Led by High Road for Human Rights, prominent Americans, including authors, artists, legal experts, and renowned voices of conscience, today transmitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and other violations of human rights and civil liberties committed by former government officials and others. The complete text of the letter is below. Please support our efforts and make your voices heard to restore the rule of law and ensure accountability in our nation. If we are not willing to abide by our commitments to human rights and the rule of law and at least evaluate possible crimes committed by government officials for prosecution, future administrations may well feel emboldened to again break the law, and other nations will continue to use the conduct of our government as an excuse for their own human rights-abusing practices. Thanks for you support.
July 29, 2009
Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.
The Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Dear Attorney General Holder:
We applaud your outspoken commitment to a "post-partisan" approach to criminal justice that is beyond politics and ideology. Your record, including many of your pronouncements, has made it clear you are dedicated to pursuing justice with integrity. From all appearances, you believe strongly in our Constitution and the rule of law.
You are at a challenging fork in the road, where you can choose either to (1) ignore evidence of egregious criminal wrongdoing by Bush administration officials and people working in concert with them, as urged by some in the White House, or (2) take a principled approach, regardless of political pressures or ideological concerns, in applying the law without bias and without favor toward those who have violated criminal laws.
No less than the rule of law is at stake. Your decisions and actions in this regard will be of historic importance.
You can convey the message that we have become a nation where powerful, or formerly powerful, people can repeatedly violate the law (and call upon others to violate the law) with impunity and escape any accountability because the present administration has an interest in avoiding the partisan attacks inherent in any investigation and prosecution of former government officials. Or you can convey that in this great country Lady Justice is still blindfolded and that the scales of justice are, indeed, balanced – that the law applies equally to all, without bias for or against any, regardless of wealth, power, or prestige.
The violations of law by Bush administration officials and others who acted in concert with them have been justified by some, including Dick Cheney and John Yoo, on the basis that the President is above the law because he is the head of the so-called "unitary" executive branch of government. According to these proponents of limitless executive power, the President alone decides the range of his power and the application of laws passed by Congress and treaties ratified by the United States Senate. The result of that approach would be that the rule of law is no longer extant.
Of course, that view of executive power is completely at odds with our Constitution and the system of checks and balances that has served our republic so well since its founding. Similarly, the failure to repudiate that view and to hold accountable those who have violated the law would be subversive to our constitutional form of government, our system of checks and balances, and the rule of law. Just as the rule of law prohibits powerful people from escaping the reach of our laws, so too does it forbid people in positions of power, such as the President or the Attorney General, from deciding, for the sake of political convenience, that the law will not be applied to some who have violated it.
The principled way of moving forward as a nation that adheres to the rule of law is for you to appoint a prosecutor to investigate whether government officials or others violated the law in connection with aggressive war, warrantless wiretapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, the illegal arrest and indefinite detention of US citizens without due process, the issuance of signing statements purporting to overrule laws passed by Congress, the creation of an assassination program, and the failure to inform members of Congress of intelligence programs or covert actions. Then, if a determination is made that violations of the law occurred, appropriate legal action should be taken.
Your decisions and actions will define the course of our nation’s principled commitment to our Constitution, domestic law, and legal obligations under treaties, which, along with the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, are the supreme law of the land, pursuant to Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution.
One’s commitment to principle is demonstrated most clearly under difficult circumstances. We recognize that some people would forsake the rule of law because of a desire to achieve other political objectives and to avoid distractions and partisan divisions. However, an unrelenting commitment to the law should never be demeaned as a "distraction" or as a partisan matter. Your principled application of the law, particularly under present circumstances, will be viewed for many generations as a crucial point in the history of a nation truly committed to equal justice, high moral principle, and the rule of law.
Respectfully,
Daniel Ellsberg
Bruce Fein
Andy Jacobs
Paul Rogat Loeb
Graham Nash
Terry Tempest Williams
Bill McKibben
John Nichols
Jeremy Pikser
Rocky Anderson
Mimi Kennedy
Naomi Wolf
Robert Fellmeth
Robert Feuer
Ralph Nader
David Swanson
