Yoo hypocrite

By GottaLaff

Via L.A. Times Letters to the Editor (bolding mine):

Re “Yoo feels at ease among opposition,” March 29

It's pretty obvious why John Yoo likes living in Berkeley.

He can delude himself into thinking that most of those who disapprove of his actions are "self-indulgent, pot-smoking hippies."

He imagines himself a quasi-martyr living among these "troglodytes."

He may be a bright lawyer, but his introspective properties are clearly deficient.

****

It is good to know that Californians can sleep well at night because John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California's Boalt Hall law school, believes he is the "shining beacon of capitalism" -- while employed by the state of California, accepting state funds for his salary and accruing time for his taxpayer-funded retirement.

How does one spell "hypocrite"?

****

Torture usually leaves psychological scars that never heal and that subject its victims to lifelong illnesses and abuse, and can even lead to suicide.

Yoo excluded this important aspect from his definition of torture in order to make torture more acceptable to the Bush administration and to advance his career, despite the fact that the effects of torture on human psychology have been well documented during the past 100 years.

My original piece on the article referred to in these letters is here.

John Yoo: I'm "a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism"

By GottaLaff

John Yoo, one of the architects of the "torture memos", is employed at U.C. Berkeley. He says he is very happy teaching at Boalt Hall School of Law.

He seemed perfectly happy when he sparred with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

He seemed perfectly happy when he wrote the memos, too. Weeee!

He now seems happy to throw around words like "Marxism" and "troglodytes" when he describes the very people from whom he's happy to take happy checks from and with whom he continues his happy employment.

He seems more than happy to continue to defend the "success" derived from torture.

He's bursting with happy when he sees himself as a "shining beacon of ... democracy."

Yoo lie!

"I think of myself as being West Berlin during the Cold War, a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism," Yoo observes, sipping iced tea in the faculty club lounge, a wan smile registering the discomfort of colleagues walking by en route to the bar.

He sees his neighbors as the human figures of "a natural history museum of the 1960s," the Telegraph Avenue tableau of a graying, long-haired, pot-smoking counterculture stuck in the ideology's half-century-old heyday.

"It's like looking at the panoramic displays of troglodytes sitting around the campfire with their clubs. Here, it's tie-dye and marijuana. It's just like the 1960s, with the Vietnam War still to protest."

He's just one happy, clappy guy... who just doesn't get it:

Yoo sees the investigation as political score-settling by those who disagreed with the tough war-on-terror policies of the Bush White House. [...]

He sees the persistent protests of his fitness to teach law as the campaign of a radical community intolerant of views that don't accord with their own.

Yes, that's it. Brutalizing people, often innocent ones, had nothing to do with it. Invading a sovereign country who did not invade us, killing thousands upon thousands, in a fraudulent war is just "score-settling". It's all about our "intolerance".

But at least he's happy.

In fact, he's not only happy, he's "amused":

Yoo seems more amused than uncomfortable as the center of controversy.

Isn't that droll?

Yes, Torture Guy is having a good chuckle over objections to his crafting the legal justification for killing, maiming, and psychologically destroying fellow human beings.

That's some sense of humor.

Here's something else Mr. Happy is jolly about:

Yoo doesn't rule out a return to public service should Republican conservatives regain the White House.

Oh goody. If that's not a reason for utter ecstasy, I don't know what is.

Yoo seems at peace living in Berkeley, even though he disparages the community as an enclave of self-satisfied extremists intolerant of those who think outside the liberal mind-set.

This is a man at peace, after what he did, after his own intolerance for, you know, our system of justice, after shredding the Constitution.

At peace.

In that case, may Yoo rest in peace.

The Torture Memo Author- + Executive Power to Massacre- You've Never Heard Of

By GottaLaff

Recently, we were told that John Yoo and his band of merry torturers got the equivalent of a "bad dog" scolding for crafting the rules that allowed BushCo to legalize the brutalization of human beings into submission in order to get worthless testimony.

Good job, BushCo.

Now we discover that someone at OLC slipped under the radar.

Yes, there was another architect involved. Little Miss Sunshine aka Jennifer Koester, was young and new and bored and had a pile of spare time and must have been like, rilly rilly tired of posting on MySpace. What's a girl to do?

The Office of Legal Counsel remedied that. They closed their eyes, stuck out Mr. Pointer Finger, spun around, stopped, opened their eyes, and wham! Mr. Pointer was aimed directly at Lawyerette Jenny:

Though Koester was clearly the junior partner in the process, and appears to have had no authority to approve the final versions of the memos that went out from the department, it's notable nonetheless that OLC assigned the task of drafting what was essentially the government's position on the legality of torture to an attorney just two years out of law school, who appears to have been around 28 at the time. And that it did so in part because Koester, having just joined the unit, "had some time available," according to the report. It's also perhaps surprising -- given the intense level of scrutiny that Yoo has rightly received for his role in producing the memos -- that Koester has until now remained almost entirely under the radar. [...]

But the report also makes clear that, despite apparently having been given the assignment almost at random, Koester played a more active role in the process of producing the memos than perhaps anyone else at DOJ, with the possible exception of Yoo. [...]

Indeed, according to the report, it was Koester who drafted perhaps the most controversial section of the memos: the discussion of the "commander in chief" power, in which OLC essentially advises the government that the president, as commander in chief, can disregard any law he wants during wartime. "Koester also told us that she thinks she ended up writing the Commander-in-Chief section, with 'a lot of input' from Yoo and Philbin," writes OPR (p. 50).

Oh, but wait. That's not all. An internal Justice Department report released Friday revealed this little exchange:

Q: I guess the question I'm raising is, does this particular law really affect the President's war-making abilities ....

Yoo: Yes, certainly.

Q: What is your authority for that?

Yoo: Because this is an option that the President might use in war.

Q: What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally--

Yoo: Yeah. Although, let me say this. So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions.

Q: To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?

Yoo: Sure.

You read that correctly. Boy Georgie could order the extermination of entire villages. How WWII of them. Georgie, Yoo, and Lawyerette Jenny sure did think alike! They must have been BFF.

I wonder if Little Miss Sunshine came up with that gem, too. After all, she had more free time than everyone else did to slip in all kinds of innovative laws that rational people never would have been able to come up with.

After all, she did, per the report, draft the part of the memo that gave the "commander in chief power to disregard any law he wants during wartime."

And then, as all Lawyerettes do, she ate her P, B and J sammich, watched Barney, grabbed her blankie, and took a nap.

She slept very soundly and dreamed good dreams, because little boys and girls with no consciences never have nightmares about death and torture.

H/t: Gr8RDH

Yoo asked for it

By GottaLaff

Yoo hooooo!

As reports circulate that the Justice Department has softened its criticism of attorney John Yoo for memos approving the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects, several prominent lawyers are urging a federal appeals court in San Francisco to hold Yoo accountable.

They have submitted arguments opposing dismissal of a prisoner's lawsuit that accuses the former Justice Department attorney of providing a legal cover for torture. The suit covers much of the same ground as the department's ethics investigation of Yoo. [...]

Yoo says he always gave good-faith legal advice and denies authorizing torture. Those claims could be tested in a San Francisco federal court, however, unless Yoo can persuade a court to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit. [...]

Yoo has appealed, saying the suit would interfere with presidential war-making authority. The Obama administration has taken his side, arguing that courts should not meddle in questions of national security.

But in filings over the last 10 days, groups of constitutional law professors, legal ethics scholars and former government attorneys urged the court to keep Padilla's suit alive.

They argue that this is not a dispute over legal advice, as Yoo contends, but the case of a lawyer who allegedly stepped out of his role to take part in planning detention and interrogation policies, and then devised legal opinions to justify those policies.

And who are some of these very principled, very learned, very ethical lawyers who support the novel concept of upholding the-- What's it called again? Oh yeah-- U.S. Constitution? Here's who:

Erwin Chemerinsky, law school dean at UC Irvine; Alan Morrison, an assistant law dean at George Washington and former director of Public Citizen Litigation Group; and Norman Dorsen of New York University, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Also, Stanford's Deborah Rhode and former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, not to mention Bruce Fein, special assistant to the director of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in President Ronald Reagan's administration.

They stressed the importance of applying ethical standards to lawyers who advise the president on constitutional issues.

There is much more here. (h/t: VNDNBRG)

And here:

*****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

DOJ official reportedly clears torture memo authors Yoo and Bybee.

By GottaLaff

I'm sure I'll hear from die-hard Obama supporters about how anti-Obama I am (which is laughable if you read TPC regularly), but this, in a word, sucks:

Newsweek now reports that a senior DOJ official has essentially cleared the two men of misconduct in an upcoming office of Professional Responsibility report:

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors — Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor — violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action — which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, who you can see here in Blunt, the Sequel), has more.

I'm heartbroken, angry, frustrated, baffled, you name it. But I pretty much expected this outcome. How depressing.

Apparently, Margolis didn't get "input" from A.G. Holder. Maybe he should have.

I simply don't understand sweeping the entire foundation for legalizing torture under the rug, as it obviously was in a Friday night dump (when it was released).

Don't even bother trying to talk me down. I'm way past that.

Obama lawyers: Drop John Yoo's charges

By GottaLaff

It's Talk Me Down time:

Citing an argument that hallmarked the Bush years, Obama administration attorneys have asked a San Francisco court to drop all charges against Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who authored legal opinions that permitted the torture of prisoners.

An amicus curiae brief [PDF link] filed by the Department of Justice with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday essentially argues that because he was giving advice to the president on a national security matter, Yoo should not be held accountable for his actions as it would have a chilling effect on advice provided to future presidents.

In other words, the DoJ explained, accusations of torture in this case present "special factors" that the court should not address "in the absence of congressional action."

The rest is here.

I'm still reeling from the health care reform updates. I don't think I can endure reeling from two things at once at the moment, so excuse me if I stop here before my head explodes.

What the CIA hid from Congress

By GottaLaff

Jane Harman (D-Venice) chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, and part of the "Gang of Eight" who are " required by law to be briefed on the CIA's "covert" action programs." She'd like to clarify a few things:

[C]omments by Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, that the Gang of Eight was "fully" briefed on the TSP prompt me to disclose, for the first time, what they were like.

In virtually every meeting, Hayden would present PowerPoint "slides," walking us through the operational details of the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program]. The program has since been described, in part, as one that intercepted communications to and from the U.S. in an effort to uncover terrorist networks and prevent or disrupt attacks. We were told that the program was the centerpiece of our counter-terrorism efforts, legal and yielding impressive results.

Often present were CIA officials (including then-Director George Tenet) and then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. Missing was any Justice Department presence -- a tipoff, in retrospect, to the legal limbo under which the program operated. [...]

It is now clear to me that we learned only what the briefers wanted to tell us -- even though they were required by law to keep us "fully and currently informed." Absent the ability to do any independent research, it did not occur to me then that the program was operated wholly outside of the framework Congress created as the exclusive means to conduct such surveillance: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nor did I know that the Justice Department was cut out of the process, and that one lawyer, John Yoo, had drafted the internal memo justifying the TSP under the president's Article 2 authorities. A new head of the Office of Legal Counsel repudiated that memo, citing the "shoddiness" of the legal reasoning. [...]

While our country had experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history, the Orwellian solution conjured up by a small group in the Bush administration was to shred our laws and Constitution in order to save us -- a false and unnecessary choice. [...]

The House and Senate intelligence authorization bills would require increased notification, including, in the House bill, information on lawfulness, cost, benefit and risk. The White House has issued a veto threat, citing constitutional concerns. Surely both sides -- and policy -- would profit more from a robust partnership.

Remember, John Yoo was one of the exclusive fraternity that created law, as in "Torture Memos" (all my related posts on torture, detainee mistreatment, military commissions, etc. here).

This sleazy little club would concoct flimsy, tortured legal memos that were binding, and they would do so under the radar, excluding anybody whose input should have been seriously considered, even required. If anybody dared challenge them, they would be loudly and abruptly cut short and/or paid lip service and ignored.

Jane Mayer goes into great detail about this in her book The Dark Side.

I have two words for BushCo: Screw Yoo.

LOL VIDEO: Comedian visits torture memo author John Yoo at U.C. Berkeley

By GottaLaff

I don't need to add a thing:

Miguel Estrada to represent John Yoo before the 9th Circuit; yes, THAT Miguel Estrada

By GottaLaff

Oh, this is rich. Remember all that Rushpublic talk at the Sotomayor hearings about the Other Hispanic, Miguel Estrada? Well, he's been a busy little bee, and may very well come face-to-face with Sotomayor in the Biggest Court in the Land:

The Recorder has more details about the tough work Estrada has ahead of him. (h/t WSJ Law Blog)

John Yoo, author of some of the Bush administration's war-on-terror memos, has hired Washington, D.C., lawyer Miguel Estrada to appeal a ruling that allowed an allegedly mistreated detainee's suit against Yoo.

[snip]

Estrada has already been representing Yoo in an investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility into the legal work behind the memos. That investigation is ongoing, though the results could be released at any time, and a draft finding reportedly would have referred Bybee and Yoo to State Bar authorities for possible discipline.

As a reminder, this means that Estrada will represent Yoo as he attempts to convince the 9th Circuit to reverse the District Court's ruling that Padilla's suit against Yoo can move forward. And--it is not unreasonable to imagine--regardless of what the 9th Circuit decides, the Latino the Republicans wished had been the first on SCOTUS (Estrada) might soon face the Latina Republicans will grudgingly see confirmed as Justice in the next few weeks for a big showdown over the rule of law. Any bets on whether Estrada makes more money trying to save Yoo from any consequences for his actions (yes, taxpayers will be footing Estrada's bill) than Sotyomayor will make in her first year on SCOTUS?

[...] [T]he Recorder has some interesting speculation from some law professors who have been following the case on why Yoo needs his own lawyer.

New York University School of Law professor Stephen Gillers, who has written about the investigation into the memos, said that the Justice Department should not have been Yoo's sole representation in the first place, because conflicts of interest between Yoo and his former employer were too likely to occur.

Yoo may have wanted to make arguments that the Justice Department couldn't pursue, such as implicating other DOJ officials, Gillers said. He speculated that Yoo may have wanted to investigate former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, or Cheney's former legal counsel, David Addington.

"Just hypothetically, he might say, 'I was ordered to do this by David Addington, so he should be in this [case] also,'" Gillers said. "DOJ's not going to sue David Addington on behalf of Yoo."

Georgetown University Law Center professor David Luban, an ethics expert who has also written about the torture controversy, said in an e-mail that he hadn't been tracking the case closely, but that the Justice Department's decision could indicate the government was litigating the Bush administration's position at the district court level, but is now rethinking whether to continue to maintain it. Or, he speculated, it might be that the OPR report will be issued soon and will recommend discipline.

"That by itself would create a conflict of interest in DOJ defending his position in a closely related civil case," he wrote. "Even though OPR is a different subunit of DOJ, it's not a separate law firm."[my emphasis]

Yoo got some 'splainin' to doooo, to quote you-know-who.

The BushCo Train Wreck, to be continued...

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

Ex-CIA agent: Zubaydah waterboarded before DoJ memos approved

By GottaLaff

There are reports popping out everywhere that all seem to be revealing the same thing: BushCo broke the law. I sense a theme:

A former U.S. intelligence agent said in a report published Monday that terror suspect Abu Zubaydah was subjected to simulated drowning months before the Bush administration’s Department of Justice had written memos approving the use of waterboarding.

The claim strikes a serious blow to repeated Bush administration arguments that no laws were broken in the torture of prisoners because legal guidelines had been closely followed.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer John Kiriakou, speaking with BBC’s Panorama, said that internal communications detailed Zubaydah’s torture beginning “at the very end of May or the very beginning of June 2002.”

Bush administration lawyers did not issue memorandum supportive of torture — a war crime under the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war — until August of that year.

Kiriakou said that President Bush had personally given written authorization for Zubaydah’s torture.

So much for "following the law".

As you know by now, I am passionate about holding those accountable who were responsible for authorizing the torture and brutality. All of them.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer John Yoo can be sued over torture

By GottaLaff

Last night I posted about John Yoo being ordered to testify about his handywork leading to torture. Here's an update:

A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees.

"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo.

If Padilla, now serving a 17-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, can prove his allegations, he can show that Yoo "set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla's constitutional rights," White said.

That's a big "if".

John Eastman, law school dean at Chapman University in Orange County, where Yoo taught for the past year, [...] predicted that the Justice Department will file an immediate appeal, going to the Supreme Court if necessary. [...]

Declared an enemy combatant, Padilla was held in a Navy brig for three years and eight months and was denied all contact with the outside world for the first half of that period, his suit said. He was then taken out of the brig and charged with taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to Islamic extremist groups. He was convicted and has appealed.

His suit against Yoo covers his time in the brig. He says he was detained illegally, held for lengthy periods in darkness and blinding light, subjected to temperature extremes and sleep deprivation, confined in painful stress positions, and threatened with death to himself, harm to his family and transfer to a nation where he would be tortured.

The suit said Yoo - who has acknowledged being a member of an administration planning group known as the "war council" - personally reviewed and approved Padilla's detention in the brig and provided the legal cover for his treatment.

At a hearing in March, Justice Department lawyer Mary Mason told White that courts had no power to scrutinize high-level government decision-making, especially in wartime.

But White said Friday that Padilla had a right to sue "the alleged architect of the government policy" on enemy combatants. He said an examination of Yoo's publicly disclosed writings would not damage national security, and an inquiry into "allegations of unconstitutional treatment of an American citizen on American soil" would not affect foreign relations.

Bush lawyer Yoo ordered to testify

By GottaLaff

YOO-hooooo, Johhnnnn. Guess what time it is? Time to take an oath:

A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights.

Suh-weet.

H/t: Greg Mitchell

Cheney moves goalposts on torture memos

Greg found the nugget, and as he points out, what Cheney says now is exactly what Levin and Feingold have been saying all along.

The key moment came when his interviewer said: “You want some documents declassified having to do with waterboarding.” Cheney replied:

“Yes, but the way I would describe them is they have to do with the detainee program, the interrogation program. It’s not just waterboarding. It’s the interrogation program that we used for high-value detainees. There were two reports done that summarize what we learned from that program, and I think they provide a balanced view.”

Bear with me here, because this is crucial. Cheney is carefully saying that the documents summarize what we learned from the overall interrogation program. Torture, of course, was only a component of that program. So he’s clearly saying that the docs summarize what was learned from a program that included non-torture techniques, too.

Consider the goalposts moved.

CIA CYA

By GottaLaff

Via TPM:

A former intelligence professional who has participated in congressional briefings tells TPMmuckraker that the term "enhanced interrogation techniques" or EITs -- which appears throughout those CIA documents about who in Congress was briefed starting in 2002 about which aspects of the Bush torture program -- didn't come in to use until 2006.

It's a crucial point, our Zack Roth reports:

That's not just an issue of semantics. The former intel professional said that by using the term in the recently compiled document, the CIA was being "disingenuous," trying to make it appear that the use of such techniques was part of a "formal and mechanical program." In fact, said the former intel pro, it wasn't until 2006 that -- amid growing concerns about the program among some in the Bush administration -- the EIT program was formalized, and the "enhanced interrogation techniques" were properly defined and given a name.

[...] ...the CIA's effort to cover its aft, an effort that commenced years ago, well before Bush left office.

Newly-Disclosed Memo Shows Bush Was Presented With Legal Alternative To Torture Program

By GottaLaff

Drip... drip...swoooooosh!... Flood... Gush-sh!

A newly-disclosed 2005 memo, authored by then-State Department counselor Philip Zelikow, then-Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, and then-Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Matthew Waxman, gave President Bush “clear and unequivocal advice encouraging a detainee interrogation system that followed humane practices that adhered to US and international law.” The memo was authored as the Bush administration was seeking a “fresh approach” handling terror detainee and just weeks after the OLC issued its second round of torture memos.

In the memo, the three Bush administration officials argue that the President should appoint a “special board” to “review general U.S. government detainee policy and operations” and “evaluate issues of effectiveness and intelligence value.”

While that review was taking place, the authors recommended that U.S. forces treat detainees in the so-called war on terror as if they were “civilian detainees under the law of war.” “This is the system generally being used by our forces in Iraq. Adopting this interim approach allows us to handle the detainees on a well understood basis that gives our forces clear, unambiguous guidelines for conduct,” they wrote, adding:

WE ARE NOT SAYING THAT THESE DETAINEES ARE, NECESSARILY ENTITLED TO THIS STATUS. TO BE CLEAR: WE ARE GIVING THEM A TEMPORARY STATUS THEY DO NOT DESERVE. BUT WE ARE NOT DOING THIS FOR THEM. WE ARE DOING IT FOR US.

Much more here.

Liberal groups seek disbarment of Bush lawyers over torture

By GottaLaff

"Many view" this as a good start:

A coalition of progressive groups sought Monday to have 12 Bush administration lawyers disbarred for their roles in crafting the legal rationale for so-called enhanced interrogation techniques that many view as torture.

Yes, "many" have a sense of justice, morality, and the rule of law. "Many" understand that torture doesn't work. "Many" are rational members of society and are sick and tired of secrecy. "Many" want BushCo to be put under oath, but "many" realize that I'm off on a tangent here.

Kevin Zeese, an attorney for the coalition:

"Just as the bar would suspend an attorney who advised a police officer to torture and brutalize a detained immigrant or criminal defendant, the bar must suspend these attorneys for advocating and causing the torture of war detainees. The disciplinary boards that hear these complaints must act or they will be seen as complicit in the use of torture."

Zeese called disbarment "an important step toward the ultimate accountability of criminal prosecution."

The group registered formal complaints against David Addington, John Ashcroft, Stephen Bradbury, Jay Bybee, Michael Chertoff, Douglas Feith, Alice Fisher, Timothy Flanigan, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes II, Michael Mukasey, and John Yoo. [...]

The complaints, filed with the state bars in California, the District of Columbia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas, also seek other forms of disciplinary action in addition to disbarment.

A preliminary internal report on the Justice Department investigation into the authors of the Bush administration's so-called "torture memos" indicated the federal government might also urge state bar associations to take sanctions against the memo writers, according to two government sources familiar with the report.

The draft, which has been sent to Attorney General Eric Holder for approval or revisions, reportedly does not call for criminal prosecutions.

Sources familiar with the report said investigators for the Justice Department's ethics unit — the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) — have focused heavily on internal communications involving Bradbury, Bybee, and Yoo.

Pelosi unlikely to be called to testify

By GottaLaff

BushCo ordered torture. Pelosi didn't. Lather, rinse, repeat:

It's beyond rare for a member of Congress to be hauled before an investigating committee. It's even less likely with Pelosi's party controlling both the House and Senate.

But beyond that, Democratic aides say that what Pelosi knew simply isn't part of what Senate committees have set out to learn as they investigate Bush-era interrogation practices.

As part of its yearlong investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into what the CIA told lawmakers, but not beyond the Senate committee itself. Pelosi received her controversial September 2002 briefing as a member of the so-called "Gang of Four," the top Republican and Democrat on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

So Pelosi's briefing doesn't fit. [...]

[T]he Judiciary Committee investigation into abusive interrogation practices covers only the areas under its jurisdiction, namely the Justice Department and its approval of the techniques.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, has suggested that House Intelligence or House Judiciary should hold hearings and call Pelosi as a witness. Neither has begun any investigation into Bush administration interrogation practices.

Hey, I know, Petey! Enhancededly-interrogate Nancy. That'll kill (no pun) two birds with one Rushpublic waterboard.

BREAKING: CIA turns down Cheney's memo request

By GottaLaff

Breaking on CNN:

Memo to Cheney from CIA: Memo request denied. Looks like the Nation of Dick can't use them for his memoirs. These are those docs that supposedly say that waterboarding was necessary to get information.

Cheney is preparing his appeal.

UPDATE, via Mark Knoller:

CIA says it denied the request only because the memos at issue are "subject of pending litigation." CIA says "for that reason - and that reason only" CIA did not accept Cheney's request for a mandatory declassification review.

VIDEO: Cheney Brings Checkers to a Chess Fight v. Obama

By GottaLaff



Via my new best friend at CQ Politics.

Bush Failure To Disclose Waterboarding Appears To Violate Law

By GottaLaff

BushCo can't so much as sneeze without violating the law. Here we go again, via Sam Stein:

According to the testimony of two high-ranking Democrats and recently declassified CIA and Justice Department documents, the Bush White House failed to disclose the use of waterboarding until roughly half a year after it was first deployed. [...] But it is worth restating and highlighting again because, if accurate, it appears to constitute a violation of law by the former White House.

As documented by the Congressional Research Service, the President is required to ensure "that the congressional intelligence committees are kept 'fully and currently informed' of U.S. intelligence activities, including any 'significant anticipated intelligence activity.'" The basis of this is the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act, which places a statutory obligation on the President to not just keep relevant committees "fully and currently informed" but to disclose "any significant anticipated intelligence activity."

"The requirement to report significant anticipated activities means, in practice, that the committees should be advised of important new program initiatives and specific activities that have major foreign policy implications," reads language accompanying the FY 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act. [...]

[S]ix months appeared to pass between the waterboarding of Zubaydah and the moment when Democrats were briefed on the matter. [...]

So it seems plausible that, in the fall of 2002, members of Congress were either told only that the government was considering or planning the use of waterboarding or were kept in the dark entirely about the technique. Both Pelosi and Graham insist that latter is true. And if that is, in fact, the case, it would seem to place the Bush administration outside the law requiring disclosure of intelligence activities.

But by all means, let's not look back, just forward.