Bybee Colleague Says So-Called Torture Memo Just ‘Got Away from Him’
Federal appeals judge Jay Bybee had been a popular law professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas before his stint in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, winning professor of the year in 2000.
Now Bybee’s colleagues at UNLV and elsewhere are theorizing why he signed an August 2002 memo approving harsh interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, and saying he apparently has regrets, the Washington Post reports.
UNLV law professor Chris Blakesley is among the former colleagues who spoke to the newspaper. “Getting to the personal side of him, my sense is he would love to repudiate them all,” Blakesley said. “Which gets to: Why’d you sign it?”
The Post article cites a regretful remark by Bybee, first reported by the Recorder, at a dinner for his former law clerks at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he is now a judge. Bybee told the former clerks he was proud of their legal work, then added that he wished he could say the same of his previous position.
Another fellow legal scholar and longtime friend who remained anonymous told the Post about Bybee’s second thoughts. “I’ve heard him express regret at the contents of the memo,” the colleague said. “I’ve heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I’ve heard him express regret at the lack of context—of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety.”
The lawyer noted Bybee’s explanation for signing. “On the primary memo, that legitimated and defined torture, he just felt it got away from him,” said the fellow scholar. “What I understand that to mean is, any lawyer, when he or she is writing about something very complicated, very layered, sometimes you can get it all out there and if you’re not careful, you end up in a place you never intended to go. I think for someone like Jay, who’s a formalist and a textualist, that’s a particular danger.”
