The Office of Professional Responsibility report on conduct of the authors of the so-called torture memos shows that the Justice Department’s internal ethics office is broken, according to panelists at a Wednesday forum hosted by the Alliance for Justice.
Panelists David Cole, a Georgetown law professor, Michael S. Frisch, ethics counsel to the Georgetown University Law Center, Scott Horton a lawyer and contributor to Harper’s magazine and Bill Yeomans, a fellow in law and government at American University’s Washington College of Law, all criticized the result of the investigation into the authors of the so-called “torture memos” that authorized harsh interrogation methods for use on terrorism suspects.
While OPR found in its investigation that Jay Bybee and John Yoo had been guilty of professional misconduct, that finding was overruled by David Margolis, a career employee serving as Associate Deputy Attorney General, the highest ranking non-political position in the Justice Department.
Michael S. Frisch, Scott Horton and Bill Yeomans at a panel on the OPR report on Thursday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).
OPR is simply not independent, said Yeomans, who spent 23 years in the Civil Rights Division before leaving the department in 2005.
He said there is an ongoing battle within the Justice Department between OPR and the department’s Inspector General.
Yeomans added that the report shows how broken the Justice Department’s internal ethics department has become. He said that OPR did not even obtain Yoo’s e-mails, saying that it believed they had been destroyed.
“Most of us have been trained to believe that e-mails never actually disappear, they are always somewhere,” said Yeomans. Without the e-mails, there is a “gaping hole in the investigation,” said Yeomans.
Cole said that the result of the report is that torture has became professionalized and regularized.
“We tortured people, we tortured many people, and we’re arguing about whether two lawyers should get bar discipline?” said Cole. He said discussion about the memos is greatly important, and that’s why the report “was released on a Friday night at 5 p.m.”
Horton said it was important to remember what the memos were really about.
“Is this really about ethics, or is this about crimes? The answer is very clear, it is about crimes,” said Horton. “Self regulation is a fraud,” Horton said of OPR. “This is not just a U.S. crime, it is a universal crime,” said Horton. The Bush White House and the CIA “wanted a get out of jail free card,” he said.
Video of the event is available on the Alliance for Justice Web site.
[...] Internal DOJ Ethics Office is Broken, Panel Says - Main Justice [...]
Funny, I thought this was a right-wing hack panel until the last two paragraphs. Amazing how universal the hackery tone is.
That’s utterly ridiculous. OPR isn’t “broken”-how the hell does this panel figure OPR is “broken” when OPR is the one who arrived at conclusions holding YOO and BYBEE accountable, huh? THE PROBLEM WAS AND IS, DAVID MARGOLIS! WHY IS THIS ATTORNEY, WHO CLEARLY BOWS TO POLITICAL PRESSURE IN HIGHLY CHARGED CASES, THE SOLE REVIEWER OF OPR’S FINDINGS? WHY IS MARGOLIS ALLOWED TO UNILATERALLY CHANGE OPR’S FINDINGS, HUH? HE’S NOT THE ONE TAKING THE TESTIMONY, AND REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE, WHY IS THERE NOT A PANEL WITHIN THE HIGHLY POLITICIZED ODAG REVIEWING OPR’S FINDINGS?
IF AG HOLDER IS SERIOUS ABOUT OPR AS A VIABLE ETHICS DIVISION FOR HOLDING FEDERAL PROSECUTORS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR MISCONDUCT-THEN HE NEEDS TO GET RID OF MARGOLIS, AND RESTRUCTURE THE PROCESS SO THAT THERE IS MORE THAN ONE PAIR OF EYES THAT REVIEWS OPR’S FINDINGS-MARGOLIS HAS PROVEN HIMSELF IN 2 RECENT CASES TO BE TOO POLITICIZED IN DOWNGRADING SANCTIONS AGAINST FORMER DOJ LAWYERS AND CURRENT FEDERAL PROSECUTORS IN THEIR MISCONDUCT CASES-OPR CAN NEVER WORK UNLESS IT HAS SOME TEETH TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST THE RAMPANT MISCONDUCT THAT HAS GONE ON IN THE DOJ RANKS FOR YEARS!
IF AG HOLDER IS SERIOUS ABOUT OPR