Obama Pick’s Potential Conflict and Failed Torture Techniques

by Alexandra Andrews
ProPublica, May 12, 2009, 12:23 p.m.

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Here are our editors’ picks from today’s roundup of investigative stories around the Web. Was there a story we missed? Please keep sending us your picks or include them in the comments section below.

TIAA-CREF, one of the nation’s largest financial services companies, would pay the Treasury Department’s general counsel nearly $3 million over the next three years as part of a deferred compensation plan if President Obama’s nominee for the job is confirmed, reports the Washington Times. A Treasury spokesman said the nominee wouldn’t work on matters that would “affect the ability or willingness” of the company to pay him. (Check more of the Obama team’s financial disclosures.)

Also, a former FBI agent is expected to tell Congress tomorrow that Alberto Gonzales, acting as White House counsel in 2002, pushed interrogators to use harsh—and ultimately ineffective—tactics on a suspect who was already cooperating, reports ABC News. The agent’s testimony is expected to “directly contradict assertions by CIA officials and former Vice President Cheney that ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were successful in prying information out of al-Qaida detainees.”