Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said he will back the nomination of Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel, The Journal Gazette reports.

Lugar is the first Republican to break from his party on Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University. Leading Republicans including Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona have criticized Johnsen for her position on abortion rights and her strong disapproval of Bush administration legal memos used to justify torture against suspected terrorists.

We previously reported that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have said they will not vote in favor of her nomination. Democrats still need two Republican votes to have a filibuster-proof majority if the disputed Minnesota Senate race remains unresolved. These two votes could come from Moderate Maine Republicans Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who have not said if they will support Johnsen.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee issued a statement to the New York Times defending his legal work on Office of Legal Council memos in 2002 that authorized the use of brutal interrogation techniques critics say amount to torture.

Amid calls for his impeachment, Bybee said he issued the statement to correct news reports citing friends and colleagues who said he’s privately expressed regret about his work at OLC. The story was first reported earlier this month in The Recorder, a California legal newspaper, and its central anecdotes were later picked up by Slate, a front-page Washington Post story, and today in the New York Times.

Bybee, who is now represented by high-profile appellate lawyer Maureen Mahoney at Latham & Watkins, told the Times he should have sharpened his analysis in the memos to help the public better understand. But he added:

 “The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct.�

Colleagues of Bybee in Las Vegas, where he is a well regarded judge, said they had difficulties reconciling the Bybee of the torture memos with the low-key and judicious Bybee they know.  Christopher L. Blakesley, a colleague on the law school faculty at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, told the paper that while he liked Judge Bybee, “he has some basic flaws including being very naïve about leaders.� Namely: “He has too much respect for authority and will avoid a confrontation no matter what,� the professor said.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has returned a lawsuit against a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of helping the government fly terrorism suspects to countries where torture is practiced  back to a lower court for further consideration.

A three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the government had not demonstrated that the lawsuit would reveal state secrets and instructed U.S. District Judge James Ware to reconsider his earlier ruling against allowing the case to proceed.

The American Civil Liberties filed the 2007 lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, a San Jose-based subsidiary of Boeing, on behalf of five terrorism suspects who alleged the company contracted with the U.S. government to fly them to countries where they were tortured. The Obama administration stirred controversy when it earlier defended the Bush administration’s position that pursuit of the case would reveal state secrets.

Ron Weich, whose nomination to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs is slated to come before the Senate this week, will recuse himself from all matters involving mandatory sentencing policies, according to an answer Weich gave to written questions by then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.)

Specter, who switched his party affiliation to Democratic on Tuesday, had asked Weich to explain his views on mandatory sentencing in a follow-up to his April 2 confirmation hearing. Weich, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, responded that he opposes mandatory sentences, but added:

At the outset, please note that if confirmed I intend to recuse myself from legislation concerning mandatory minimums because my wife ….  is president of an organization that advocates against mandatory sentencing. I have already consulted with Department of Justice ethics officials to establish a recusal protocol for such matters.

Weich’s wife is Julie Stewart, president and founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Stewart started FAMM in 1991, according to her biography on its Web site, after her brother was sentenced to five years in prison for growing marijuana in his garage in Washington state.

That gives Weich a personal connection to an issue he could be dealing with as the DOJ’s liaison to Congress. Social conservatives remain opposed to legalizing pot, but support for changing laws that are now widely flouted appears to be gaining momentum, especially with U.S. demand for the leaf driving a bloody Mexican drug war on our doorstep. Holder said in February the DOJ would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensers in states where such use is legal.

UPDATE: Criminal Division head Lanny Breuer testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday in favor of ending sentencing disparities for crack and power cocaine offenses. Weich’s wife’s organization put out a press release hailing the initiative. Read it here.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), House Judiciary Committee chair, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the House subcommittee on constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties, submitted a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that asks him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration officials behind the “torture memos.”

The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee members Reps. Robert Scott (D-Va.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Mel Watt (D-N.C.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Pedro Pierluisi (D-Puerto Rico), Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Daniel Maffei (D-N.Y.), in addition to Conyers and Nadler. The only House Judiciary Committee Democrats who did not endorse the letter were Reps. Howard Berman (Calif.), Rick Boucher (Va.), Bill Delahunt (Mass.), Brad Sherman (Calif.) Charles Gonzalez (Texas) and Adam Schiff (Calif.)

“As a country committed to the rule of law, we must investigate and demand accountability for acts of torture committed by or on our behalf,” the letter said. “Appointing a special counsel to undertake this task would serve the interests of the Department and of the public in ensuring that the necessary investigation is thorough and impartial, and that the United States fairly investigates serious and credible accusations of misconduct, even where high-ranking government officials may be involved.”

Holder has not said if he will investigate Bush officials responsible for the memos including their authors, Steven Bradbury, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, but left the possibility open at a hearing last week.

“If I see evidence of wrongdoing, I will pursue it to the fullest extent of the law,” Holder said.

Nadler met with Holder last week to urge him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the memo authors. Conyers said he plans to hold hearings on the memos once a long-anticipated Office of Professional Responsibility report that is expected to be critical of DOJ lawyers who authored the memos is released.

“We’re coming after these guys,” Conyers told The Huffington Post last week.

David L. Meyer had been a partner at Covington & Burling before taking a job as principal assistant deputy attorney general in the civil division of the Antitrust Division in 2006. At DOJ, he oversaw merger of XM and Sirius;  the purchase of Delta and Pine Land Co. by Monsanto; Mittal Steel’s acquisition of Arcelor; and Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters. Hat tip: BLT.

Time magazine does a mini-profile of former Office of Legal Counsel head Jay Bybee, who is facing calls for his impeachment from the federal bench. It includes a few snarky juxtapositions of memorable Bybee quotes:

“I would like my headstone to read, ‘He always tried to do the right thing.’” 
    —(Meridian magazine, 2003)

• “An individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box.” 
    —An August 1, 2002 Justice Department memo signed by Bybee concluding that suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who was believed to fear insects, could lawfully be confined with a caterpillar. The technique was not used.

Ex-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie isn’t getting much traction with likely voters in New Jersey’s upcoming Republican gubernatorial primary by touting his crime-fighting biography, a new poll finds. According to CQ Politics, a poll by  Quinnipiac University Polling Institute last week contained some worrisome information for the Republican establishment candidate, who’s running against anti-tax conservative  Steve Lonegan.

To wit:

• Fewer than half of likely voters surveyed knew that Christie put more than 100 corrupt New Jersey politicians in jail or out of office as U.S. Attorney.
• The 44 percent who were aware is the same percentage who knew Christie’s bio six weeks ago — meaning the campaign hasn’t been able to communicate his record effectively.
• Only 46 percent of likely voters said a background as a federal prosecutor gives Christie the right experience to be governor.

Christie also came under attack by the American Civil Liberties Union recently; the ACLU claims he tracked suspects’ cell phones without obtaining proper warrants. Christie denied that he’d bended any laws.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is considered vulnerable because of the economy and his now slightly disreputable resume as a former head of Goldman Sachs.

The Associated Press’s Devlin Barrett is traveling with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in Europe and has this report.

The Senate today approved by a vote of 92-4 new legislation to combat financial fraud. The House Judiciary Committee passed a similar measure today, but without the Senate measures to strengthen the False Claims Act, which the House for now is considering in a stand-alone measure.

The Senate version of the Fraud and Recovery Act (FERA) would authorize $245 million a year over two years to hire more than 300 federal agents, 200 prosecutors and 200 forensic analysts to rebuild “white collar” enforcement efforts that took a back seat after the 9/11 attacks to counter-terrorism. “This bill is a step toward holding accountable those who have caused so much damage to our economy,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), a leading sponsor of the bill, said in a floor statement.

Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), another leading sponsor, said in a statement: “We can’t have separate sets of rules for people who rob  banks and banks who rob people.” Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) also introduced the bill.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation currently has fewer than 250 assigned to financial fraud cases throughout the country, and can’t investigate the more than 5000 mortgage fraud allegations the Treasury Department receives each month, Leahy’s statement said.