White House: Obama not proposing truth commission

The day after opening a can of worms by saying he is open to a truth commission to investigate the authors of the controversial Bush-era
enhanced interrogation memos, the White House stressed Wednesday that
President Obama is neither proposing nor initiating those proceedings
or the formation of a truth commission.

White House press
secretary Robert Gibbs, talking to reporters aboard Air Force One as
the president traveled to Iowa, said any decision to prosecute the
authors of the legal memos would come from the Justice Department and
“it has to be done outside of the realm of politics.”

{mosads}Last week,
Obama publicly released the memos, which deal with controversial
interrogation methods like waterboarding, but he said at the time that
the Justice Department would not prosecute intelligence officers who
conducted what many have called torture techniques on captured enemy
combatants.

The president has come under heavy fire from
Republicans including Vice President Cheney and Sen. Kit Bond
(R-Mo.) for releasing the memos.

On Tuesday, Obama further
raised the ire of the GOP when he told reporters that he is open to the
creation of a truth commission to investigate Bush administration
officials who drafted the memos authorizing the enhanced interrogation
methods.

Doing damage control after the story exploded, Gibbs
said Wednesday that the president would have no role in forming such a
commission or prosecuting former Bush administration officials.

“If
you go in the back of the plane, Air Force One, and spray-paint the
walls and smoke in the bathroom, the president isn’t going to determine
whether you broke the law; a legal official is going to determine
whether you broke the law,” Gibbs said. “That’s the determination that
will be made in any instance whereby anybody knowingly breaks the law.”

Gibbs
disputed the notion that any such proceedings would be tainted by
politics because they would be carried out by Attorney General Eric
Holder, Obama’s hand-picked top cop.

“I think that the lawyers
that are involved are plenty capable of determining whether any law has
been broken,” Gibbs said. “I want to stress that that determination is
not going to be made by the president, or the vice president, or
anybody that works in the White House, because that’s why many, many,
many, many moons ago we created a Department of Justice.”

Gibbs
said Obama has enough “on his plate each and every day,” and he
continues to believe that the administration should be looking forward.

“And that’s the truth — that’s why he
believes that these memos and the release of these memos provide a
moment of reflection, not of retribution; that the president believes
that we have to look forward,” Gibbs said. “And that’s I think what he
said Thursday, Monday and yesterday.”