This is good but not good enough:
But for Mr. Yoo, a Berkeley law professor, the swift exit from the war crimes board was only the beginning of his troubles. For more than four years, the Justice Department ethics office has been investigating his work and that of a few of his colleagues. A convicted terrorist has filed a lawsuit blaming Mr. Yoo for abuses he says he endured. Law students have led protests, and the Berkeley City Council even passed a resolution in December calling for Mr. Yoo’s prosecution for war crimes.
The Obama administration last week began releasing more secret memorandums written by Mr. Yoo and others that made such wide-ranging claims about presidential power that Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, called them “shocking.”
The notoriety that follows Mr. Yoo — and to varying degrees half a dozen other Bush administration lawyers — raises difficult questions: What is a government lawyer’s responsibility if legal advice he gives turns out to be, in the view of many authorities, grievously flawed? Can he be blamed for damaging, and arguably illegal, acts carried out with his imprimatur? Should he suffer any punishment?
“I think the legal profession in the United States has been seriously hurt by their conduct,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University. He called the disputed legal opinions “sloppy, one-sided and incompetent” and added, “There has to be accountability.”
[...]
For some of Mr. Bush’s lawyers, the most likely consequence may be wariness from potential employers. The former White House counsel and attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, for example, has not found a job since resigning in 2007 amid accusations that he misled Congress about surveillance without warrants and the firing of United States attorneys.
He recently told The Wall Street Journal that the controversy surrounding him had made law firms “skittish” about hiring him, calling himself “one of the many casualties of the war on terror.” Mr. Gonzales’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, said in a statement that “Judge Gonzales looks forward to the day when reason prevails over partisan politics and he can get on with his professional life.”
David S. Addington, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was a forceful voice in internal legal debates, is also said to still be looking for work.
[...]
Even if they escape punishment at home, however, the lawyers could find themselves pursued in European countries that have laws allowing them to prosecute torture no matter where it occurred.
“I think people like Yoo will be taking their chances if they want to go to Europe for a very long time,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has asked a German prosecutor to indict several Bush legal team members along with policy makers. The prosecutor declined, but the case is on appeal.
Disbarment and unemployment would be a start.




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Imprisonment after a fair trial. If they get the concept.
Where the fucking fuck was that twat Gillers throughout the Bush years? Which of the major legal groups spoke out? Where the fucking fuck was the goddam American Bar Association during the same period of time? The criminal defense bar? The honest prosecutors? The unbent judges? Mostly AWOL, the pusillanimous, clutching, covetous, cheap miserable motherfuckers. Fine by me that they’re picking on Yoo and Gonzo and that shit Addington now, but WTF were they? Block KKKaptain KKKunts. As per usual when the nation has need. They were great on the 2005 bankruptcy act, too. You can hear it the ABA clarion call to fix that, too.
Crickets. Fucking crickets. Except for the sound of greasy lawyer fingers thumbing blood money in the count.
Yoo was their Wilhelm Stuckart, Gonzales was their Roland Freisler.
Neither Nazi “lawman” wound up paying for their crimes in any legal sense, though both died young.
Lawyers are slippery fish and always seem to avoid the nets that ensnare others.
Let’s hope The Torture Twins are prosecuted to the limit of the law.
Has the poor economy even put limits on wingnut welfare? Oh, the humanity!
Mr. Gonzales’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, said in a statement that “Judge Gonzales looks forward to the day when reason prevails over partisan politics and he can get on with his professional life.”
When Mr. Gonzales (dismissed, disbarred, foreclosed) is at his local food stamp office trying in vain to explain why he really badly wants to keep the Rolex he got from the Preznit for “a job well done” then reason will have prevailed over partisan politics. Until then? Bite me, Gonzo.
Many lawyers have been advocating criminal prosecution for the likes of Yoo and Addington, me among them, though I hardly consider myself an influential voice. Among the most prominent is Scott Horton, whose “No Comment” blog at Harpers is not to be missed.
I think Yoo and Addington and the other Bush Justice Department lawyers involved in the torture memos (among others) were involved in a criminal conspiracy to facilitate wholesale violations of the anti-torture laws of this country. Their crimes are of the highest order, because they provided “cover” for all the other illegality perpetrated by Bush and Cheney. Consider how many times on the way out of office Cheney talked about the “legal opinions” the Administration got to justify its acts.
“Even if they escape punishment at home, however, the lawyers could find themselves pursued in European countries that have laws allowing them to prosecute torture no matter where it occurred.”
“Disbarment and unemployment would be a start.”
So would extraordinary rendition.
I hope to see all of them selling apples on the corner of Wall and Broad St. in NYC sometime in the near future. Although extraordinary rendition is good, too.
I learn my law as it applies to DOJ from Horton/No Comment. There is no defense, no rationale for the practice by Yoo and the entirety of the bush political appointees at DOJ. Disbarment is the least for all of them…down to the petty button men like Brad Schlozman and sweetheart of the rodeo, Monica Goodling.
Jonathan Turley said that Yoo’s opinion was so bad that he thinks he wrote it under duress, that is, under orders from Cheney and Addington.
With prejudice.
Disbarment and unemployment would be a start.
I initially misread that as “Dismemberment and unemployment…” And I did not disagree.
HA HA. Fucker.
Next stop: Homeless and being chased by Malkin’s howler monkeys for having a cell phone…
Tumbrels!
I recall the days when Elliot Richardson gave our country hope that the demons of Watergate wouldn’t be allowed to take us down the drain without at least the Justice Department fighting on the side of the good guys. Mr. Richardson was regarded by many of us as heroic, and went on to lead a decent life after refusing Nixon’s orders.
Gonzo and Yoo don’t deserve to be allowed to remain in the company of decent and law-abiding citizens anywhere. They are already morally bankrupt, we should be allowed to see the course they’ve chosen continued to its logical end — let them finish life in poverty and disgrace.
The unspeakable parsing the unthinkable.
Perhaps, but he had a choice then, to write the execrable opinions or to seek other employment, and chose to write the opinions.
Mr. Yoo suffers from Short Dick syndrome. This probably explains most of his fascism.