Another chapter in the “whose in charge here” saga of Trump’s dysfunctional White House.
Having read this Politico article about the reaction of General Mattis and Mike Pompeo the reports that the draft of a document is being circulated around Washington about reinstitution of enhanced interrogation and reopening CIA black cites it occurred to me we might be seeing the first Trump Saturday Night Massacre.
Two of the officials who will be in charge of carrying out President Donald Trump's terrorism detainee policies, Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, were “blindsided” by reports of a draft executive order that would require the CIA to reconsider using interrogation techniques that some consider torture, according to sources with knowledge of their thinking.
Lawmakers in both parties denounced the draft order on Wednesday even as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he had “no idea where it came from” and that it is “not a White House document.”
It’s unclear who wrote the draft order or whether Trump will sign it, though members of Congress in both parties were taking that prospect seriously on Wednesday.
Some members of Congress said the document raised the specter of Trump following through on campaign vows to bring back waterboarding and other George W. Bush-era torture practices, which many lawmakers consider a shameful chapter of U.S. history. www.politico.com/...
The other day Trump himself said “I believe in enhanced interrogation and by the way, it works.”
It isn’t the first time:
Back in February, he said:
Trump, Feb. 17: Torture works. OK, folks? You know, I have these guys—”Torture doesn’t work!”—believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it’s not actually torture. Let’s assume it is. But they asked me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding.
More recently in a July 27 press conference, Trump doubled down on his claim and said, “I am a person that believes in enhanced interrogation, yes. And by the way, it works.” from www.factcheck.org/...
Meanwhile, earlier today White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the draft document did not come from the White House:
Here’s the video from Spicer’s press conference (takes a few seconds to load).
When I thought about how to illustrate this little story of the, shall I say, decidedly mixed messages coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue , immediately the Keystone Kops came to mind. Who the hell is running the store — which lest we forget is the store isn’t a mom and pop bodega. It’s the biggest little store in the world called the United States of American.
Here’s a good interview with Gen. Barry Mccaffery about this: