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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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February 20th,
2010 - DOJ Review Finds No Misconduct by Memo Authors |
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DOJ Review
Finds No Misconduct by Memo Authors From the Associated Press February 20, 2010 Washington - The Justice
Department is closing the books on its probe of the Bush administration
lawyers whose legal memorandums authorized the CIA to waterboard terrorism
suspects, but the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he remains
offended by the memos and will hold hearings An internal review said the
department lawyers showed ''poor judgment'' but did not commit professional
misconduct in giving CIA interrogators the go-ahead at the height of the U.S.
war on terrorism to use harsh interrogation tactics. President Barack Obama
campaigned on abolishing waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, and
other tactics that he called torture. He left open the question of whether
anyone would be punished for authorizing such methods. Liberal Democrats had
pressed for action against the authors of the so-called torture memos, and
they indicated they aren't finished discussing the matter. Judiciary Committee Chairman
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he was ''deeply offended'' by the legal memos
and planned to hold a hearing Feb. 26. ''I have serious concerns
about the role each of these government lawyers played in the development of
these policies,'' Leahy said in a statement posted on his Web site. An initial review by the
Justice Department's internal affairs unit found that former government
lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo had committed professional misconduct, a
conclusion that could have cost them their law licenses. But, underscoring
just how controversial and legally thorny the memos have become, the Justice
Department's top career lawyer reviewed the matter and disagreed. ''This decision should not
be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those
memoranda,'' Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote in a memo
released Friday. Margolis, the top
nonpolitical Justice Department lawyer and a veteran of several
administrations, called the legal memos ''flawed'' and said that, at every
opportunity, they gave interrogators as much leeway as possible under U.S.
torture laws. But he said Yoo and Bybee were not reckless and did not
knowingly give incorrect advice, the standard for misconduct. The Office of Professional
Responsibility, led by another veteran career prosecutor, Mary Patrice Brown,
disagreed. ''Situations of great
stress, danger and fear do not relieve department attorneys of their duty to
provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice, even if that advice is
not what the client wants to hear,'' her team wrote in a report that
criticized the memos for a ''lack of thoroughness, objectivity and candor.'' The internal report also
faulted then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and then-Criminal Division chief
Michael Chertoff for not scrutinizing the memos and recognizing their flaws,
but the report did not cite them for misconduct. Yoo is now a law professor
at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bybee is a federal judge on
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco. The decision
spares them any immediate sanctions, though state bar associations could
independently take up the matter. The memos authorized CIA
interrogators to use waterboarding, keep detainees naked, hold them in
painful standing positions and keep them in the cold for long periods of
time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and slapping
them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's
family were also used. The memos have been
embroiled in national security politics for years. The memos laid out a broad
interpretation of executive power, one the previous administration also used
to authorize warrantless wiretapping and secret prisons. Democrats say the
Bush administration used shoddy lawyering to legitimize such policies. Republicans said the memos,
authored by two well-respected attorneys, gave the CIA the authority it
needed to keep America safe in the panic-filled months after the Sept. 11,
2001 terrorist attacks. The memos were hurriedly put together in days, and
supporters of Yoo and Bybee note that investigators have had years to dissect
them. Many have criticized the Obama
administration for trying to politicize legal advice. ''We can only hope that the
department's decision will establish once and for all that dedicated public
officials may have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal
judgment without violating ethical standards,'' Bybee's lawyer, Maureen
Mahoney, said Friday. Yoo's lawyer, Miguel
Estrada, was more pointed. During the lengthy investigation, Estrada accused
internal investigators of trying to be ''Junior Varsity CIA'' that
second-guessed intelligence decisions. Friday, he said the two lawyers never
deserved to be investigated in the first place. Obama has said CIA
interrogators who relied on the memos will not face charges for their
behavior. A separate criminal inquiry is under way into whether a handful of
CIA operatives crossed the line, leading to the death of detainees. Associated Press writers
Devlin Barrett and Pete Yost contributed to this report. © 2010 The Associated Press. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/20/us/politics/AP-US-Interrogation-Memos.html |