Is bad legal advice a valid defense?

Me thinks not....

start the hangings from the top. although those on the bottom also need to go, cashiering should do for them.
"just following orders" is never a legitimate excuse, especially if you're just looking for cover, but it's the bastards at the top that must pay the price.
this fish started rotting from the heas on 1-20-01. We're now almost 7 years into the rot and it's obviously reached the tail.

"Attorney General Michael Mukasey's alternative is to risk the CIA's pushback -- which will be nothing less than calling his bosses and his colleagues war criminals."

If the shoe fits . . .

"I was just following orders!"

Ahh, the classic "Nuremburg" defense raises it's ugly head. Of couse, since the Bushies have been behaving like Nazis, it's only consistent for them to use the same arguments when they get caught.

Sure looks like from this past week or so that the CIA is coming apart at the seams, and that it's inner workings seem to be becoming available to the public information stream.

Let's see what we have this week:

Torture. A whole lot of torture. A whole lot of fingerpointing. No tapes. Not even sure if anybody can be held with any real liability.

A CIA 'film consultant' being tossed into the spotlight to try and clean up a PR mess that was immediately seen for what it was. An implicit revelation that the CIA is involved in Hollywood with his work for 'The Kite Runner'.

Then there's that plane used by the CIA that went down in Mexico back in September with the 4 tons of cocaine on board, being dredged up again.

All the while, the NIE seems to imply there are people within the agency who are trying to keep it's good name, amid the swirling chaos.

All in all, this week in the CIA... no so good! The joke's on us anyhow, as we're the ones who really come off as lunatics anyway!

The key is to start by seeking charges against Yoo and Addington.

Yoo's memos are opinions. Many start "we believe."

Opinions are not law. And opinions can be wrong.

My question is, when the opinions and beliefs are found to be wrong or illegal, who's accountable and what happens?

Do we have to depend on the international community to prosecute America's criminals?

The whole Administration house of cards is predicated on the fact that the only way to stop this madness is with a political solution (impeachment). And that is 'off the table.'

With all due respect, Anonymous, your "opinion" that Yoo memos were "opinions" doesn't mean squat.

The BUSH administration accepted them as FACT and proceeded from that assumption, advising interrogators that techniques used were "legal," and to get on with it.

The only difference between Lyndie England and these CIA interrogators is that the CIA guys were SMARTER and knew better than to trust the Bush administration.

The DECEIPT, folks, lies in the White House, and is as plain as the nose on your face.

Mr. Bush is HIDING from his own accountability. What a coward, eh?

Speaking of the Hague, how does someone get an investigation and case started with the Hague?
Is there some forms that need to be filled out and who can do it?
Cause, I think someone really needs to start filling out that paperwork!

Bad legal advice is not a valid defense, unless it comes from an official responsible for enforcing the law. Then it may be a valid defense. Either way, here, it may depend on the political parameters. And if I were a CIA officer who used the "enhanced techniques," I would be nervous about now.

No matter how the skirmishes of this week, month or year come out, those involved in torture will need to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives, or until their behavior and actions are exposed and adjudged in a full public tribunal. Perhaps they would like to find some consultants in Chile or Argentina.

When they build Bush's library, there ought to be a separate wing to exhibit all the instruments of torture this president has insisted upon using. In fact, they should just build a dungeon. Bush will go down in history as the Torture President. And forget that crap about making us safer.

9/11 happened on his watch. Bush put Cheney in charge of counterterrorism efforts, and Cheney spent all that summer of 2001 meeting with his Secret Energy Taskforce. He didn't have time for counterterrorism. Thanks for making us safer.

"Mr. Yoo’s legal opinions, though criticized as seriously flawed by some scholars, may nonetheless provide impenetrable armor for C.I.A. officers"

Why should they provide anything but embarrassment? His opinions have led to horrendous war crimes and are the equivalent of legal toilet paper that should be totally discarded. This is the scum who declared the president can sexually torture children. I'll bet he can be tied directly to that very activity through his 'opinions'. The glowstick sodomy of children while their mothers watch is the end product of Shyster-Yoo, who is almost certainly psychotic and should be arrested.

The way it looks, none of our war criminals will ever be drug over to the Hague. If they were, we would just use military force to rescue them from possible conviction.

Neither should we expect Dem leaders, complicit in this law-breaking, to push for any accountability.

Last night on Olbermann the gist came out. If waterboarding is defined as torture, then Bush is a war criminal. That is why Mukasey will never say that it is. That is why no one in the military will say it is. Four years ago when a Republican friend asked me what I had against Bush I gave a two word answer: war criminal. If there is a power in the universe that evens the scales of justice in any way, Bush, Cheney and all the above mentioned people will end up at The Hague. Too bad that 'power' will have to fight through Democratic resistance also.

Connect the dots. CIA and intelligence community produce NIE not to the liking of Dick Cheney. Within days the CIA finds it’s dirty laundry on public display. Our VP learned the art of political infighting under Rumsfeld. Punish those who challenge you, SOP.

If torture is illegal and a retired CIA officer is saying in the media... "Yes, we did water board and yes I think it was torture..." doesn't the Justice department need to open an investigation?

Regarding who authorized the torture by the CIA and the destruction of evidence, I'll bet he didn't see this coming - Mukasey is now the center of the see-saw. Better to have remained the judge he was.

But then, he may turn out to be the "Savior of the Republic".

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Mr. Yoo and the other administration lawyers who assisted in this effort should be charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity by writing knowingly false legal opinions designed to encourage subordinates in the administration to carry out illegal orders.

I saw an interview with John Yoo a few days ago. He kept saying there are "rules" for the detention of "pirates" and other enemy combatants. He would not say the word "laws."

How could he give *legal* advice on something that does not fall under a law? What "rules" did he cite in his opinions?

Does he think Congress makes "laws" while Presidents make "rules"? What authority enforces these "rules"?

How is the authority enforcer paid? Do tax dollars pay this enforcer? Who authorizes the collection and dispensing of the monies used for the payments to the enforcers?

truckystiv - very good point.

Looks like the Bush family may have to move to paraguay afterall

Bad legal advice might constitute mitigation, but it's not a legal defense, at least based on my couple of decades' experience as a practicing lawyer.

Moreover, the Yoo opinions are well beyond "seriously flawed". It would be extremely difficult for anyone who had recived training in Geneva Convention requirement - as, for example, a great many military people certainly would have - to rely on Yoo's opinions.

Lawyers can be prosecuted for frivolous legal arguments when the criminal conduct is the subject to their review, opinion, and commentary; but they fail to meet the legal standard expect of someone who should not be making frivolous legal arguments to defend, justify, allow, or not stop criminal conduct.

This comment misses an important issue in re "frivolous":

[ Yossarian wrote on December 13, 2007 1:47 PM: ]

"Bad legal advice might constitute mitigation, but it's not a legal defense, at least based on my couple of decades' experience as a practicing lawyer."

This is not correct. The key concept is: "Frivolous legal advice, comments, counsel, opinions." If legal counsel is making frivolous legal arguments, then the allged illegal policies/conduct they have supported as "legal" could be attached to them by war crimes prosecutors.

Just because a lawyer says, "OK" it doesn't mean that it's OK. If the legal opinion is frivolous, then the lawyer can be prosecuted for that criminal conduct they said "OK" to.

Can someone opine on this chain of inferences? Anyone who accepts a pardon from Bush (including Bush himself) is admitting guilt of a war crime. All other signatory nations to the Geneva Convention are under a treaty obligation to prosecute those criminals to the fullest extent of their laws. If I were one of them I wouldn't spend the $65 to renew my passport.

Matt wrote on December 13, 2007 12:19 PM:

If torture is illegal and a retired CIA officer is saying in the media... "Yes, we did water board and yes I think it was torture..." doesn't the Justice department need to open an investigation?

Remember, Kiriakou is an actor and is skilled with words. If he was really not still with the CIA, he wouldn't have said 'I think it was torture'... he would have been more assertive and said 'it was torture.'

That gray area is supported by the hundreds of policy memos that say, for the administration agenda, that waterboarding isn't defined as torture. We all know torture when we see it, but it's all a matter of parsing it's legal definition. A little lie to save themselves from the big lie.

I don't know of any poster named "annonymous."

But as far as anonymous's comments, you were the one "absolutely certain" about congressional Democratic complicity and yet you now say your level of confidence is only "fairly high."

You can't even stick with your original rant, but are already backtracking.

The absence of impeachment proceedings is evidence of nothing other than the recognition by people living in the real world that Bush cannot be convicted and that impeachment proceedings would result in mere theater and waste time showing off what we already know with no substantive achievement.

I know the lefty wingnuts would love that theater as a righteous sign of their superior ethics and patriotism (much like the rightie wingers love their own theater productions to prove the same) and just as assuredly want to condemn the Democratic leadership for refusing to enter into the futile drama that these wingnuts so crave, but to put that forth as "evidence" of complicity in torture is as laughable as it is defamatory.

"Or consider the absence of exercise of powers of inherent contempt."

Oooooooh! More lefty winger theater that would waste time and accomplish absolutely nothing of substance.

You have no evidence other than what is manufactured in that frustrated fantasy world you view as reality.

passport renewal is $67 now...

Al in Austex,

Not as such. But they can pass resolutions calling for impeachment, which then need to be acted upon by the House, which starts the impeachment, and the Senate, which holds the trial. Remember, Kucinich already has a resolution in the House for impeaching Cheney, which the Repubs sent to the Judiciary Committee when the Dems wanted it tabled, and he's said to be ready with his resolution for Bush. Why people ignore Kucinich, I'll never know. He actually DOES things.

The State of Washington issued a "memorial" in February that concluded thus:

NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully request that, in order to
preserve confidence in the office of the Presidency and the Executive branch, our senators and representatives in the United States Congress determine whether there is sufficient evidence to charge President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney with the above offenses and, if so, to follow the Constitutional process of impeachment.

BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

States that have passed resolutions to impeach:

* Vermont

States that have introduced resolutions to impeach:

* Washington
* Missouri
* New Mexico
* California
* Wisconsin
* Hawaii
* Texas
* Illinois
* Minnesota
* Maine
* New Hampshire

Check these out: http://impeachpac.org/resolutions-list
http://www.washingtonforimpeachment.org/blog/index.php

The spin put on this whole issue is absolutely hideous. These goddamn people who interviewed/interrogated/debriefed these murderers did so keeping your safe-keeping in mind! Oh, how easy a target is the CIA for the public!

I am no fan of Bush people. Not at all. The question over the legality of these methods rests solely with Yoo and those alone. The whole 'just following orders' slant does and can not apply to this situation. How DARE you compare the two?

To my recollection, only 1 detainee died at the hands of an agency officer/contractor. That person has already been sent to jail for the death of that detainee. Justice served.

The American media, with the citizens en masse, will bring our intelligence to its knees, thus weakening us as a nation for the long-term. Think I have drank the Kool-Aid? I just ask you to think this: Imagine what the Chinese and Russians are thinking right now. Is it just a matter of time before OPEC brings us as a nation to their mercy, and Russia degrades back into the USSR? Are we killing our own empire?

Just think of all those Darfurs, Bosnias, Somalias, East Timors, Kosovos, Rwandas, Burmas, etc. that await us all in the future. Without a strong America, led by a sound group of policymakers and a President deserving of the job (Obama, anyone?), you can forget about anyone doing a damn thing about these genocides, these atrocities.

Stop worrying about what the intel services that protect you are doing. Sure, i do not like warrantless wiretaps, that is unconstitutional. But raising holy hell because this douchebag thought he was drowning for 30 seconds (regardless of the fact that the info he gave us has kept many Americans alive)? I won't question your patriotism. But I will question your understanding of how this world works. Certainly you may have had it too good to believe that these guys deserve the same air you and i breathe.