Daily Dose

• Senate Dems block DOJ recess appointment [CQPolitics]
• Going on 6 months in jail for former democratic Alabama governor; still no explanation for judge’s decision to deny appeal bond [LegalSchnauzer]
• Ever-so-subtle Kansas GOP chair brags about voter caging in mass email [DailyKos]

Daily Dose

• “No present recollection”: could Bush have seen the torture tapes? Plus, remember the good old days when we prosecuted the authors of torture memos instead of promoting them (or placing them on the federal bench)? [NoComment]
• Supreme Court to take on voter ID cases - could ’08 election hang in the balance? [DailyKos]
  

Daily Dose

• It’s lonely at the top [WP]
• Let’s make a deal: CIA official blamed for tape destruction may seek immunity in exchange for testimony against White House [DailyKos]
• 9/11 Panel says CIA withheld tapes [TheHill, NYT]
• Mum’s the word on judicial inquiry into tape destruction [NYT]
• Editorial: The Work Remaining [NYT]
  

Daily Dose

• Crime and punishment, hold the punishment: Tales from the DOJ [NoComment]
• Subpoenaing the spooks [NYT]
• White House lawyers to appear in court in CIA tapes dispute [WP]
• Editorial: Bush yields on CIA tapes [LATimes]
• Playing telephone: Bush White House may have been involved in 2004 New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal [TheCarpetbaggerReport]
  

Daily Dose

• Plays well with others? : CIA to cooperate with Congress on tapes investigation [NYT, TPMMuckraker]
• Who should investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes? [Slate]
• Mukasey moves to limit contact between DOJ and White House [WP, LATimes, McClatchy]
• So much for a DOJ check on executive power? [NYT]
  

AFJ Urges DoJ to Cooperate with Congress

Alliance for Justice urges the Senate Judiciary Committee at its hearing today on the nomination of Mark Filip to be Deputy Attorney General, the second highest official in the Department of Justice, to question how he plans to end the Department’s intolerable track-record of resisting Congressional oversight, including the Department’s troubling response to calls for an external investigation into the destruction of video recordings made during CIA interrogations of detainees.

To read AFJ's full press release, click here. And to learn more about our issues, check out our website at http://www.afj.org/connect-with-the-issues/.

Daily Dose

• White House, DOJ attempt to put the brakes on Congress’s CIA tapes investigation … [NYT, WP]
• … Congress promises to press on anyway [TheHill, WP, LATimes]
• “It smells like the coverup of the coverup” [TPMMuckraker]
• Sen. Biden: Why should we trust DOJ to investigate itself? [RawStory]
• With Tanner’s resignation an opportunity for Mukasey to recommit the DOJ to protecting civil rights [HuffingtonPost]

Daily Dose

• Give me a "C"! Give me an "O"! Give me an "N"! ... CONTEMPT charges for Rove, Bolten [WP, TheHill]
• House passes ban on waterboarding, other harsh interrogation tactics [WP, NYT]
• Will an ACLU lawsuit finally force the Bush administration to show its cards? [FindLaw]
• Looking for a break in the Siegelman case [NoComment]
• John “minorities-die-first” Tanner resigns as DOJ voting rights chief [TPMMuckraker]
• Mukasey refuses to play ball with senators on CIA tapes investigation [WP]

Nan Aron on Boumediene v. Bush

Nearly six years ago, the Bosnian Supreme Court released Lakmar Boumediene following a three-month investigation that revealed no evidence to support a U.S. claim that he was involved in a terrorist plot to attack U.S. and British Embassies. As he was leaving the courthouse to return to his wife and two children, Boumediene was handed over to American officials, who flew him to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today, he remains at this detention facility despite the fact that he has never been charged with any crime. Each day he endures indefinite detention in the facility's sparse living conditions and interrogations by U.S. officials. Each day he awaits a fair hearing by an impartial judge - a right that the administration has continued to block. On Dec. 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Boumediene's case and, in the months to come, will issue a ruling that could provide him and other Guantanamo detainees with access to their basic legal rights.

To read Nan's full commentary in Huffington Post, click here.

Also, to learn more about habeas corpus and other justice related issues, check our website at www.afj.org/connect-with-the-issues/.

EDITORIAL: Justice on the Mend

Washington Post: "THERE HAVE been several hopeful developments since the arrival of Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey at the Justice Department in early November.

Within days of Mr. Mukasey's confirmation, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility proceeded with an investigation, stifled earlier by the White House, concerning the administration's terrorist surveillance program. While the department's inspector general has already been looking into the matter, allowing the OPR investigation to go forward sends an important symbolic message, especially in light of critics' concerns that the probe had been quashed for political reasons."

Read the article

General Clark Excoriates Justice Department Over Siegelman Case

Harpers Magazine: "Delivering the keynote speech at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner of the Alabama Democratic Party in Birmingham last night, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark tore into the Bush Justice Department’s prosecution of former Governor Don E. Siegelman. As reported in the Locust Fork Journal, Clark called former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman “a great American” and an “honest man” who was “unjustly confined” by a rogue Justice Department “politicized” by a corrupt Republican administration."

Read the article