Obama Urged to Withdraw DOJ’s Legal Opinions on Terrorism
Barack Obama is being urged to restore public confidence in the Justice Department by keeping politics out of decision-making and reforming the Office of Legal Counsel.
The critics say former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales damaged the department by allowing politics to influence hiring and firing, and that has to change, the Washington Post reports. “Great damage has been done to the credibility and effectiveness of the Justice Department,” according to an opinion piece last month written by two of the critics, Sens. Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter.
The American Civil Liberties Union is among the liberal groups urging reforms in the office that advised the White House on the legality of terrorism-fighting methods, the Post says. The ACLU wants Obama to withdraw all of the legal opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel that deal with interrogation and detention. The group says they should be replaced with one opinion that is released to the public.
The Obama administration will also have to decide how to allocate resources in the Justice Department. Jamie Gorelick, who served as the department’s second in command during the Clinton administration, told the Post that the Justice Department has allocated more resources to national security, apparently at the expense of criminal enforcement.
Other issues include whether to keep corruption-fighting U.S. attorneys, what stance to take in executive privilege cases, and whether to back renewal of key provisions of an intelligence law that will expire this summer.
