Conyers Invites Top Officials To Testify At Torture Hearing

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) Friday invited several former Bush administration officials to testify at an upcoming committee hearing on the legality of several torture techniques.

Conyers invited a slew of high profile names, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former CIA Director George Tenet, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Chief of Staff to the Vice-President David Addington, and former Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin to testify at the hearing which will take place on May 6.

Conyers also invited John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who authored a controversial March 2003 memorandum establishing the legal guidelines for the interrogation of detainees.

“New and troubling allegations suggest that the decisions on torture came from the highest levels of government,” said Conyers in a statement. “These reports, if true, represent a stain on our democracy. The American people deserve to hear directly from those involved.”

Democrats have seized on the torture issue in the 110th Congress, fueled by several high-profile stories in the media, hoping to link the controversial issue directly to President Bush.

“It is clear that these ‘enhanced interrogation’ programs are torture, and fly in the face of American values and our laws. Simply having the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) assert these methods as constitutional does not make them so,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

As of Friday afternoon, there was no word on which officials would attend the hearing. [MORE]