Much to the chagrin of leftists everywhere, the DOJ will clear Bush administration lawyers of any professional misconduct in a soon-to-be-released 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.
As much as he would have loved to, not even Eric Holder was dumb enough to try and prosecute the lawyers from the previous administration. Obama’s presidency would have gone down in flames and Democrats wouldn’t be elected to high office again for 50 years.
Speaking of going down in flames, Jon Stewart got his ass handed to him by John Yoo recently. (Click HERE to buy Yoo’s book, Crisis and Command)
The entire controversy surrounding the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism has proven to be misguided and largely political. President Obama has emboldened our enemies and put this nation at risk with his naive leftist ideology.
You can look for Eric Holder’s crusade against the CIA interrogators to end much like this phony case did.
It’s really too bad the DOJ couldn’t find the time to prosecute Black Panthers for intimidating voters outside a polling place, but found time to attempt a phony case against President Bush’s lawyers — simply for giving legal advice.
-Chris Jones
{ 1 trackback }