and is a member of the Judiciary Committee, also appeared less than enthusiastic when asked whether she supports the creation of such a commission.

“I probably will,” she said with a sigh. “We’re doing our own work looking into that on the Intelligence Committee.”

Nevertheless, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to explore Leahy’s idea of forming a commission to review everything from detainee and interrogation policies to the war in Iraq to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons and charges of politicization at the Justice Department.

One Democratic aide countered that the Intelligence Committee’s work will be done behind closed doors, while Leahy has been pitching the necessity for a public and open review.

Republicans are not sold on that explanation.

“That smacks of revenge rather than intelligent fact-finding,” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) said Tuesday in a brief interview with The Hill. “[Democrats] are just trying to distract from what their own President Obama is doing and the debt he’s running up.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) top ally and a well-known critic of many of Bush’s interrogation policies, said he didn’t think he would attend Wednesday’s hearing.

Graham said the Armed Services Committee has already spent considerable time “seriously” investigating Bush’s national security policies.

“I think Congress has done its job, and I’m ready to move on,” he remarked.

The intrusion into national security territory appeared to rankle Feinstein and Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), two Democrats who sit on both the Judiciary and Intelligence panels.

Wyden said he preferred to allow the Intelligence Committee to continue handling any inquiries into Bush’s national security policies, especially when it comes to the possible torture of suspected terrorists and the CIA’s detention of them at secret prisons in foreign countries.

{mospagebreak}“The Intelligence Committee is looking into this on a bipartisan basis,” he said, noting that the panel will aim to interview people and investigate privately, produce a final report and de-classify as much information as possible.

Wyden also said establishing a separate truth commission composed of independent-minded people raises immediate questions about how much investigative power to give it and whether it will reflect badly on President Obama, who has tried to position himself as bipartisan and a break from the political sniping of the past.

“The thing about a commission, of course, is right away you have a big debate about subpoena power and how much the [Obama] administration is going to work with it,” he said.

{mosads}Leahy first promoted establishing his truth commission in a wide-ranging speech at Georgetown University last week on the topic of “Restoring Trust in the Judicial System.”

He has stressed that such a commission would not aim to produce a partisan witch hunt, but would focus on finding out how the policies were implemented so that they could be avoided in the future.

He said former Bush officials and staffers who come forward with information would be granted immunity from prosecution.

“Congress has already granted immunity, over my objection, to those who facilitated warrantless wiretaps and those who conducted cruel interrogations,” Leahy said during the speech. “It would be far better to use that authority to learn the truth.”

In a floor speech last Wednesday, Leahy appeared to have stopped calling it a “truth commission,” instead labeling it a “commission of inquiry” focused on national security and executive power as related to counterterrorism. He said he has been talking to his colleagues in Congress, outside groups and officials in the White House about the proposal.

The title of Wednesday’s hearing, “Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry,” also demonstrates an attempt to downplay perceptions that its main objective is scoring partisan points.

Witnesses at the hearing will include Thomas Pickering, the former undersecretary of State for public affairs who also served as ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush; Retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, a highly decorated military veteran who has condemned the use of torture and waterboarding specifically; as well as John Farmer, a former state attorney general for New Jersey who served as senior counsel and team leader for the 9/11 Commission and worked with the Constitution Project in support of the idea of an independent commission established to examine the Bush administration’s detainee and interrogation policies and practices.