Bush administration lawyers John Yoo, Jay Bybee cleared on torture rap
If your memory is a bit hazy on the specifics, let me help you recall them: Yoo was an associate in the Bush administration's office of legal council and Bybee was his superior. Yoo is the twisted pseudo-fascist whose extreme views of the limits of executive power gave Bush and company the legal pretense they needed to perpetrate torture. Bybee is the gust of wind that merely nodded and passed the buck.
I'm not really surprised that they both got off scot-free. They're lawyers, they know how to manipulate the law. And more importantly, the people prosecuting them know that law is based upon precedent, and that one day it could be their ass in the chair.
But it's disturbing nonetheless. I'm not a legal expert, but I know a lil' bit, and Yoo's broad view of executive power is, was, and hopefully will always be unconstitutional. It was his legal opinion that warrants weren't needed for wiretaps. It was his legal opinion that torture was acceptable because of the "stresses" of 9/11. It was his legal opinion that, in a time of military conflict, the president needn't answer to any of the other branches of government.
Not coincidently, here's some of Alberto Gonzalez's testimony from 2006:
GONZALES: There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force. I only want to clarify that, because there are implications. Obviously, when you talk about a war declaration, you're possibly talking about affecting treaties, diplomatic relations. And so there is a distinction in law and in practice. And we're not talking about a war declaration. This is an authorization only to use military force.
You see, a war declaration would have made the president - and by extension, the DoJ - culpable to both the legislative and judicial branches.
Neither Yoo nor Bybee were found to have committed gross professional misconduct and disbarred. Instead, Deputy Associate Attorney General David Margolis said that they'd both shown "bad judgement," but said judgement wasn't actionable because it came from a set of sincerely held beliefs.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I'm pretty sure any six year old could see the legal loophole that makes for. Since the US is in a perpetual state of military conflict, the president, legally, can do whatever he wants. All he has to do is find a whack-job extremist, give him a desk at the DoJ, and ask for a manifesto.
It's not often I find myself on the same side of an issue as the Tea Party, but if they'd stop chanting at NY Times reporters for just a minute, I'm sure this ruling would send them to Defcon 5. Because, by legal precedent, "Crazy John over at the DoJ said it was kosher" is now enough to, say, suspend habeus corpus.
And the lawyers shall inherit the earth.
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