Even in a time of crisis, a DoJ recess appointment can’t wait

Usually the White House will pull its more outlandish stunts on Friday afternoons when they can count on their behavior getting lost in the weekend shuffle. Of course, pulling a stunt when the nation is engrossed in a calamity is practically the same thing.

President Bush has used a constitutional provision to bypass the Senate and fill a top Justice Department slot with an official whose nomination stalled over tactics at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval facility.

Bush used a “recess appointment” Wednesday to name Alice S. Fisher to lead the agency’s criminal division. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., had blocked the nomination because he wants to talk to an agent who named Fisher in an e-mail about allegedly abusive interrogations at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo.

Levin’s concerns were well founded. An FBI agent (whose identity remains secret) explained that Fisher was on hand for weekly meetings with Justice Department officials in which lawyers discussed which interrogration techniques “were not effective or producing (intelligence) that was reliable.” Fisher told senators that she doesn’t remember participating in the discussions.

This is a terrific example of how the administration works, or in this case, doesn’t. The White House taps a controversial figure for a key post, a Democrat raises questions, but instead of answering them, the president circumvents Congress to get what he wants anyway.

To be sure, Fisher’s controversy is no trivial matter.

To some Senate Democrats, the FBI e-mail suggested that Fisher had detailed knowledge of FBI complaints about the military interrogation practices that have since become the subject of intense controversy. Some of the techniques, proposed for one particularly high-value Al Qaeda detainee, included exposure to cold weather or water and the use of a wet towel and dripping water “to induce the misperception of drowning;” tactics that one FBI agent assigned to Guantanamo thought might be in violation of a federal torture statute, according to another November 2002 FBI document, entitled “Legal Analysis of Interrogation Techniques,” that was reported on in the Aug. 8 edition of Newsweek. (The Pentagon has denied that any approved techniques at Guantanamo violated the law.)

There’s reason to believe she was fully informed about torture against detainees at Guantanamo Bay and then hid this during his confirmation hearings. The attorney general’s office insisted this is a key post that has to be filled — while Dems insisted this is a key post that has to be filled with the right person.

Also note, the White House had all of August to make this recess appointment, but the president waited until Hurricane Katrina coverage dominated the news. Given the White House’s conduct, I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to keep their behavior secret.