Attorney General Mukasey stated this week that since the Justice Department signed off on the CIA’s waterboarding prisoners in the first two years after 9/11, it would be improper to investigate it now:”That would mean the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting someone who followed that advice.”

As hilzoy points out at obsidian wings that means that all the president has to do is have the DOJ rubber-stamp his decisions—and that seems to be the primary qualification for Bush’s attorneys general—and presto, the matter can never be investigated again. Heck, even if the DOJ’s ruling was sincere, but completely misinterpreted the law, that would put the matter beyond investigation (in subsequent testimony, Mukasey says that even if the actions were criminal and the DOJ’s advice was so wrong it amounted to malpractice, the officials acting on it are still beyond investigation).

That wouldn’t fly for any ordinary person: If you do something because your attorney told you incorrectly it was legal, you can’t use that as a defense in court. It shouldn’t fly for our government either.

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