There is growing speculation that the Office of Professional Responsibility will recommend the disbarment of Professor John Yoo who currently teaches at Berkeley law school. The release of new memoranda from the Justice Department has increased calls for disciplinary action. The memoranda concludes that the President can (1) use military forces domestically to deal with any individuals President Bush considers a terrorist threat, (2) suspend free press and free speech rights, (3) arrest citizens without legal process or access to the courts, and (4) a variety of other tyrannical measures. I discussed the memoranda on this segment of Countdown.
A call for disbarment by OPR would be an extraordinary act. Yoo is facing growing opposition at his law school and there is even a website committed to his removal.
What is most disturbing is the contemporary effort to avoid a criminal investigation of war crimes in favor of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There is, of course, nothing to “reconcile.” We are not some new nation emerging from civil war or dictatorship. We are a nation of laws. Bush officials have already confirmed the acts of torture and we are obligated by treaty to prosecute such war crimes. Whether Yoo is disbar pales in comparison to the need to comply with our moral and legal obligation to prosecute any acts of torture. Otherwise, President Obama’s repeated statements of “no one being about the law” will appear a pretty cynical spin designed to give the appearance of actions while evading our collective international obligations.
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I think I just heard that the R’s ruled out the Truth Commission. Fine by me. Rice is happy to be back at Stanford. What is with CA universities?
CCD (wherever you are..)
While I’m aware you’re awaiting specific procedural details as to how one can compel prosecution of a federal official within a New York State Court via an Article 78 Proceeding necessitated by the New York State Constitution, (more on that later), I find it rather disquieting how keenly focused people are to ‘get’ the pariahs of the Bush Administration in lieu of taking aim at the head so that the body may die; so to speak.
After all, what’s more morally repugnant; a man who writes a memo that the president can “(1) use military forces domestically to deal with any individuals President Bush considers a terrorist threat, (2) suspend free press and free speech rights, (3) arrest citizens without legal process or access to the courts, and (4) a variety of other tyrannical measures” or the president who ACTUALLY urinates on the constitution by carrying out said deeds?
SIYOM,
Bob
The push back now is that Bush was a RINO, Republican in name only, trying to create the illusion that Bush didn’t represent Conservatives. Republican members of Congress simply want to walk away, hiding behind a sudden mania for fiscal responsibility. As David Letterman put it, now the party is over and they want to close the casino.
While members of both political parties put their re-election before the best interest of the nation or the common good, there is little hope for accountability.
I can’t fathom why the Justice Department would see to sanction the brilliant, inspiring, devious, deceptive and self serving legal work by John Yoo on behalf of the George W. Bush administration Justice Department.
http://thebfdblog.com/2009/03/04/the-bushdoj-papers/
Buddha, so Prof. Yoo regrets only that his opinions “lack a certain polish”? What does that mean? He would have written with more flourish had he realized it would be read? I have begun reviewing his opinions. It’s a real slog, however. You may find it interesting to note that in support of the proposition that the constitution gives the president the sole authority to use the military to respond to security threats, he cites-himself. “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States,” p. 7. I’ll have to try that the next time I’m in court.
Mespo,
I can always count on you for apt quotes/aphorisms that sum up my wordiness in short, pithy sentences.
Yoo’s stupidity and arrogance knows no bounds.
http://washingtonindependent.com/32307/yoo-regrets-not-being-more-polished
I really look forward to the day UC Berkeley gives you walking papers. That’ll wipe that smug look off your treasonous face. “Hey Mr. Torture! Hurry up with those fries you half-wit!” If I were Yoo, I’d get used to hearing that phrase.
The following link (associated with Buddha’s link) lists the 142 “organizations” who are signatories to a letter to Mr. Holder: ‘Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials’
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/prosecutorstatement
Now, being the conservative Republican that I am, some of those “orgs” appear a bit too liberal for me and maybe hinge on a pinko commie status. However, I strongly support the basic premise and intent of the letter.
Furthermore, the Bush/Cheney et al. violations of the U.S. Constitution make for some very strange philosophical bedfellows—for sure and for certain.
Michael Spindell:
A couple of thoughts below from those much wiser than me on this man Yoo and his co-conspirator, Bybee. In my minds eye, I keep seeing them in old daguerreotype photographs wearing Bowler hats and dressed as dandies pondering which bridge over the Potomac would afford the easiest escape route after the Republic was mortally wounded.
“Ambition is the last refuge of failure.”
Oscar Wilde
“Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.”
Plato quotes
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2009/3381
It’s an interesting summary of who is paying attention.
Jay Bybee needs to be impeached, NOW!
John Yoo should be disbarred and prosecuted.
Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld need to be o trial for war crimes against humanity.
Obama need to act or be just as guilty for helping to cover up Bush’s dictatorship.
Watched JT on KO last PM. Great as usual but his comments on Yoo got me to thinking about his motivation and his ambition. To me it is pathetic that his desire to fit in and to thrive overrode his knowledge. He didn’t believe the stuff he wrote, but write he did. Not only did he sell the country out, but he sold himself out for a pittance. This presents a pathetic, but all too common picture of the people whose ambition outstrips their ethics. He deserves disbarment and prosecution as an example to others that we must all subsume our ambitions to doing what is right.
If undermining the very foundation of one’s Constitution is not grounds for disbarrment, what is? Of course it’s grounds for criminal prosecution as well. Today the Hague brought charges against a sitting head of state for war crimes. Our State Dept. had the nerve to comment that if someone committed autrocities then justice should be served. Well? How is that statememt credible in light of the fact that we will not investigate our own war criminals who committed plenty of atrocities? We have much at stake here, both internationally and at home. Obama has ironically affirmed some of Yoo’s opinions on the use of presidential power (see Glenn Greenwald). Those opinions and the power grab need immediate and final repudiation.
I have been thinking about this for a long time. We will get another terrorist attack on US soil. As citizens we must hold the line on lawlessness. Everytime we have allowed the Constitution to be violated for the sake of safety, we have never procured our safety, we have lost it in handing over powers to the president. We have made this mistake every time with disastrous consequences. Right now we need investigations/prosecutions. And when we do get attacked we must not make the mistake of handing our govt. over to a would be dictator, even if we believe his motives are good. No good has ever come from the suspension of the Constitution.
I got all excited. Without my glasses, I thought the headline read “Will Justice Seek John Yoo’s Dismemberment”. But I’ll be happy with disbarring him . . . for a start. 😀
Got to love it when a cover up starts to really unravel.
At the risk of ‘tooting my own horn’, in August of 2007, even before JT started this blog, I was phoning, writing, emailing, and button-holeing everyone I could find over my then recent frustrations with ‘Fredo’, Cheney, and the continuing lack of spine in Congress.
I spoke at length about ‘Jonathan Turley’ and an intereesting Criminal Law Review article he wrote entitled ‘From Pillar to Post’ on State’s Rights. I also suggested perhaps the easiest way to get rid of Gonzales would be to have ‘A thousand lawyers’ descend, in writing, on the Texas Board of Bar Overseers with complaints of impropriety.
Two different very ideas in the same conversation with several different people, including my own AG.
The next I heard about ‘A thousand lawyers’, Mario Cuomo, who I actually know in passing, and several other Attorneys General were involved and my idea had taken a different tack. And Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights is receiving the 2007 Puffin Award! That’s fine.
Theirs was not my vision, but THIS…
…THIS is exactly it – on all four corners! Bravo!
And it only took a year and a half!
How can one not agree with the two preceding posts. At a minimum he must be disbarred.
Bybee should suffer the same fate. He was complicit and as his reward is now a judge on the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Horrific.
We came way too close to the overthrow of constitutional democracy and too close to tyranny.
A strong message must be sent to other tyrants in the shadows. A message telling them to move to a banana republic if they wish to peddle their wares.
NO TYRANNY HERE!
Yoo must be exceptionally proud that his musings on the President’s right to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law are being released by DOJ. We’ll never know how close this guy got us to tyranny in this Country, but he needs to account both professionally and in the court that really matters, the one where decisions are announced by the opinion of the public. Bad law, bad thinking, bad man.
Randy:
I like that term, “anti-lawyer.” That’s exactly the point. Great job!
Ironically, Yoo is an expert, not in law, but in the art of ignoring the law. Kind of an anti-lawyer. Every lawyer in the US, if not the world, ought to be calling for his disbarment because he threatens the legal foundations of civilization.
Disbarring John Yoo may be a small step, but it is the correct first step. To think that this jaded scholar is allowed to teach future lawyers scares me. His “scholarship” has been on full display it is obvious from reading his OLC memos that they were written as cover for Bush regime torture and other illegal actions. If they were not written as cover, then he does not deserve to be a law professor. He threw out the Constitution to make his President happy. Let’s make the rest of the legal community happy by disbarring him. Then let’s prosecute him and the rest.