Why are people jumping on the Margolis/Yoo report without knowing all the details?

[ProSense]

DOJ official reportedly clears torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee.

DOJ official said that Margolis “acted without input” from Attorney General Eric Holder. Emptywheel has more.

Hard to figure how this finding and conclusion could be determined by David Margolis to warrant the “softening” of the original finding of direct misconduct. Margolis is nearly 70 years old and has a long career at DOJ and is fairly well though of. Margolis was tasked by Jim Comey to shepherd Pat Fitzgerald’s Libby investigation. In short, the man has some bona fides.

Margolis is, however, also tied to the DOJ and its culture for over forty years, not to mention his service in upper management as Associate Attorney General during the Bush Administration when the overt acts of torture and justification by Margolis’ contemporaries and friends were committed. For one such filter to redraw the findings and conclusions of such a critical investigation in order to exculpate his colleagues is unimaginable.

One thing is for sure, with a leak like this being floated out on a late Friday night, the release of the full OPR Report, at least that which the Obama Administration will deem fit for the common public to see, is at hand. Mike Isikoff and Dan Klaidman have made sure the torturers and their enablers can have a comfortable weekend though. So we got that going for us.

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Upon taking office in 2009, Obama's Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assigned the hot-potato project to his new leader of the professional responsibility office, veteran D.C. prosecutor Mary Patrice Brown. Brown took months to carefully review and revise the lengthy report, and her conclusions eventually went to a senior career lawyer in the department, according to a source with knowledge of the process.

The source said the decision to stop short of disciplinary recommendations for Yoo and Bybee fell to David Margolis, who has spent more than three decades at the center of some of the most sensitive issues at the Justice Department. Margolis's decision was first reported by Newsweek's Web site.

Representatives for Bybee and Bradbury declined to comment Saturday, as did a Justice Department spokeswoman. Miguel Estrada, an attorney for Yoo, said he had not seen the findings and thus could not remark on them.

The conclusion is likely to unsettle interest groups that have sought a reckoning for lawyers who made possible brutal interrogation, warrantless wiretapping and other Bush counterterrorism strategies. It could have the strongest effect on Bybee, a sitting judge whose allies had established a legal defense fund in the event that he had to fend off a lengthy state discipline and impeachment fight.

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No input from AG Holder? The story sounds suspect.



Edited extra word.