Dem Senators: Don't Water Down DOJ Probe Of Yoo

[babylonsister]

Lawmakers Question Lawyers' Involvement in Ethics Probe

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 31, 2009; 8:19 PM


Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) expressed alarm Tuesday that Bush administration lawyers allegedly were given an unusual opportunity to shape a report by Justice Department ethics watchdogs probing their conduct.

The senators said they worried that new department leaders and lawmakers would get a watered-down version of a report that had "undergone significant revisions at the behest of the subjects of the investigation."

Last year, the department's Office of Professional Responsibility finished its 4 1/2 -year inquiry of lawyers who blessed harsh interrogations of detainees. But the results of the probe remain under wraps while John C. Yoo and Jay Bybee respond to the findings, according to internal correspondence released yesterday.

The draft report recommended disciplinary measures against both men, who have left government service, sources said. A third former lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury, departed in January and already had a chance to comment on the findings.

Parts of the report are classified and may take "substantial time and effort" to review before being released to Congress, acting assistant attorney general M. Faith Burton told the senators.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103638.html

[montanacowboy]

1. As Jonathan Turley said on KO

Obama administration is protecting the cabal

Why?????????????????????????????????????

[babylonsister]

3. My hope is they're waiting for Dawn Johnson to be confirmed.

Her entire job will be to punish the cabal.

A girl can dream! From Ms. Johnson:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/05/olc/

I felt the sense of shame and responsibility for my government's behavior especially acutely in the summer of 2004, with the leaking of the infamous and outrageous Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel Torture Memo. . . .

Whenever any government or people act lawlessly, on whatever scale, questions of atonement and remedy and prevention must be confronted. And fundamental to any meaningful answer is transparency about the wrong committed. . . .

The question how we restore our nation's honor takes on new urgency and promise as we approach the end of this administration. We must resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists. . . .

Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure.

[atreides1]

2. Bybee is a Federal Judge

For the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

I believe that means he is still in government service?