No Charges for Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury for Torture Memos

Surprising almost no one the internal OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) Report on the legality of the Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury Torture Memos has failed to recommend prosecution, but has left the door open for disbarment.

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From The NYT

WASHINGTON — An internal Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of Bush administration lawyers who wrote secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations has concluded that the authors committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted, according to government officials briefed on a draft of the findings.

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.

Despite the stunningly bad arguments made in these memos, such as the idea that the President has the power in a time of war to Order an Airstrike against American Soil, and the idea that any treatment short of attempted murder and intentional maiming is somehow permissible under U.S. law the Bush Era OPR has found that Bush Era lawyers shouldn't be prosecuted.

Whatta Shocker.

Still the report itself isn't final and still needs to be signed off on by Obama Attorney General Eric Holder.

The key question in the report, which includes detailed accounting of emails between various officials and he OLC which helped shaped the memos, is whether the honest opinions were reflected in the memos or whether they were shaped to order by pro-torture officials such as Cheney, Tenet and Rice, which over-ride dissent from Powell, Zelikow and the CIA's own Inspector General


Sorry for the short diary, more info as I find it.

Update: Michael Isikoff is reporting on Rachel that the OPR is not the organization responsible for recommending prosecutions, that this conclusion was reached despite open lobbying by former Bushies to soften the report, and that the disciplinary actions could lead to the Impeachment of Jay Bybee.

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Update 2:Ruh Roh! We've got some Fighting Words from Chris Dodd (whose father was a Nuremberg Prosecutor) on Torture!

"I don't know who the genius was in the room that night when they were discussing this," the Connecticut Democrat said of the four torture documents declassified by the Obama White House. "But if you are going to make the decision to release the documents, I presume every one of us here would the have a follow up question, which is: Well, what are you going to do about it?

Yeah, just what are they goin to do about it, eh?

Paging Eric Holder's Moral Compass!!

Just for perspective, The Nuremberg Speech that Keith mentioned tonight. h/t CityLightsLover

Vyan