Justice Dept Under Gonzales Issued Secret Opinion Authorizing 'Harsh CIA Interrogations'

Justice Dept Under Gonzales Issued Secret Opinion Authorizing 'Harsh CIA Interrogations'

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

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