Administration Wanted Loyalist As Justice Dept. Legal Adviser

[sabra]

Source: WP

Top Officials Sought to Defend Interrogation Practices

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.

In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft's list reached the White House, President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.

Ashcroft's refusal created a tense standoff and was the only time in the attorney general's tenure that Bush was called upon to resolve a personnel dispute, the sources said.

The process led the White House team to introduce a compromise choice -- Jack L. Goldsmith, a Defense Department lawyer then on leave from a teaching post at the University of Chicago Law School.

But Goldsmith's tenure did not proceed as White House aides had expected. He went on to challenge the administration, rescinding or rewriting several of Yoo's most sensitive memos after unearthing what he called numerous flaws.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/16/AR2008071602563.html

[Inuca]

1. IN relative terms

Ashcroft seems to have been one of the better Bush appointments, strange as it feels to be typing this.

[sharp_stick]

2. I know what you mean

I hated Ashcroft when he was the AG but by God, he was probably the best that shrubbo ever had in his 8 years of screwing the constituion and the country. I can't believe how much I miss the old guy, I'd even let him cover up the statue in the Justice Department for his briefings without laughing.

[Inuca]

4. What about his singing though?

Difficult to keep a straight face for that :-).

[sharp_stick]

6. ARRRRRRRRGH!!

LET THE EAGLES SOAR....

I almost forgot about that, he deserves prison time for that abomination no chance of Presidential pardon.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Yes he does appear to be somewhat honest

But he's still a fruitloop.

[blackspade]

5. strange times indeed....nt

[gratuitous]

7. It took the corruption of the Bush administration

To make John Ashcroft seem almost palatable as Attorney General. He wasn't, of course, but compared to the rest of the dreck running amok through the Justice Department, the man who so memorably warbled that the Eagle is Sore sticks out like a shiny penny.

[Inuca]

8. "the Eagle is Sore"

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: Not on the floor, but actually laughing out LOUD.

[gratuitous]

9. Original kudos go to Bob Boudelang

American Patriot, and greatly missed.