5:45 pm
February 19, 2010
Yoo." class="img462"> John Yoo, formerly of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. (Melissa Golden / Getty Images)
By David Gura
Today, the Department of Justice released the long-awaited results of its investigation into Steven Bradbury, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, the men who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogations for high-profile terrorism detainees, NPR justice correspondent Ari Shapiro reports.
According to the cover letter accompanying the report, last year, the Department of Justice's investigation determined Bybee and Yoo violated professional legal ethics when they worked in the Department's Office of Legal Counsel, crafting the standards for interrogating high-value terrorism detainees.
But David Margolis, the career official in charge of overseeing the Office of Professional Responsibility, overruled that finding, Shapiro says. Now the report concludes the two men "exercised poor judgment." As a result, Bybee and Yoo do not face criminal charges or disbarment.
The final report is hundreds of pages long, filled with extensive emails between the Department of Justice, the White House, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
"If the torture memos were the movie, this report is the making of," a congressional staffer told Shapiro.
Update at 5:45 p.m. ET: In a statement accompanying the House Committee on the Judiciary's release of the report, Conyers said that the Department of Justice "deserves particular praise for transparency having released the draft version of its report and related materials that led to its final conclusions." He remained critical of Bybee, Bradbury, Yoo and others involved in drafting the memos, calling them "a blight on our national honor": "Today's report makes plain that those memos were legally flawed and fundamentally unsound. Even worse, it reveals that the memos were not the independent product of the Department of Justice, but were shaped by top officials of the Bush White House."
Update at 5:39 p.m. ET: Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), the chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, released the report and earlier drafts "in connection with the committee's oversight responsibilities and in anticipation of a public hearing on the issues raised." They're available here.
for me, as a Korean, the "news" is, first, releasing the draft version of its report and related materials that led to the final conclusion , second, legal ethics kicked in leaving door open to disbarment and criminal conviction. What an exemplary of rule of law ~
John Yoo was on "daily show", what struck me was that he did not meet with Mr.Bush. I assumed then-president Mr. Bush and John Yoo went on a first name basis.
Jon Stewart was straight. the show seems to have no script. John Yoo was underwhelmingly nimble.
Jon asked "wait wait wait ,, so you think, if thousands of people were killed, torture is allowed?"
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Posted: 20 Feb 2010 02:15 PM PST
by Kevin Jon Heller
I don’t have much time, but it’s important to note that although David Margolis may be a career attorney, he has made a career out of preventing government officials from being held accountable for their misconduct. From Scott Horton:
But “Yoda” Margolis also knows the “dark side” of political intrigue. He was long the man to whom political appointees could turn for protection and guidance when the going got rough, in both Democratic and Republican administrations. For instance, Bloomberg reported that both Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling turned instinctively to Margolis for protection and support when the U.S. attorney’s scandal erupted.
What this means in practice can be seen in dozens of cases involving seriously unethical conduct by political appointees. Margolis has a one-size-fits-all solution for these cases: sweep them under the carpet.
In “Prosecutorial Ethics Lite,” I reviewed what Margolis did when confronted with a case in which a U.S. attorney used all the powers she could assemble to destroy an insurance executive who had commenced a law suit against her husband. Ethics rules clearly required her recusal. But in the face of a compelling mass of evidence, Margolis concluded that everything was just fine. He allowed the U.S. attorney to pass nominal control of the matter to the head of her criminal division. The abuse of office pressed forward, with Margolis’s blessing.
Justice Department insiders also note that Margolis single-handedly blocked efforts to secure a meaningful review of the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman, after more than 90 attorneys general from around the country advised the Justice Department of a series of gross irregularities. Instead, with Margolis’s apparent knowledge, the Department fired a member of the prosecution team who had blown the whistle on some of the misconduct. (“What the Justice Department is Hiding.”)
Jeff Kaye collects a number of other occasions on which Margolis’s machinations have made their way into the media.
In a July 6, 2008, Los Angeles Times story, Margolis is cited as leading an effort to avoid publication of the Department’s internal ethics reviews. Margolis told the Times that his opposition to publication of OPR reports was driven by concerns about “unnecessarily or gratuitously… publicly humiliating our line attorneys as individuals.” But it may well be that Margolis’s desire to keep his own role in those cases secret was a more pressing concern.
There is little mistaking Margolis’s brief in all these matters. None of his critics fault Margolis’s own conduct as a lawyer. But they express concern that he is too quick to let political appointees off the hook and note that this has severely damaged the culture of the Justice Department. Ironically, Margolis is clearly driven by a desire to protect the Department’s reputation.
Margolis’s decision to override the OPR’s lead investigator is just more of the same.
P.S. For a nice critique of Margolis’s conclusion that Yoo did not act recklessly, see Brian Tamanaha’s post here.
The End of the War Over the Torture Memos?
Posted: 20 Feb 2010 02:12 AM PST
by Julian Ku
After five years, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally released its report of its internal investigation into the legal advice provided by its attorneys that became known as the “Torture Memos.” The lead investigator was the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) which issued a report recommending referring John Yoo and Jay Bybee to their state bars for disciplinary proceedings. But this recommendation (which was not officially made until December 2008), has been soundly and completely rejected by David Margolis, the Associate Deputy Attorney General empowered by the DOJ to decide whether to accept the OPR recommendations. All of the relevant documents have been posted on the House Judiciary Committee website. I’ve only scanned them, but here is the bottom line: Yoo and Bybee’s work on the torture memos is called “poor judgment” and “flawed” but there is no evidence that this advice reflected any professional misconduct.
The decision memo by Margolis (who is a career attorney, not a political appointee) is tough on John Yoo’s work, but it is even tougher (and at times contemptuous) of the work done by the OPR. The OPR report is rejected in every single way possible. (Indeed, I wondered at times whether the OPR attorneys are going to be investigated for professional misconduct themselves). (- ^^)
