Condoleezza Rice veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, human rights organizations, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and many senior politicians, including U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2003 Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft met with the CIA again and were briefed on the use of waterboarding and other methods including week-long sleep deprivation, forced nudity and the use of stress positions. The Senate report says that the Bush administration officials "reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy". The Senate report also "suggests Miss Rice played a more significant role than she acknowledged in written testimony
Office of Legal Counsel by the Attorney General or President. In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder overturned an unpublished OLC opinion that had concluded that a D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress was unconstitutional. During President George W. Bush's first term in office, OLC Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo drafted, and Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee signed, a set of legal memoranda that became known as the "torture memos." These memos advised the CIA and the Department of Defense that the President may lawfully authorize the use of enhanced interrogation techniques widely regarded as torture, including: mental and physical torment and