James Elmer Mitchell
From 2002, after his retirement from the military, to 2009, his company Mitchell Jessen and Associates received $81 million on contract from the CIA to carry out the torture of detainees, referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques" that resulted in little credible information.
By 2007, the company employed around 60 people, including former CIA interrogator Deuce Martinez; Karen Gardner, a former senior training official at the FBI Academy, and Roger Aldrich.
[7][4] The CIA Inspector General concluded that there was no scientific reason to believe that the program Mitchell designed was medically safe or would produce reliable information.
[2] On December 9, 2014, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report confirming the use of torture and SERE tactics in interrogations.
"[15] For years there was press speculation over whether the Presiding Officer would or would not allow Defense Counsel to call Mitchell or Jessen as witnesses at Guantanamo Military Commission.
"[17] Although Mitchell was not a member, the American Psychological Association sent a letter to the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists stating that the actions alleged by the complainant to have been committed by Dr. Mitchell were "patently unethical," and that longstanding APA policy strictly prohibited psychologists from being involved "in any form of torture or other types of cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment or punishment.
"[18] The APA justified its intervention by stating that "the allegations put forward in the complaint and those that are on the public record about Dr. Mitchell are simply so serious, and if true, such a gross violation of his professional ethics, that we felt it necessary to act."
[20] In 2014, The New York Times editorial board called for the investigation and prosecution of Mitchell and Jessen for their role in developing the torture practices used by the CIA.
"[22] On October 13, 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen on behalf of Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, and the estate of Gul Rahman, three former detainees who were subjected to the interrogation methods they designed.
[25] On July 28, 2017, U.S. District Judge Justin Lowe Quackenbush denied both parties' motions for summary judgment, noted that the defendants are indemnified by the United States government, and encouraged the attorneys to reach a settlement before trial.
