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Post: Ashcroft Didn't Sign Off on Yoo Pentagon Torture Memo
More evidence that John Yoo was the most powerful deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's history. The Washington Post reports this morning that when Yoo issued his now-infamous March 14, 2003 memo to the Pentagon, neither Attorney General John Ashcroft, nor his deputy Larry Thompson "were aware."
As Marty Lederman has pointed out, the fact that the memo was issued under Yoo's own name is further indication that this was a back door authorization of interrogation practices.
The Post also sheds light on Yoo's earlier October 23, 2001 legal memo, the one that declared that the Fourth Amendment had "no application to domestic military operations." The memo "focused on the rules governing any deployment of U.S. forces inside the country 'in the event of further large-scale terrorist activities' by al-Qaeda" according to "a Justice Department official." Just what that sort of operation that might have been discussed or how long that memo remained in effect are unclear. In fact, it's unclear whether it might still be relied upon:
Although the memo has not been formally withdrawn, the Justice Department yesterday repudiated the idea that there are no constitutional limits to military searches and seizures in a time of war, saying it depends on "the particular context and circumstances of the search," according to a statement.
All that is clear is that Department officials are insistent that that memo had nothing to do with the warrantless wiretapping program. But as the AP has shown, that appears not to be entirely true.
Comments (40)
And that makes me feel so much better. It's pretty apparent that this particular Administration feels that no part of the Constitution, neither the main document nor any amendment, can stand in the way of their doing just what they please.
April 4, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ashcroft never would have signed off on these memos had he known about it. He is certainly a conservative, but a principled one. This brings to mind he infamous "Ashcroft deathbed" confrontation, where Ashcroft took what little strength he had to sit up and say he would not approve of the sweeping wiretapping scheme proposed then.
April 4, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
While there is a 50/50 chance that the substance and the shame of this memo(s?) will be dissected for the next 50 years (the other equal probability is that anyone who brings them up will be shipped to a secret detention camp to be "re-educated), I have another question that bothers me about the memo:
Why or how was it justified EVER to be secret? All of the justification for the actions that arose from the memo are completely debatable, but why should the memo itself EVER be secret. The only conclusion that presents itself is that it is part of a cover-up for a criminal conspiracy. The admission of guilt is not so much in the substance of the arguments around the memo, but the very fact that those arguments were deemed "secret."
April 4, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't agree with you enough. The whole idea that the government's interpretation of the law is secret is incredibly odious, and brings us another step closer to losing the rule of law. Laws can be interpreted very flexibly; that is why lawyers make the big bucks. If we don't know how the government interprets the laws then we don't know what the laws are, period.
April 4, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed with Tony: how can they "secretly" take away our constitutionally protected rights? What other secret memos are lurking out there that have taken away any of our other rights? What country is this, anyway?
April 4, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marko asks "What country is this, anyway?"
Sure looks a lot like the Weimar Republic to me... you know, that risible lot who immediately preceded Hitler. Either you defend a constitution with passion and vigor or you get a new one which may not really be too congenial.
April 4, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ashcroft like a real buffoon when he was covering the breasts on statues with cloths, and singing some jejune song he wrong about our great land.
Both these really are matters of taste and nothing else.
He is the one guy who keeps coming out of this mire looking like a real man of principle, a patriot in a sense you can be proud of, agree with his politics or not. The man who shook off illness in his sickbed and told the White House goon squad he was still Attorney General and to hit the goddam bricks. No wonder they snuck around him, the anti-Constitutional vermin.
April 4, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I recall, the incident when he was in intensive care, Ashcroft told the White House goon squad that James Comey was the attorney general, not he.
I don't believe Ashcroft is too worthy of all your accolades.
April 4, 2008 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded
April 4, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_Yoo_memo_evidence_of_Bush_0404.html
Here Turley seems to say, without equivocation, that LeChimp and TheCheney and Rumsy were all directly involved in authorizing terture, drawing it up, implementing, ordering it.
They ORDERED warcrimes. Pretty straightforward.
April 4, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
War crimes tribunals for all, beginning Feb 01, 2009 when pardons are no longer possible. Use the time to build an air-tight case. Have Jonathan Turley testify.
Impeachment would only remove a person from office. It takes a court of law to enforce the death by hanging penalty for treason, and impeachment is not needed for that.
War crimes, or shutter the govt. It's broke, busted, and doesn't work so well in spots.
Pax,
M.
April 4, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nostrum said: "[Ashcroft] is the one guy who keeps coming out of this mire looking like a real man of principle,..."
When the whole crowd is filled with a bunch of unprincipled criminals, it doesn't take much to appear like some kind of beacon of democracy. It just goes to show how bad the Bush gang really is.
(and every week I say to myself, "just imagine if Clinton had done something like that". Yet nothing happens. Then I realize that there was no sex involved so it is OK)
April 4, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was just listening to Joe's Garage for the first time in years, and the introduction by the Central Scrutinizer seemed remarkable prescient:
Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).
The Central Scrutinizer was referring to Music, of course.
April 4, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just Checking Out my new photo.
April 4, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK. I'll bite. Where did you ever find that potato? Looks like a liberal potato to me.
:o)
April 4, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pelosi said impeachment was off the table, but she didn’t say anything about war crimes trials.
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
-- Edward Abbey
April 4, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
pv2k, not in the press reports I read. Ashcroft supposedly gave a lucid statement of why the measure they sought was unlawful and he wouldn't sign it, and then, yes, pointed out that Comey was indeed acting attorney general, the implication being what the hell were they doing there anyway.
As to e.g. Marko, I don't believe in this,
when-they're-wrong-there-wrong, but-when-they're-right-they're-still-wrong mentality.
If this guy stood up for the rule of law, among the worst scum of the earth all around and at the risk of their ridicule and being hounded out of office by Cheney and company, to me, he deserves credit.
And DickTater is right, of course, the swine ORDERED war crimes!
April 4, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm....a criminal government coverup of using government resources on gathering surveillance and information in a political environment when the entire government was about making the Republican majority a permanent majority.... "I am shocked there is gambling going on here at Ric's Cafe here in Casablanca"
Ashcroft didn't sign off but he didn't fight it either....he could have gone to court to fight it, he could have leaked it to Congress, he could have stopped it with a resignation. He didn't want his fingerprints on it but he was not willing to do the right thing.
April 4, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting read; I've come to believe that Ashcroft (whom I have long thought to be awful) was actually better than a lot of the other Bush yes men.
Sorry for the (slightly) spammy link here, but for anyone interested I have a post on my TPM blog about an idea to to contact Berkeley's donors as a way of putting pressure on the University about employing Yoo. If there's interest in that, please leave a comment on that posting.
April 4, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the idea of going after Berkley and seeing if Yoo can be removed similar to Ward Churchill. Do a Google search of "Ward Churchill" and you will see how the irony of the same justice should be appied.
April 4, 2008
Editorial
There Were Orders to Follow
Correction Appended
You can often tell if someone understands how wrong their actions are by the lengths to which they go to rationalize them. It took 81 pages of twisted legal reasoning to justify President Bush’s decision to ignore federal law and international treaties and authorize the abuse and torture of prisoners.
Eighty-one spine-crawling pages in a memo that might have been unearthed from the dusty archives of some authoritarian regime and has no place in the annals of the United States. It is must reading for anyone who still doubts whether the abuse of prisoners were rogue acts rather than calculated policy.
The March 14, 2003, memo was written by John C. Yoo, then a lawyer for the Justice Department. He earlier helped draft a memo that redefined torture to justify repugnant, clearly illegal acts against Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.
The purpose of the March 14 memo was equally insidious: to make sure that the policy makers who authorized those acts, or the subordinates who carried out the orders, were not convicted of any crime. The list of laws that Mr. Yoo’s memo sought to circumvent is long: federal laws against assault, maiming, interstate stalking, war crimes and torture; international laws against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and the Geneva Conventions.
Mr. Yoo, who, inexplicably, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, never directly argues that it is legal to chain prisoners to the ceiling for days, sexually abuse them or subject them to waterboarding — all things done by American jailers.
His primary argument, in which he reaches back to 19th-century legal opinions justifying the execution of Indians who rejected the reservation, is that the laws didn’t apply to Mr. Bush because he is commander in chief. He cited an earlier opinion from Bush administration lawyers that Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were not covered by the Geneva Conventions — a decision that put every captured American soldier at grave risk.
Then, should someone reject his legal reasoning and decide to file charges, Mr. Yoo offered a detailed blueprint for escaping accountability.
American and international laws against torture prohibit making a prisoner fear “imminent death.” For most people, waterboarding — making a prisoner feel as if he is about to drown — would fit. But Mr. Yoo argues that the statutes apply only if the interrogators actually intended to kill the prisoner. Since waterboarding simulates drowning, there is no “threat of imminent death.”
After the memo’s general contents were first reported, the Pentagon said in early 2004 that it was “no longer operative.” Reading the full text, released this week, makes it startlingly clear how deeply the Bush administration corrupted the law and the role of lawyers to give cover to existing and plainly illegal policies.
The memo is also a reminder of how many secrets about this administration’s cynical and abusive policies still need to be revealed. As Senator Edward M. Kennedy noted, the release of the Yoo memo is a reminder that neither Congress nor the American people have seen the policy memos that govern interrogations today. We know of at least two being kept secret for supposed reasons of national security, including one authorizing waterboarding.
When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, we were told these were the depraved actions of a few soldiers. The Yoo memo makes it chillingly apparent that senior officials authorized unspeakable acts and went to great lengths to shield themselves from prosecution.
Correction: April 4, 2008
An earlier version of this editorial referred to John C. Yoo as a former lawyer for the Pentagon, instead of for the Department of Justice.
April 4, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the hell has the world come to when I find myself praising John Ashcroft's sense of integrity?
April 4, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose it's possible that Ashcroft has a conscience. He is a certified Baptist preacher, you know. He's turned his AG fame into big bucks as a lobbyist. I guess there are no nude statues in his office.
April 4, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
He was awarded the largest dollar amount contract in Justice Department History to assist the US Attorney General's office in the investigation of artificial limbs - $ 54 Million taxpayer dollars worth of hush money
Oh, and while he did refuse to sign - he stalled the massive resignations of Justice Department staff that might have alerted a few more Americans just how far from Justice the criminal conspiracy had led
Get Back - Habeas Corpus, Get Back Bill of Rights or they're gone forever
April 5, 2008 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yoo So Crazy!
ADad--I totally love the sentiment, but
I'm a little more "old school" in my quotes:
"It is the duty of every patriot to protect his
country from its government" - Thomas Paine
Yes, for those of you chastising us for giving
props to Ashcroft, keep in perspective that it
is a RELATIVE grade: compared to the unethical
and incompetent standards of the last 7 years,
Ashcroft IS a freakin' shining city on a hill.
But it's a very embarrassing standard.
April 4, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now how scary is it that John Ashcroft keeps cropping up as the good guy?
On the other hand, it also shows that Ashcroft was only a token Attorney General; perhaps the real reason he resigned.
What is disgusting is that nobody will really blow the whistle on what was going on.
April 4, 2008 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
ADad, you had to go and mention the unmentionable. A thieving, lying, sadistic bunch of bastards I can live with, as long as they're the ENEMY.
It's "friends" like the Gutless Wonder I can't abide...
Nancy Pelosi is America's own Neville Chamberlain.
All that's necessary for evil to succeed is for Democrats to do nothing.
April 5, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I sent 31 emails to selected members of the Boalt Hall faculty at Berkeley, where Yoo teaches. There are descriptions of the members' specialties and interests, and I had ample opportunity to choose to write to those whose areas of law—including human rights, ethics, and international law—might make them more disposed to get John Yoo out of their department.
Here's the [url=http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/facultyList.php]main page[/url], with links to each faculty member and administrator. The individual pages have handy email links.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/facultyList.php
April 5, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
How very principled of him. Yoo was clearly just a bad apple. Now, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?
April 5, 2008 3:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
the white zones are for loading and unloading
if you need...
"Lucille, she messed my mind up"
Zappa still prescient after all these years
"Brown shoes, don't make it, quit school, why fake it?"
Brother Frank would've had a field day with these creeps...I'd bet he'd have done a rock opera about Guantanamo
"Martian Ambassador"
April 5, 2008 4:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I was at Berkely in the late 60s early 70s, Yoo would have been run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered...
The fact that this criminally extreme law breaker is still teaching at Bolt Hall is just astounding to me...
I guess the young lawyers to be are so worried about their careers these days that they never confront this evil asshole.
Yoo has got to go!!!!!!
April 5, 2008 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yoo wrote memos. The President issued orders. It's time to call this what it remains: Unconstitutional, illegal war crimes. Congresse, in refusing to investigate those allegations should be considered in unlawful rebellion against the same. The public, as we saw in 1789, is not required to continue with the status quo. There is no excuse not to conduce investigations into these war crimes; nor an excuse to delay a war crimes tribuanl: There is no statute of limitiations.
April 5, 2008 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
odd that ASHCROFT did not willingly sign off on this memo?
ASHCROFT...IS A MAN WITH NO SCRUPLES WHEN IT COMES TO FIGHTING TERRORISM no matter how void for vagueness the term terrorism is defined or not defined.
Basically........the GOP military...has created a seemingly plausible secret political police force that uses FEAR and SECURITY to rationalize SECRECY to make sure:
----NO BODY KNOWS ABOUT HOW THE GESTAPO TAMPERS WITH WITNESSES,
----DESTROYS CONGRESSIONAL WITNESSES,
----COVERS UP THE CANADIAN WARRANT FOR FBI AGENT TERRY NELSON'S MONTANA DRUG DISTRIBUTION...AND HOW THAT MONEY WAS LAUNDERED BY GOP GOV OF MONTANA, MARC RACICOT INTO GOP CAMPAIGNS.
See, US DOJ OIG COMPLAINT SUBMITTED BY THOMAS S. BEAN and TEN PAGE MEMO TO SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY recieved 21 days before NSA TSP scandal was admitted by Bush.
Leads to MURDER OF WITNESS NAMED CHRISTINA MOORE IN ROUND ROCK, TEXAS, BY SAME CONTRACT SURVEILLANCE GOONS SENT AFTER ME WHEN I LIVED IN AUSTIN, TEXAS.
LEAHY has this......but is too afraid like a punk to call me as a witness (he does not need to subpoena me, I am volunteering?).
April 5, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Refresh my memory, don't Yoo and Addington have law licenses? Why doesn't someone write the bar association and request their disbarment?
April 6, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
1789 all over again.
April 6, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the same FISA-dribbling we had in 2005, not the final answer, and is a smokescreen organized by the President. As with FISA, one piece of new information is creating a problem for many other lines of evidence. That is backwards. The new information should be consistent. It is not.
These DoJ explanations in 2008 are not reconciling with (a) the JAG comments in 2003; nor with (b) Yoo's comments before Frontline on warrants; or (c) AG Gonzalez comments before Judiciary in 2006. (Recommended backup is here; feel free to attack the recommended analysis).
The problem is the stories we've been told since 2001 hinge on the assumption this warrantless seizure of American citizens would not be discovered. It's possible the DoJ OLC 2001 memo was written after the President made his decision, and the JAGs know there have been war crimes committed against US citizens.
April 7, 2008 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The is all about the "The Decider". This is his doing. Everyone else was either following orders or "unaware".
April 7, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The assertion implies a level of legal sophiticiation at odds with their claims of ignorance. This reasoning requires us to explore to what extent, in preparing this assertion, they knew Nuremberg precedents. This defense appears to have been retroactively devised, and does not share their contemporaneous reactions.
April 7, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got to understand that BUSH/CHENEY/RUMSFIELD wanted to use this memo to TORTURE US CITIZENS in their homes with SOMETHING CALLED A DEW (Directed Energy Weapon) that focuses microwave radiation on the target while he is in his own home.
These DEW attacks were by DOD's CIFA (now Gates has stated this program is over with...like TIA which still operates covertly...like NSA TSP which Gonzo said is over with, but still operates as a surveillance team on me)?
Or were the DEW attacks from...CIA?...FBI Div 5?...the 100 FBI badges called THE SPECIAL SERVICE IN THE PATRIOT ACT (these special FBI badges report DIRECTLY TO THE PRESIDENT OUTSIDE THE FBI HQ CHAIN OF COMMAND)?
LOTS OF QUESTIONS FOR LEGITIMATE REVIEW...but...Pat Leahy has shown no interest in calling any dissenting witnesses before PATRIOT ACT PASSED, PATRIOT ACT RENEWAL....WAR COMMISSIONS ACT?
How come Leahy has no interest in US Citizens being harassed and murdered or hospitalized from a secret right wing surveillance group?
WHAT IS THE BREADTH AND SCOPE OF THE NSA TSP?
It ain't just wiretapping without warrants...ya know.
It's about ROBERT DALE LILLY'S PIN HOLE SPY CAMERA IN MY APARTMENT...and the illegal use of that info when Lilly calls the cops (Sioux Falls PD). A clear violation of Title 18 USC sec 2510--et al., specifically SECTION 2517'S PROHIBITION ON DISSEMINATING ILLEGALLY OBTAINED INFO IN VIOLATION OF TITLE III?
April 7, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
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