The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged office of legal counsel

Did Greg Craig Bungle Dawn Johnsen’s OLC Nomination?

By | 11.17.09 | 10:24 am

Greg Craig announced his departure as White House counsel on Friday, and you can Google for yourself all the Internet-dispersed acrimony and recriminations that his vexed tenure has inspired. This, however, via Marcy Wheeler, is news to me. Marc Ambinder:

The White House was also dissatisfied with Craig’s

More…

International Justice Group Takes Aim at Bush Officials

By | 11.16.09 | 10:53 am

The International Center for Transitional Justice usually focuses on bringing to light and holding perpetrators accountable for such heinous crimes as genocide, mass murder and systematic torture, often in far-off war-torn countries with dismal human rights records.

So it’s significant that today they’ve released a report More…

NYT Slams Federal Appeals Court for Rendition Decision

By | 11.11.09 | 11:52 am

Praising an Italian court’s recent ruling that CIA agents broke the law in an extraordinary rendition case, The New York Times today highlights a growing phenomenon that hasn’t received sufficient attention: European courts appear more willing than their American counterparts to enforce the laws protecting basic human and More…

Declassified Docs Reveal Pentagon Ignored FBI’s Warnings on Abusive Interrogations

By | 11.07.09 | 7:05 pm

The Justice Department released more documents — or, at least, less-redacted documents — late Friday to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the government’s obligation in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

These latest documents provide a glimpse of the early struggles between the FBI and the More…

Former OLC Director Not Opposed to Criminal Investigation of OLC Lawyers

By | 11.03.09 | 1:07 pm

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush after the departure of Jack Goldsmith, said this morning that “I personally am not opposed to criminal investigation of my conduct and others during the period in question.” Levin More…

The Pressure’s on Reid to Call Vote on Dawn Johnsen

By | 10.30.09 | 12:15 pm

The Hill reports today that liberal groups are stepping up their pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to call a vote on Dawn Johnsen, President Obama’s pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel.

As I reported earlier this week, Republicans have stalled Johnsen’s nomination with More…

A ‘New Republican Obstructionism’ in the Senate

By | 10.26.09 | 12:59 pm

A “new form of obstructionism” by Republicans in the Senate is delaying confirmation of Obama’s nominees for federal judgeships, writes Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, in Slate today.

With only three of 22 judicial nominees confirmed so far, it “seems clear that Senate Republicans are More…

Johnsen Opposition Mum on Possible Filibuster

By | 10.26.09 | 12:38 pm

When the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in February, one of her harshest questioners was Sen. Arlen Specter, then a Republican from Pennsylvania facing a likely More…

Specter Reconsidering His Position on OLC Nominee Dawn Johnsen

By | 10.22.09 | 10:24 pm

Earlier this year when Arlen Specter was still a Republican, the Pennsylvania senator was among the harshest critics of Dawn Johnsen, the Indiana University law professor who is President Obama’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The OLC is the office that housed such More…

Judges Aren’t the Only Confirmations Being Held Up

By | 10.16.09 | 12:17 pm

The Washington Post’s story today about liberals who are frustrated that the Obama administration isn’t pressing harder to win confirmation for liberal-leaning judges to the federal courts should also serve as a reminder that there are a whole lot of key Justice Department posts still not confirmed yet, More…