Kate Martin — Neil Gorsuch was instrumental in defending George W. Bush’s torture program

When Gorsuch took a job at the Justice Department in 2005, the department — then headed by President Bush’s former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales — was in the midst of defending radical claims of unreviewable presidential authority to act in the name of national security. Gorsuch, as Principal Deputy to the Associate Attorney General, became deeply involved in that work. 

President Bush claimed that he could act not only without Congress, and in secret, but that he could violate the law if he decided that national security required it, and the courts had no power to review his actions. These were not academic claims, they were made in defense of outrageous abuses of individual rights carried out in the name of the “war against terror.”…

While the documents about Mr. Gorsuch’s tenure at DOJ working on this case are still incomplete, they contain no indication that he disagreed with or questioned any of these radical legal positions taken by the administration....

Think Progress
Neil Gorsuch was instrumental in defending George W. Bush’s torture program

Kate Martin | Senior Fellow at American Progress

Also

Gorsuch appeared slightly flustered when Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California – the top Democrat on the Republican-majority committee and an influential member of the Senate Intelligence Committee – pressed him on his role advising President Bush in drafting U.S. policy on torture.

She brought up several memos and emails detailing his role helping the White House conclude that "enhanced interrogations" were legal, a memo he drafted helping top Bush aides sell that notion to the public and agreed that a controversial program allowing government surveillance on American citizens without a warrant as part of the war on terror.

Gorsuch said he didn't remember the memos and was reluctant to talk about his "loose recollection of something that happened 11 or 12 years ago." But he reminded Feinstein that he was essentially a lawyer working for a client and not a judge, and he didn't always agree with the administration's more assertive conclusions – although he wouldn't say which ones..

"There was a tug of war in the White House" on the issue, Feinstein answered, and "I want to know which side you were on."

He refused to say.

Thumbs down on confirmation.

US News
Gorsuch Questioned Early on Torture Memo

Joseph P. Williams, Staff Writer

Dan Froomkin — Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry

Ouch.

The Intercept
Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry
Dan Froomkin

emptywheel — Time To Raze The CIA And Start Over

Addressing Robert Grenier's attack on Diane Feinstein and Senate Democrats' criticism of the CIA.

Crooks and Liars
Time To Raze The CIA And Start Over
 emptywheel

Robert Grenier — From Truth and Reconciliation to Lies and Obfuscation: The Senate RDI Report

The in-fighting begins before the release of the CIA torture report. It's all Diane Feinstein's fault and the Democratic Senate for sliming patriots.

Messsage: Torture is tearing the country apart. This isn't going away for at least fifty years.

The Huffington Post
From Truth and Reconciliation to Lies and Obfuscation: The Senate RDI Report
Robert Grenier | Former Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (2004 to 2006); Author of the forthcoming '88 Days to Kandahar'

BillMoyers.com — Transcript: Senator Dianne Feinstein Accuses CIA of Violating US Constitution

Like it says, the transcript.

BillMoyers.com

Transcript: Senator Dianne Feinstein Accuses CIA of Violating US Constitution
BillMoyers.com Staff

Dan Froomkin — CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis

Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a floor speech (transcript; video) that Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) immediately called the most important he had heard in his career, said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them.

“I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”

She concluded: “The recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community. How Congress responds and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee. I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States.”

She also accused the CIA of obstructing her committee’s torture inquiry in general, and of disputing findings that its own internal inquiry had substantiated.

The Intercept
CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis
Dan Froomkin

Juicy.

It's also dicey for President Obama. If he does not respond correctly to this, he could see himself successfully impeached for it and removed from office, if the GOP retakes the Senate next year. The Right is very anxious to impeach this president on any suitable pretext of wrongdoing. However, the fact that proceedings might expose the involvement of the Bush Administration in an illegal torture program would make it a touch choice for them.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”

Collision course.

Personally, I would like to see all involved in torture or approving it in a dock at the Hague going all the way back to the Nixon administration. Torture and assassination has long been a policy of the United States, either directly by US nationals, or indirectly by outsourcing it to complicit or puppet regimes.