Holder's Promises On Prosecution

An aide to Eric Holder vociferously denies that the AG nominee offered private assurances to Republican senators about whether the Obama administration would prosecute Bush officials for torture.

The aide pointed to Holder's response in written Q and A from Sen. Jon Kyl:

Kyl: ...in your view, if a government agent has reasonably and in good faith relied on Justice Department assurances that his actions are lawful, do you believe that it would be inappropriate for the Justice Department to commence a criminal investigation of that individual? Or do you instead believe that it is appropriate to investigate such an individual and force him to incur legal fees, but that the Justice Department is unlikely to bring a prosecution because obtaining a conviction could be "exceedingly difficult?"

 

 Holder: Prosecutorial and investigative judgments must depend on the facts, and no one is above the law. But where it is clear that a government agent has acted in "reasonable and good-faith reliance on Justice Department legal opinions" authoritatively permitting his conduct, I would find it difficult to justify commencing a full-blown criminal investigation, let alone a prosecution.

This is not the same thing as saying that prosecution is off-limits. Indeed, Holder isn't in office yet; he doesn't have an active clearance; he doesn't know the evidence; he doesn't know what U.S. attorneys may or may not be working on.   And he doesn't know what evidence might out itself in the future.  That said, it is indeed the Obama administration's preference to move forward while looking back -- and they're not going to take any affirmative steps to seek evidence that might implicate high-ranking Bush officials.   But the wheels of justice churn without fuel from the White House and the AG. 

Obama officials stress that no decisions have been made.