WASHINGTON — Besieged during the Bush administration for bending to the White House’s will, the Justice Department is again accused of playing politics with cases — this time in investigating whether CIA interrogators illegally abused terrorism suspects.
The new charges were led Sunday by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who called the preliminary probe ordered last week by Attorney General Eric Holder an “outrageous political act that will do great damage, long term.”
“I just think it’s an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration,” Cheney said in an interview aired on “Fox News Sunday.”
Cheney lashed out at Holder for what he called a reversal of an earlier pledge by President Barack Obama not to pursue criminal charges against CIA interrogators who sought information from terrorism suspects about threats against the U.S.
Among the interrogation methods allowed under the Bush administration was waterboarding, which critics call a form of torture and has since been banned.
Cheney said the harsh tactics were used to save American lives in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they’re reversing course on that,” Cheney said.
Since leaving office in January, Cheney has become the Democrats’ top critic on national-security policies.
Justice spokesman Matt Mil ler declined Sunday to respond to Cheney’s comments.
