The Raw Story � Obama Justice Department continues to cover up Bush-Era crimes

Obama Justice Department continues to cover up Bush-Era crimes

by Larisa Alexandrovna

Something very questionable is happening in Obama’s Department of Justice. I don’t know if it is simply institutional loyalty that is the reason for a once admired office of justice to simply abdicate from its official duty. Whatever the reason, there is one question that no one will answer and this question only grows more urgent as new developments are made public.

Why is no one being held accountable? It is one thing to overlook a series of bad choices made in good faith. But the issues at hand have nothing to do with good faith or even bad choices. The allegations of criminal activity and extreme and willful abuses of power by officials of the Bush administration fall directly under the very definition of high crimes. The crimes are not small ones either.

The Watergate break-in, for example, appears insignificant against the backdrop of the Bush-Cheney legacy. No, the crimes are not small or even limited to a single genre or type of crime. From the outing of a CIA officer for political payback, to the massive illegal domestic surveillance program, to a policy of torture that resulted in multiple homicides; high crimes were committed and more startling, no one has been held to account.

Why?

The Manipulation of Language

In all other times in the past, when a crime occurred involving officials in the highest positions of government, no one thought to dare argue the necessity for committing the crime or how truly patriotic the crime was. Now we are told that we were spied on for our own good, that torture saves lives, that outing a CIA officer is okay, that starting an illegal war was just a series of decisions based on bad intelligence.

The debate over these various crimes has been drawn in such a way as to make it seem too complicated for the average American, too steeped in national security for the average American to understand, and missing in important details because those are too classified for the average American to see.

What of the domestic political prosecutions then and the victims who were targeted for political reasons? Why is no one being held accountable? Worse still, why is Obama’s DOJ seemingly engaging in payback given the latest news? Have you seen the latest news?

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Federal prosecutors have recommended that former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman be sentenced to 20 years in prison when he receives a new sentencing hearing in federal court in Montgomery.

That's a much longer sentence than the more than 7-year prison term Siegelman originally received for his 2006 conviction in a federal government corruption case. The recommendation comes after a panel of 3 appellate judges dismissed 2 of the seven charges the former governor was convicted of and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

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The Raw Story � Obama Justice Department continues to cover up Bush-Era crimes