“The most compelling, detailed documented report of government intentional infliction of pain on non-combatants ever produced in American history since the time of the Civil War.” That is how RPI Advisory Board Member Judge Andrew Napolitano reacted to today’s release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
Judge Napolitano notes that CIA attempted to stymie production of the report from the beginning, hacking Senate computers and attempting to interfere with regulatory agencies.
“There are many, many crimes in here that should be prosecuted,” he added.
The CIA will claim that they were authorized to conduct the torture on these detainees, political leaders will claim that they had no idea that the CIA actions were so harsh. Supporters will claim that such methods were necessary to obtain intelligence to save American lives. But, noted Napolitano, the “killer” in the report is that “the conclusion of this report is that none of it worked. The most politically potent weapon that the torture lobby was, ‘it kept us safe.’ This report rejects and refutes that weapon.”
However, Judge Napolitano believes that nothing will be done with the information produced by the report:
CIA hacking, federal crime. Torture, federal crime. Lying to the Senate committee, federal crime. Doesn’t look like anybody’s going to be prosecuted.
Watch Judge Napolitano on the report: