"Advocates of a Special Prosecutor for Bush Seek an Answer From Obama"

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The Caucus (NY Times):

With few exceptions the transition period has been a model of presidential goodwill and cooperation. Apparently, the curious users who have been submitting questions on President-elect Barack Obama’s Web site, Change.gov, didn’t get the memo.

In fact, the number one submission on the popular “Open for Questions” portion of the site might seem more than a little impolitic to the current, and soon to be former, occupant of the White House.

“Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor — ideally Patrick Fitzgerald — to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping,” wrote Bob Fertik of New York, who runs the Web site, Democrats.com

Though the Obama team has promised to answer some of the top questions as early as this week, they have not said whether they will respond to Mr. Fertik’s, which has received more than 22,000 votes since the second round of the question-and-answer feature began on Dec. 30.

The site logged more than 1.5 million votes for 20,000-plus questions as of Wednesday. The second highest-ranked submission, which is about oversight of the nation’s banking industry, is several thousand of votes behind the query about a special prosecutor.

Mr. Fertik’s question has been pushed to the top, in part, by a coalition of liberal bloggers, including a writer for the Web site, Daily Kos, who have “endorsed” it and encouraged their readers to vote for it on Change.gov.

On his own site, Mr. Fertik pointed out that during his presidential campaign Mr. Obama left the door open to a special prosecutor.

“What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued,” Mr. Obama told a Philadelphia journalist last April. But he went on to emphasize the difference between what he called “really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity.”

The Obama transition team rolled out the “Open for Questions” feature in December, and it’s part of their effort to give users a chance to interact with the incoming administration. Transition officials responded to some of first-round questions last month, including on the president-elect’s position on stem cell research and legalizing marijuana.

No word yet on whether they’ll have an answer for Mr. Fertik.

But a clue to their potential response might come from the mouth of Vice President-elect Joe Biden who told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos recently that he would not rule in or rule out a Justice Department inquiry into the role of top Bush administration officials in cases of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other facilities.

“The questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is something the Justice Department decides,” Mr. Biden said.

Howie P.S.: We also pushed this effort on this site, prompted by Ari Melber's post on The Nation. Among other things, Obama's DOJ should also investigate this (from Crooks and Liars):

In a Newsweek exclusive three week ago, former Justice Department official Thomas Tamm revealed his role in helping the New York Times make public President Bush's program of illegal domestic surveillance. Now Salon's Glenn Greenwald has details on the DOJ's efforts to punish the whistleblower.

Barack Obama