Chicago judge faces waterboarding questions

Chicago judge faces waterboarding questions

by James Oliphant


In his bid to be the number-two official at the Justice Department, Chicago federal judge Mark Filip Wednesday ran afoul of the same tripwire that almost did in his putative boss, Michael Mukasey.

Filip refused repeatedly to declare the interrogation practice known as waterboarding illegal, despite the urgings of several senators. While his hesitation is unlikely to jeopardize his nomination to be the deputy attorney general, it again underscored the level of tension between Congress and the Justice Department over the issue of torture.

At his confirmation hearing in November, Mukasey’s reluctance to brand waterboarding as torture almost derailed his nomination and led to the narrowest vote to confirm an attorney general in history. Mukasey, like Filip a federal judge, said that he couldn’t render a legal opinion without being privy to administration materials on the practice.

Filip did label waterboarding “repugnant” and was, at least, able to avail himself of an argument that Mukasey couldn’t: namely that he didn’t want render an opinion on an issue that Mukasey, his potential superior, was still studying.

None of it was good enough for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Repugnant is not the answer that meets the requirements in terms of the various statutes,” Kennedy said.

And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who as Filip’s home-state senator earlier praised his qualifications, said Filip’s answers presented him with a “moral dilemma.” He professed exasperation at not being able to get a legal opinion on waterboarding from either Mukasey or his hand-picked deputy, Filip.

“Do you understand the problem that creates on this side of the table?” Durbin asked Filip.

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http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/12/chicago_judge_faces_waterboard.html

PERIOD.

Department of "Justice." What a joke this country has become.