Justice for Embattled Executive Branch Lawyers
Andrew Odell /
Last month, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis cleared the names of former Department of Justice lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee. Disparagingly labeled the “Torture Lawyers” by the New York Times, Yoo and Bybee wrote the now-infamous memos offering legal advice to the Bush administration that authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in questioning high-level terrorists. Overruling the Office of Professional Responsibility’s (OPR) finding of “professional misconduct,” Margolis found that Yoo and Bybee acted in good faith, ethically serving their clients in the Executive Branch in time of war.
This comes as no surprise, Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky explains because the OPR’s investigation and report was a total sham and part of an ideological witch hunt. Indeed, “The OPR criticisms would be laughable if this were not so serious.” As just one example, OPR found Yoo and Bybee guilty of misconduct for not citing an unpublished Ninth Circuit opinion, even though the Court’s own rules forbid citations to unpublished opinions. A violation of this rule, von Spakovsky notes, “can subject a lawyer to sanctions for professional misconduct.” (more…)