Day: September 26, 2009

Senate Republicans on Friday pulled out of a bipartisan investigation into controversial “war on terror” detentions and interrogations, including tactics widely condemned as torture.

The move by the opposition party dealt a sharp blow to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s efforts to find out exactly what methods were used when and whether they paid off — without prosecuting witnesses or agents thought to have committed abuses.

Senator Kit Bond, the panel’s top Republican, blamed Attorney General Eric Holder’s investigation into alleged CIA abuse of detainees, which he said made it impossible for current or former CIA officials to work with the committee.

Republicans say Democrats have ignored the public’s concerns in drafting new health care legislation under debate in the Senate Finance Committee.

Democrats are giving the public anything but an “open, honest and bipartisan debate,” Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said in the GOP’s weekly radio and Internet address.

The Finance Committee is the last of five congressional committees to take up health care legislation, which tops President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.

Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., negotiated with top Republicans on the panel for weeks before talks broke down. Baucus’ bill leaves out a primary demand of many Democrats — that reform include a government insurance option — and it has a lower price tag than other Democratic proposals.

A former executive assistant to California Rep. Loretta Sanchez was sentenced Friday to three years probation for stealing office funds to get herself pizza, groceries, airline tickets and an authorized bonus.

Caroline Valdez, a 28-year-old engaged mother from Arlington, Va., could have faced up to six months in prison for forging the Democratic congresswoman’s signature to get $6,000 in bonus salary in 2006 and using Sanchez’s House credit card for the personal expenses. But prosecutors supported Valdez’s request for probation, agreeing that she has accepted responsibility by pleading guilty and repaying what she stole.