'Behind the Executive Orders'

SCOOP – The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, 'Behind the Executive Orders': '[O]n Friday afternoon, the new White House Counsel, Greg Craig, ... noted in his first White House interview that the reforms were not finished yet and that Obama had deliberately postponed several of the hardest legal questions. ... Sitting at a spotless conference table in an undecorated West Wing corner office up a narrow flight of stairs from the Oval Office, Craig, who is sixty-three, seemed boyish and energized. He explained that Obama's bold legal moves were the result of a 'painstaking' process that started in Iowa, before the first presidential caucus. It was there that then-candidate Obama met with a handful of former high-ranking military officers who opposed the Bush Administration's legalization of abusive interrogations. ... Among the hard questions Obama left open ... is whether the C.I.A. will have to follow the same interrogation rules as the military. While the President has clearly put an end to cruel tactics, Craig said that Obama 'is somewhat sympathetic to the spies' argument that their mission and circumstances are different.' ... During the transition period, unknown to the public, Obama's legal, intelligence, and national-security advisers visited Langley for two long sessions ... 'There was unanimity among Obama's expert advisers,' Craig said, 'that to change the practices would not in any material way affect the collection of intelligence.'

Source: Mike Allen's Politico Playbook Daily Update