As TPM’s Ryan Reilly noted yesterday, among the awards Attorney General Eric Holder gave out at yesterday’s Attorney General’s Award Ceremony was a Distinguished Service Award to John Durham’s investigative team that chose not to prosecute Jose Rodriguez or the torturers who killed their victims.
The 13th Distinguished Service Award is presented to team members for their involvement in two sensitive investigations ordered by two different Attorneys General. In January 2007, Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a team that would investigate the destruction of interrogation videotapes by the CIA. Assistant U.S. Attorney Durham assembled the team and began the investigation.
Then, in August 2009, Attorney General Holder expanded Assistant U.S. Attorney Durham’s mandate to include a preliminary review of the treatment of detainees held at overseas locations. This second request resulted in the review of 101 detainee matters that led to two full criminal investigations. In order to conduct the investigations, the team had to review significant amounts of information, much of which was classified, and conduct many interviews in the United States and at overseas locations.
The timing on this award–coming even as DOJ aggressively prosecutes John Kiriakou for talking about this torture–is particularly cynical.
Rewards
Is food a reward? Or haw many daily calories does it take to keep a body alive? In 2006 then PM of Israel Ehud Olmert requested a secret study be done to find out haw many daily calories it would take to keep the people of Gaza from starving to death. Then as now Israel enforces a strict blockade of Gaza and controls all of the goods entering and leaving the Strip. The Israeli study concluded that men could live on 2296 calories per day. Women somewhat fewer and children fewer still. It would take 100 trucks of food per day and five days per week to supply the subsistence rations needed to keep the people of Gaza from starving to death according to the report. A similar study was conducted by the Nazis to find out how many calories per day it would require to keep the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto from starving to death.
Impeach Holder!