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John Yoo says civilian massacres OK with him
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John Yoo says civilian massacres OK with him
John Yoo, our favorite Bush administration torture apologist/Inky columnist, is back in the news. Last week, as reported by Newsweek, senior Justice Department officials overruled department investigators â who ruled that Yoo and Jay Bybee (now a federal judge), two lawyers in the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, had violated their ethical obligations as lawyers when they authored a 2002 memo that basically authorized the Bush administration to torture anyone they wanted, anytime they wanted, because why the hell not â and reported that Yoo and Bybee had indeed shown poor judgment, but had not committed professional misconduct.
While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other âenhancedâ interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authorsâJay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professorâviolated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed âpoor judgment,â say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary actionâwhich, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.
In a follow-up, also from Newsweek, we learned precisely how insane Yoo's outlook on executive authority is.
The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
[snip]
At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel, that the president's wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:
"What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legallyâ"
"Yeah," Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. "Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions."
"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the OPR investigator asked again.
"Sure," said Yoo.
Yoo is depicted as the driving force behind an Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo that narrowly defined torture and then added sections concluding that, in the end, it essentially didn't matter what the fine print of the congressionally passed law said: The president's authority superseded the law and CIA officers who might later be accused of torture could also argue that were acting in "self defense" in order to save American lives.
Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley, is a member of the State Bar in Pennsylvania. If you're so inclined, you can sign a petition to have him disbarred here.
[...] all a liberal conspiracy, see. But what of reports that Yoo told OPR investigators that the president could authorize a civilian massacre, just for shits and giggles, if he wanted to? Well, just so happens that Yoo is RIGHT NOW on a live [...]
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