Rice may have admitted to conspiracy, Nixon's John Dean says

From Raw Story, May 1, 2009:

In little-noticed comments Thursday, former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon John Dean said Thursday that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have unwittingly admitted to a criminal conspiracy when questioned about torture by a group of student videographers at Stanford.

Dean said he found Rice’s comments “surprising” and put her in a legal mire of possible conspiracy.“She tried to say she didn’t authorize anything, then proceeded to say she did pass orders along to the CIA to engage in torture if it was legal by the standard of the Department of Justice,” Dean said. “This really puts her right in the middle of a common plan, as it’s known in international law, or a conspiracy, as it’s known in American law, and this indeed is a crime. If it indeed happened the way we think it did happen.”

Asked if the comparison between her comments and Nixon’s were fair, Dean said it was “fuzzy.”“She was obviously trying to extricate herself and keep herself in a safe distance, that she was only operating under some general guidance of the president making things legal,” he said. “So it’s not clear whether this is a full-throated Nixonian-type defense or whether it’s a lot of confusion of the facts and throwing things up there to try to protect herself.”

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