By GottaLaff
Phil Zelikow is on the Rachel Maddow Show right now. He was a BushCo State Department counselor, and a 9/11 Commission Executive Director. Zelikow raised concerns about the torture memos in May 2005. He authored his own memo rejecting the torture memos:
"The legal reasoning seemed deeply unsound to me... "
"I was absolutely astonished" by the torture memos."
Opinions were requested because there were questions about the legality of the activities in question (paraphrased).
"I'm just one point of view."
"They were using an interpretation of how to comply with that standards that I didn't think any lawyers outside the administration would find plausible."
"Others were entitled to hear an alternative p.o.v. and figure out if they wanted to reevaluate their opinion."
"I was told [they] were trying to collect these (alternative memos) and destroy them."
"Obviously you eliminate records because you don't want people to find them."
"Lawyers disagree all the time... Now it's up to our institutions to sort out if ... there was something more than that."
Rachel: Doesn't resonate: When you found out that they were collecting your critical memo and destroying it so there would be no evidence of it, it's hard to believe you weren't thinking about resigning.
"It was my job to fight this with every ounce of energy at my disposal... And that was their job. They didn't succeed in destroying all the copies... [We had differing legal views] They heard that argument, they chose to move on... We eventually changed the policy."He agrees that the D.O.J. should sort this out, so he wouldn't give an opinion about prosecutions. He echoed President Obama, and wouldn't "pre-judge or politicize the issue". He reiterates that there were two points of view, and we should let our institutions do their job.
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