Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and repeatedly refused several Senators' requests to produce a copy of the recently leaked Justice Department memo that explored the legal justifications for torture. The 50-page memo [download links below], written for the CIA and addressed to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, argues that "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability" for torturing prisoners. Pentagon lawyers used that same memo in a March 2003 report assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Department's detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Congress not only has a right to review this and other memos but a clear obligation. We are in the midst of a major Congressional investigation into prisoner abuse -- a Justice Department torture memo is extremely relevant. But the Attorney General refused to cooperate with Congress and provide a copy of the memo because he believes the president has the right to receive advice from his attorney general. However, the memo was not candid advice from Ashcroft alone; it is the product of extensive work by taxpayer-paid Justice Department lawyers. There are only two legal reasons Ashcroft can refuse to provide the memo. The first would be if President Bush invoked executive privilege, claiming the memo was protected as presidential material. Ashcroft made it clear at the Senate hearing that the president had not yet invoked executive privilege. The second reason would be if an established law expressly protected the memo from disclosure to Congress. During questioning, Ashcroft never cited any law that would allow for protection of the memo, only his opinion that disclosure would be bad policy. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this administration has been uncooperative with Congress' efforts to get to the truth. The White House was uncooperative with the Congressional commission investigating the 9/11 attacks, refusing to release information such as the president's daily briefings and almost barring National Security Advisory Condoleezza Rice from testifying under oath. When the Government Accounting Office, Congress' investigating office, probed Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, the White House resisted releasing information at every turn. Hopefully, Congress will successfully break through the administration's stonewall to discover the truth and apply the checks and balances instituted to hold all aspects of our government accountable. Download full DOJ Memo Part I (pp. 1-25) Download full DOJ Memo Part II (pp. 26-5)