Assuming Mayer’s account is correct, consider the implications of the country’s main intelligence agency – an unaccountable group whose actions are secret mostly because they’re illegal – bullying a new president into not applying the rule of law to themselves or their preceding superiors.
I tend to think the Obama administration didn’t prosecute the Bush administration because they wanted to be able to continue many of those policies without much legal burden. But I don’t doubt the CIA put pressure on elected officials to sweep their crimes of torture under the rug.