Sen. Leahy Asks Judge Bybee to Testify About 'Torture' Memos
In the latest development in an ongoing controversy over internal government memos about permissible interrogation techniques in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked a government attorney who approved them to testify.
A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer when he signed two 2002 memos, Jay Bybee has been a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the past six years. He formerly headed the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration.
“There is significant concern about the legal advice provided by OLC while you were in charge, how that advice came to be generated … and the role played by the White House,” says Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in a letter today to Bybee, reports the Washington Post.
A lawyer for Bybee did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for comment. However, in a statement he provided to the New York Times, Bybee defends the memos he signed as “a good-faith analysis of the law” properly defining where the line should be drawn between legal interrogation techniques and impermissible torture, the newspaper reported yesterday.
Critics, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have said that the waterboarding technique reportedly approved for CIA use by the controversial memos for which Bybee and two other Justice Department attorneys were responsible is, in fact, torture.
The two other former OLC lawyers, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury, have also been criticized for their roles. However, Leahy, at this point, is asking only Bybee rather than all three to testify, the Post reports.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ashcroft, Other Top Bush Officials, OK’d Waterboarding in 2003”
ABAJournal.com: “Bybee Colleague Says So-Called Torture Memo Just ‘Got Away from Him’”
CNN: “Leahy wants to probe ‘chain of command’ on torture”
National Public Radio: “Torture Memo Author Not Seen As Ideologue”
Politico: “Leahy calls for torture commission”
The Swamp (Chicago Tribune): “Liberals: Impeach ‘torture memo’ judge”
New York Times (opinion): “The Banality of Bush White House Evil”
Wall Street Journal (opinion): “Torture and the ‘Truth Commission’ “
