Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said this morning that waterboarding was deemed legal by the Justice Department at the time it was used by the CIA on three al-Qaeda captives, and as a result the Justice Department “cannot possibly” investigate whether a crime occurred.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Mukasey said that because waterboarding was part of a program approved by Justice lawyers, there is no way the department can open a criminal investigation into the practice.Â
“Waterboarding, because it was authorized to be part of a program … cannot possibly be the subject of a Justice Department investigation,” Mukasey said in response to questions from panel Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).
“That would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now prosecute someone for taking part” in it, he said.