Mr. Torture Memo - #360

#360 JOHN YOO
FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE DRUNKEN FRAT BOY ADMINISTRATION

John Yoo can't understand what all the fuss is about.

It was Yoo who is the author of two memoranda dated August 2002 and March 14, 2003, that became known as the 'Torture Memos.' Yoo claims it was simply laying out the powers of the president as commander-in-chief during wartime.

But if you READ the March memo, of which Part One can be seen here: http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/march.14.memo.part1.pdf

and Part II, here: http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/march14.memo.part2.pdf

you can see that the basic legal reasoning behind these memos is the bullying, "Hey, when we're at war, the Prez can do anything he wants cause he can."

Yoo's memos were used by the Pentagon as justification for 'anything goes,' when it cam to the detainees at Guantanamo and the army's behavior in Iraq. That attitude led directly to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, which horrified the world and enraged all Muslims. Even Yoo's immediate bosses, OLC heads Jack Goldsmith and Dan Levin, were startled by the March memo. Goldsmith even calling the Pentagon to tell it not to rely on it's conclusions and Levin writing them to make sure they were not basing anything on it. Goldsmith went so far as to call the memos "advance pardons." Michael Mukasey, the last of the Drunken Frat Boy Administration's Attorneys General, said during his confirmation hearing that there is NO presidential power to torture.

When Yoo's memoranda were declassified five years later and made public, horrified reactions at the sloppy legal thinking behind them were also made public. Yoo didn't like that one bit, but more on that later. The Torture memos were investigated by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. The OPR ran into a roadblock when it discovered many of Yoo's e-mails during the time the memos were drafted had been deleted.

Though handicapped by this, the OPR came out with a report that said Yoo and Jay Bybee, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, were guilty of judicial misconduct and that the materials should be turned over the the state bar associations where Yoo and Bybee got their licenses for possible disciplinary action. This was overturned by David Margolis, a top DOJ official.

Assured that DOJ would not take any action against him, Yoo then proceeded to go 'nyah nyah' at the investigation and Leahy's senatorial committee on intelligence in particular. Calling the investigation 'incompetent,' and Leahy's committee "chasing its own tail to feed left-wing conspiracy theories."

With thanks to TPM Muckraker, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the National Archives and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

S. Olson