Torture memo authors unlikely to be prosecuted

“The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said,” reported the New York Times.

“The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said it is possible the final report might be subject to revision, but they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations.”

“Lawyers familiar with the process said the department’s willingness—as recently as this week—to solicit responses from the former officials indicated that there were no plans to conduct a criminal investigation,” reported Politico. ‘They don’t let you comment if they’re going to refer you for prosecution,’ said one former Justice Department official, who asked not to be named.”

“The main targets of criticism are John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, who, as senior officials of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, were the principal authors of the opinions,” reported Mercury News.

“It was unclear whether all three would be the subject of bar association referrals. One person who saw the December version of the report said it did not recommend bar action against Bradbury.”

“Former US attorney Roscoe Howard, speaking to National Public Radio on the likelihood they will not face criminal prosecution, suggested it was hard to put a criminal case together: ‘You’d have to have some sort of information that those three guys understood that the memo was in itself just garbage. I’d be looking for something that shows they understood what they wrote was just unsupportable, but they decided they were going to write it anyway,’” reported the Guardian.

“The conclusions of the inquiry, which could be made public before the end of the month, provide details of how the torture memos came to be written, including the email exchanges of the lawyers involved, Bush officials at the White House and the CIA.”

“Yoo, in particular, submitted an extensive document disputing some of the review’s main contentions,” noted The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder. “These responses will be incorporated into the final draft, although the conclusions of the examiners will likely not change.”