The Bush Administration is over, but their crimes live on. Hundreds of torture victims are dead, maimed, or traumatized. So-called "enemy combatants" subsist in prisons without judicial review. Personal data collected through warrantless wiretapping of law-abiding Americans - including journalists - fills government databases. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

These crimes are known and documented, but no one has been held accountable through prosecution. Outgoing Attorney General Michael Mukasey insisted no crimes were committed because lawyers wrote "memos." The incoming AG, Eric Holder, testified that "waterboarding is torture" but deferred decisions about prosecution until he could assume office and investigate further. President Obama declared "no one is above the law," but preferred looking forward to looking back.

Investigation of these crimes should absolutely not be vindictive or politicized. In high-profile cases like these, the Attorney General should appoint a Special Prosecutor whose only interest is the truth. We have therefore formed a Committee for a Special Prosecutor to convince Attorney General Eric Holder to remove all political considerations from enforcing the law.

Co-Chairs

• Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights
• Naomi Wolf, American Freedom Campaign
• Bob Fertik, Democrats.com

Goal: Persuade Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate criminal actions by the Bush-Cheney administration, including

• torture
• warrantless wiretapping
• politicizing the Department of Justice (including the prosecution of Don Siegelman)
• outing Valerie Plame
• massive contracting fraud
• funding propaganda directed at American citizens

Activities

• Collect signatures:
  http://www.democrats.com/special-prosecutor-for-bush-war-crimes
• 5/4: Announce signatures at National Press Club with VVIP's
• Request meeting to deliver signatures to AG Eric Holder (and other key officials in the Justice Department and White House?)
• Persuade Nadler and Conyers to resend 6/6/08 letter to AG Michael Mukasey for a special prosecutor to AG Eric Holder
• Persuade Sen. Russ Feingold and/or Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to send a letter like Conyers'
• Meet with Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. Pat Leahy, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Conyers, and other key Congressional leaders
• Write op eds
• Make TV and radio appearances (Olbermann, Maddow, Air America)
• Blog against prosecution opponents

Possible Committee Members - see also Pardon Scorecard

A. Actively opposed Bush's crimes:

• George Clooney 
• John Dean: former White House Counsel 
• Phil Donahue
• Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (ret.): persuaded Obama to end torture
• ?Glenn Greenwald: blogger
• Jonathan Huston, HumanRightsFirst
• ?Liz Holtzman: former Representative and District Attorney, leading critic of Bush's crimes 
• Scott Horton
• Sean Penn
• Cmdr. Charles Swift (ret): fmr JAG who represented Hamdan, now ?
• Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.): investigated torture by U.S. Army
• ?Jonathan Turley, George Washington Law School
• Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Colin Powell's Chief of Staff
• Joe Wilson
• Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret): fmr Centcom, now @ Duke

B. Prominent African-American lawyers and scholars

• Julian Bond
• Drew S. Days III, ACS
• Rev. Jesse Jackson
• Elaine Jones
• Kweisi Mfume
• Charles Ogletree
• Randall Robinson
• Hilary Shelton
• Roger Wilkins, George Mason University, ACS

C. Robert H. Jackson Committee For The Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals

• Lawrence Velvel, Dean of the UMass Law School, organized Robert Jackson war crimes conference in 2008  
• Ben Davis, a law Professor at the University of Toledo College of Law, where he teaches Public International Law and International Business Transactions. He is the author of numerous articles on international and related domestic law.
• Marjorie Cohn, a law Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Calif., and President of the National Lawyers Guild.
• Chris Pyle, a Professor at Mount Holyoke College, where he teaches Constitutional law, Civil Liberties, Rights of Privacy, American Politics and American Political Thought, and is the author of many books and articles.
• Elaine Scarry, the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, and winner of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.
• Peter Weiss, vice president of the Center For Constitutional Rights, of New York City, which was recently involved with war crimes complaints filed in Germany and Japan against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.
• David Swanson, author, activist and founder of AfterDowningStreet.org/CensureBush.org coalition, of Charlottesville, Va.
• Kristina Borjesson, an award-winning print and broadcast journalist for more than twenty years and editor of two recent books on the media.
• Colleen Costello, Staff Attorney of Human Rights, USA, of Washington, D.C., and coordinator of its efforts involving torture by the American government.
• Valeria Gheorghiu, attorney for Workers’ Rights Law Center.
• Andy Worthington, a British historian and journalist and author of books dealing with human rights violations.

D. Distinguished citizens

• Rocky Anderson, former Salt Lake City Mayor, founder of HighRoadforHumanRights.org 
• Ed Asner
• Wes Boyd, Moveon co-founder 
• Marjorie Cohn, NLG
• David Cole, Georgetown Law
• Walter Cronkite
• Mario Cuomo
• Betsy de la Vega
• Walter Dellinger, Office of Legal Counsel in the Clinton administration, Duke University law professor (3/4/09)
• Richard Dreyfuss
• Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center, ConstitutionProject.org, ACS
• Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause, former Representative (D-PA)
• Mickey Edwards, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, ConstitutionProject.org, former Representative (R-OK)
• Bruce Fein
• Deborah Goldberg, Brennan Center
• Bob Graham
• Jane Hamsher, FireDogLake
• Tom Hanks
• Christopher Hedges, former NY Times
• Caroline Kennedy
• Charles McC. Mathias, former Senator (R-MD), ACS 
• Jane Mayer, New Yorker
• Scott McClellan 
• George McGovern
• +Ray McGovern: former CIA presidential briefer, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
• Abner Mikva, ConstitutionProject.org, ACS, former Representative (D-IL)
• Viggo Mortensen
• Heather Parton (Digby)
• Marcus Raskin
• Janet Reno, ACS
• Peter Rubin, ACS
• Paul Sarbanes 
• Martin Sheen
• Virginia Sloan, ConstitutionProject.org
• Aaron Sorkin
• Elie Wiesel