Former A.G. Held Up Torture Report

newsweek.com — A Justice Department investigation into the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding was on the verge of completion last fall when then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey raised objections to the findings, according to an e-mail from a Justice official and two legal sources who have been briefed on the inquiry. The e-mail was disclosed by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse following a story reporting that a draft of the report by the department's internal ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility, sharply criticizes three former top lawyers at Justice who authored controversial legal memos about interrogation practices. In several speeches before he left office, Mukasey criticized efforts to second guess the work of Justice lawyers acting under "almost unimaginable" pressures after September 11th.

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