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Jay Bybee, now a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Las Vegas, has expressed regret to colleagues about his tenure as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, The Washington Post reports.

Writes the Post:

Tuan Samahon, a former clerk who recalled Bybee’s remarks at the reunion dinner, said in an e-mail that the judge defended the legal reasoning behind the memos but not the policy decision. Bybee was disappointed by what was done to prisoners, saying that “the spirit of liberty has left the republic,” Samahon said.

….

“But he signed it,” said Chris Blakesley, a friend and fellow professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Boyd School of Law who was outraged by the [first known Bybee] memo, which was leaked in May 2004.