Ex-Bush lawyer talks about torture memos 3/3/09

Q: You recently wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal criticizing President Obama for closing Guantanamo Bay.

YOO: He's really restricting what the CIA can do in the war on terrorism. That's my opinion. Now that I'm not in the government, part of my role, because I have a certain amount of expertise, is to try to keep the government honest....

Q: Do you have a different perspective as a private citizen?

YOO: The thing I am really struck with is that when you are in the government, you have very little time to make very important decisions. You don't have the luxury to research every single thing and that's accelerated in war time. You really have decisions to make, which you could spend years on. Sometimes what we forget as private citizens, or scholars, or students or journalists for sure (he laughs), is that in hindsight, it's easier to say, "Here's what I would have done." But when you're in the government, at the time you make the decision, you don't have that kind of luxury.

Q: Is there anything you would have done differently?

YOO: These memos I wrote were not for public consumption. They lack a certain polish, I think – would have been better to explain government policy rather than try to give unvarnished, straight-talk legal advice. I certainly would have done that differently, but I don't think I would have made the basic decisions differently.

Q: Is it normal practice to give just the straight opinion?

YOO: I think the job of a lawyer is to give a straight answer to a client. One thing I sometimes worry about is that lawyers in the future in the government are going to start worrying about, "What are people going to think of me?" Your client the president, or your client the justice on the Supreme Court, or your client this senator, needs to know what's legal and not legal. And sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do....

Q: The Department of Justice is looking into the legality of some of the memos you wrote. Is this a possible cost?

YOO: I wish they weren't doing it, but I understand why they are. It is something one would expect. You have to make these kinds of decisions in an unprecedented kind of war with legal questions we've never had to think about before. We didn't seek out those questions. 9/11 kind of thrust them on us. No matter what you do, there's going to be a lot of people who are upset with your decision. If Bush had done nothing, there would be a lot of people upset with his decision, too. I understood that while we were doing it, there were going to be people who were critical. I can't go farther into it, because it's still going on right now. I'm not trying to escape responsibility for my decisions. I have to wait and see what they say.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-think-legal-2323245-people-decisions

And here, we observe him channeling Rumsfeld:

YOO ...needs to know what's legal and not legal. And sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do.

RUMSFELD ...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - - the ones we don't know we don't know.

He doesn't quite have it down yet, though.

They didn't take anything away from Obama. Like Bush, he and any future president is free to do as he pleases. Because as of now, there's nothing stopping them.

"no of course not...but my feelings are beside the point"

Maybe not gladly, but a martyr, yes?

And trying to appreciate the fact that we may learn things we don't know and that this could lead to some good. But I can't help feeling that Congress is demoting itself to the 4th branch - investigate and report, full stop. That's someone else's job.

Accountability Debate: Less Amnesty, More Prosecution

After the hearing was over, he [Leahy] drew back on his vision of the role of amnesty in the process, suggesting in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that immunity would only rarely be granted and then in consultation with prosecutors at the Justice Department.

The hearing therefore seems to have been quite constructive: it has bridged differences between the House proposal backed by Speaker Pelosi, which is hostile to amnesty. The Leahy proposal hasn’t yet been reduced to writing, but it sounds more like the Conyers version every day.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004501

Maybe not so much the 4th branch, after all.