Obama Won’t Rule Out Prosecution of 'Torture' Memo Authors
President Obama says he wants to look forward rather than backward in the controversy over harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects—but he’ll also look to his attorney general for a decision on whether to prosecute Department of Justice lawyers who wrote memos authorizing the tactics.
Obama didn’t rule out the possibility of lawyer prosecutions in a question-and-answer session with reporters today, according to reports by CNN and Reuters. He said it will be up to Attorney General Eric Holder to make the call on how to proceed.
Last week, Obama said he doesn’t support prosecuting CIA officials who in good faith carried out interrogations authorized by the memos. But Obama punted today when asked about the lawyers who wrote the legal memos.
“With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that,” Obama said.
“I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there. As a general deal, I think we should be looking forward and not backward. I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations.”
Lawyers who wrote or signed the “torture” memos include Jay Bybee, now a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; John Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor; and Steven Bradbury, who is unemployed, according to a story published last month.
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the memos and their authors, notes the Atlantic’s Washington with Marc Ambinder blog.
Stories published in Newsweek and the New York Times in February said a draft version of the OPR ethics report “sharply criticizes” all three DOJ lawyers. The findings could be turned over to state disciplinary authorities or could be referred for criminal investigation, the Times story said.
The Washington blog wonders why the lawyers should take the blame. “What about policy-makers at the White House?” the blog asks. “If they’re immune—why blame (legally blame) the lawyers who carried out their decisions? That’d be like prosecuting Enron’s lawyers but allowing Ken Lay or Jeff Skilling to escape?”
