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Coalition Seeks to Disbar Bush Administration Torture Lawyers
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by Karen Hatter | May 18, 2009 at 07:59 am
243 views | 25 Recommendations | 9 comments
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Former C_I_A_ Operative Jack Rice Blasts Cheney and His Torture Policy
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Twelve attorneys, alleged to have advocated torture during the administration of former President George W. Bush, have been named in disciplinary complaints to state bar licensing boards in the five jurisdictions of District of Columbia, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania.
The complaints were filed on Monday, May 18, 2009, seeking disciplinary action and disbarment.
A coalition of organizations, self described as “.... dedicated to accountable government”, informed the state bar licensing boards in detailed complaints that it alleges former Bush administration attorneys “.... violated the rules of professional responsibility by advocating torture.”
The twelve attorneys named in the disciplinary complaints are: John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Stephen Bradbury, Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Michael Chertoff, Alice Fisher, William Haynes II, Douglas Feith, Michael Mukasey, Timothy Flanigan, and David Addington.
Click here for Disbarring 12 Torture Lawyers.
The article also contains links to the individual complaints lodged against each of the attorneys named and links to many of over 500 supporting documents.
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at 11:11 on May 18th, 2009
Since I do not know who did what until all the smoke settles I do think it a cheap shot and very unethical to promote the petition in a news story.
Either it is a news story or your opinion piece but please since you state you are in all locations everywhere your call seems to be from a place where self-interest apparently got the better of the story.
at 11:29 on May 18th, 2009
This is not an opinion piece written by me, Tikun.
Besides the petition at the link, additional links at the article are provided to all of the complaints lodged against all twelve lawyers, as well as several documents submitted in the legal process.
at 11:23 on May 18th, 2009
Since the direction of the flow of the advice given on torture has been questioned, it will be worth monitoring these events to determine the precise evolution of the torture memos.
at 11:34 on May 18th, 2009
Obama is not going to allow this to subvert his presidency in any shape or form for a little "get back at Bush" syndrome. Same nonsense the Republicans tried to pull with their compassionate idiocy with Clinton. Obama is too savvy for this hate fest to get the better of him.
at 06:35 on May 24th, 2009
The difference between the Republican Party's sex scandal preoccupation during the Clinton administration and the torture memo attorneys seeking to authorize torture is the role of the involvement of the Office of Legal Council.
The Office of Legal Council, the legal council for the White House, wrote position papers, during the Bush administration, claiming torture was legal, in defiance of U.S. federal and international laws.
No legal authority associated with former President Clinton or the White House crafted legal opinions to justify or authorize his behavior.
at 13:17 on May 18th, 2009
President Obama is not involved in decisions meant to be addressed by the state bar licensing entities in the five jurisdictions.
The obligations of lawyers and the laws that govern them, within their profession, are separate from any possible government prosecution that might be considered for their part in advising and writing the torture memos, which were meant to direct the nuanced circumstances that may have arisen as prisoners were tortured.
at 13:53 on May 24th, 2009
Unless the advice itself was part of a criminal conspiracy, this is a complete no-go. A lawyer is entitled to give an opinion and cannot be prosecuted for a mere opinion.
Gotti, noted ex-capo of the Gambino crime family, had a lawyer. The lawyer is entitled to give advice on what constitutes legality and what doesn't. There is no demand that the advice be infallible and the advice cannot be as we have the English Common Law system.
Gotti's lawyer was not allowed to represent Gotti in the last trial Gotti underwent because, at that point, he was an actual co-conspirator in much that Gotti was accuse of.
The situation here is not the same as with Gotti.
Only in the Napoleonic statutory system can the law be applied with relative certainty in a wide range of activity.
And, by the way, Clinton as disbarred for his perjury, a real crime, for testifying falsely in a lawsuit that allowed men's whole sex lives to be included because Clintion himself had signed the bill, ironically enough.
He was the first ever sued for sexual harassment with his whole history of harassment included and the first to be disbarred.
at 22:01 on May 30th, 2009
Criminal conspiracy is at the heart of the torture memos as the Bush Department of Justice, using the Offfice of Legal Council and its attorneys, crafted plans to redefine torture to accommodate activities desired for use by the Bush administration, included among the activities waterboarding, referred to as simulated drowning, which can lead to physically collapsing the larynx, declaring waterboarding was not torture.
Reading the memos makes it clear those writing them were attempting to craft strategy to avoid criminal culpability by dismantling the previous laws governing torture and rewriting and shaping new laws in the image of those seeking to engage in the activity of torture.
at 19:16 on May 24th, 2009
Clinton authorized torture and even now Obama has reserved the right to use it for himself. Even he has not given up this power.
Too bad we can't have magical powers and see what has not happened because we have had men to be warriors. We will have war until people on both sides have consciencedealing with people who will kill our children.
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