Is Justice Going After Jay Bybee and John Yoo—?

[Me.]

“An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former Bush administration officials. H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department's ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys." According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials—Jay Bybee and John Yoo—as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

But then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, strongly objected to the draft, according to the sources. Filip wanted the report to include responses from all three principals, said one of the sources, a former top Bush administration lawyer. (Mukasey could not be reached; his former chief of staff did not respond to requests for comment. Filip also did not return a phone message.) OPR is now seeking to include the responses before a final version is presented to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. "The matter is under review," said Justice spokesman Matthew Miller.

If Holder accepts the OPR findings, the report could be forwarded to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action. But some former Bush officials are furious about the OPR's initial findings and question the premise of the probe. "OPR is not competent to judge . They're not constitutional scholars," said the former Bush lawyer. Mukasey, in speeches before he left, decried the second-guessing of Justice lawyers who, acting under "almost unimaginable pressure" after 9/11, offered "their best judgment of what the law required."
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But the OPR probe began after Jack Goldsmith, a Bush appointee who took over OLC in 2003, protested the legal arguments made in the memos. Goldsmith resigned the following year after withdrawing the memos, and later wrote that he was "astonished" by the "deeply flawed" and "sloppily reasoned" legal analysis in the memos by Yoo and Bybee, including their assertion (challenged by many scholars) that the president could unilaterally disregard a law passed by Congress banning torture……”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184801

[Me.]

1. More

“OPR investigators focused on whether the memo's authors deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted, according to three former Bush lawyers who asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing probe. One of the lawyers said he was stunned to discover how much material the investigators had gathered, including internal e-mails and multiple drafts that allowed OPR to reconstruct how the memos were crafted. In a departure from the norm, Jarrett also told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year he would inform them of his findings and would "consider" releasing a public version. If he does, it could be the most revealing public glimpse yet at how some of the major decisions of Bush-era counterterrorism policy were made.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184801

[annabanana]

2. This is very important. I suspect that our worst suspicions

will be born out as more information becomes public. Yoo & Bybee are among the perpetrators who should under no circumstances be given immunity in exchange for information.

[liberalmuse]

3. Agreed.

America is in for some excruciatingly painful soul searching re: "The Bush Years". We libs have already done most of our share, but wait, there's more to come.

[Me.]

5. We Can Handle It

It's the rest of the country who is going to have the blinders riped off. We tried to tell them and were mocked for our efforts. And isn't that Mukasey a piece of work.

[Me.]

4. Totally Agree

They should never be allowed to practice law again.

[annabanana]

7. You are too kind.

Loss of livelihood would just be the FIRST thing they should have to endure. I am not one of those who would practice on them that which they enabled, but I would see them lose their liberty for the rest of their lives.

edit: My fury is based in the knowledge that the did this in my name, as an agent of MY country.

[mmonk]

6. Hopefully, some generation of Americans will look at it.

In the meantime, I think those that obtain office are free to rule as they please.

[sendero]

8. What's happening here..

... is that these low-level lackies are going to take the fall for BushCo. He ordered this legal crap, and they were stupid enough to comply.

[annabanana]

9. stupid or craven? . . . .n/t

[mmonk]

10. That may happen.

But both parties will insure those responsible most likely won't and will keep most of it out of the spotlight. I plan to spend some of my free time in the next two years helping with public awareness projects. But many Americans won't see what has happened as being wrong because nothing concrete enough will be done. So they will think these things are up to debate.

[Me.]

12. I'd Say They Were Only Too Happy To Comply

There is a perversity in the way they twisted the law.

[sendero]

13. Perhaps they were..

... but they are now going to be thrown under the bus. Sucks to be them.

[Me.]

14. They All Deserve It

Big fish, little fish. I read that the justice lawyers are now clamping down on Rove. I'd love to see them move up the food chain.

[coalition_unwilling]

11. Yoo is currently a law professor at UC-Berkeley's

law school.

My state taxes pay that war criminal's salary :(

Fortunately, World Can't Wait has made Yoo's dismissal from the UC faculty a priority in 2009.

[snot]

15. k&r'd