From an email from the Alliance for Justice on Friday:
Today House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) publicly released not only the final Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report, but also the first and second drafts of the report and the responses from Yoo and Bybee.
The long-awaited report is the product of a five-year investigation by OPR, the DOJ's internal ethics review board, of the authors of the "torture memos": John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, former senior lawyers in DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
The OPR report reveals new facts about the involvement of senior White House officials in the OLC lawyers' preparation of the "torture memos," raising further questions about improper political interference with DOJ's legal work. The released first draft of the OPR report concluded that Yoo and Bybee violated their professional responsibilities in drafting the most infamous 2002 "torture memo," the final report released today has been softened to conclude only that they showed "poor judgment." Under DOJ rules, "poor judgment" does not amount to professional misconduct and therefore does not trigger a referral to state bar associations for disciplinary review.
Regardless of OPR's conclusion about the lawyers' ethical conduct, the report adds to the mounting evidence that warrants a full-scale investigation of those who ordered, designed, and justified torture. Releasing the OPR report is an important first step in promoting transparency, but OPR's investigation alone cannot provide resolution for what led our country to torture. The OPR report is just the latest damning piece of a puzzle that irrefutably calls for an independent inquiry into those who provided legal cover for torture.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced that his panel will hold a hearing on the report next Friday morning. He also called for Judge Bybee’s resignation.
Dick Cheney publicly brags about supporting "enhanced interrogation techniques" and thinks Obama is endangering the country by "taking them off the table." That clearly reflects the mind-set that asked the Justice Department for legal cover for what they were doing.
And then there is the British Chilcot Inquiry of the past few weeks that has revealed much of what went on inside Tony Blair's government as he colluded with George Bush to invade Iraq. Many things we suspected have been confirmed as to how the run-up to the war with Iraq was "fixed" to fit Bush's agenda of removing Sadaam from power.
And the U.S. media all but ignored the entire story -- except to report on superstar Tony Blair's testimony. Mickey Nardo's blog posted daily reports from the inquiry from the British papers.
More and more pieces of the puzzle are being put in place.
Ralph
Further evidence of the sorry state of U.S. journalism:
ReplyDeleteThe AJC headlined a small blurb about this (2" of column space) with: "DoJ Review Clears CIA Interrogators."
First, it wasn't the CIA interrogators but those who whote the OLC memos. Second, they weren't "cleared." They were criticized for using "poor judgment." The 0riginal draft written by the internal ethics review board had called it "professional misconduct."
This lesser charge will not trigger further action by the Justice Dept. but at least it will go down in history as part of the whole mess.