Justice Department report
Email from the Center for American Progress:
A soon to be completed internal Justice Department report condemns the legal reasoning offered by Bush administration lawyers to justify waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. The report is the culmination of over a year of research led by H. Marshall Jarrett of the DOJ’s watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), aiming to determine if the Bush team’s legal advice permitting unprecedented interrogation methods "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys." It focuses primarily on the legal memos authorizing torture written by three top Bush officials: Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and Steven Bradbury. A draft of the report submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration prompted the sharp criticism of then-attorney general Michael Mukasey. "OPR is not competent to judge [the opinions by Justice attorneys]," he said. "They’re not constitutional scholars." Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide whether or not to approve the findings and make the report public. But Holder’s expected response to this report remains unclear. During his confirmation hearing, he explicitly stated that waterboarding is torture, but he has declined to say whether he will pursue charges against Bush officials who authorized the the technique.
