The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged Office of Professional Responsibility

‘Do We Know If Boo-Boo Is Allergic to Certain Insects?’

By | 02.19.10 | 8:09 pm

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility released its report on professional misconduct over torture authorized by ex-Justice officials John Yoo, Steve Bradbury and Jay Bybee today, and the results aren’t so good for them. While they avoided a formal recommendation for disbarment, Justice Department ethics officials found that More…

Religious Anti-Torture Group Urges Holder to Produce OPR Report

By | 12.11.09 | 2:54 pm

At the beginning of this month, I noted that Attorney General Eric Holder, despite an explicit promise to Congress to produce by the end of last month the much-awaited ethics report from the Office of Professional Responsibility on the work of Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted the so-called More…

DOJ Doubles Down in Its Defense of John Yoo

By | 12.04.09 | 11:13 am

Talk about getting a second bite of the apple. I’ve written before about the problem with the Department of Justice jumping in to defend a lawsuit charging that John Yoo was responsible for torture and abuse of “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla. Given that Yoo is the subject of More…

So Where’s That OPR Report?

By | 12.01.09 | 9:13 am

Less than two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder testified that the long-awaited report on the ethics of Bush-era Justice Department lawyers who sanctioned torture and other abuses would be released by the end of November.

So where is it?

Holder Says OPR Report Will Be Released by the End of the Month

By | 11.18.09 | 12:56 pm

Responding to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who’s asked frequently when the Justice Department will finally release the repeatedly delayed report by the Office of Professional Responsibility on the conduct of lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bush, Holder said that he expects it 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…

What Would Kennedy Do?

By | 08.26.09 | 12:13 pm

Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen today commends the Bush administration’s “well-run, highly disciplined CIA interrogation program, where clear guidelines were established and abuses or deviations from approved techniques were stopped, reported and addressed.”

I guess Thiessen didn’t read the same CIA inspector general report More…

DOJ Ethics Report Recommends Prosecution

By | 08.24.09 | 10:38 am

This isn’t the long-awaited ethics report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility that Spencer referred to this morning, but another ethics report from that office reportedly bolsters Attorney General Eric Holder’s conclusion that the Department of Justice should re-open nearly a dozen cases of More…

John Yoo Faces Back-to-School Welcome at Berkeley

By | 08.18.09 | 11:12 am

John Yoo should be fired, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes, according to anti-war activists who greeted the University of California at Berkeley law professor when he returned to Boalt Hall, the law school where he has tenure, on Monday.

Yoo, of course, is the author of the infamous “torture More…

Justice Department to Release Ethics Report on Bush OLC Lawyers in ‘Matter of Weeks’

By | 06.17.09 | 1:04 pm

Asked this morning when the Justice Department plans to release the highly-anticipated report by its internal ethics office regarding the conduct and legal conclusions of Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel lawyers, such as John Yoo and Steven Bradbury, Holder said they are “pretty close to getting their report More…