The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged Office of Professional Responsibility

Whitehouse: It’s Premature to Call Torture Memo Authors

By | 05.13.09 | 8:46 am

I’ve been asking why the Senate Judiciary subcommittee holding the first congressional hearings on the torture memos this morning aren’t calling the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who wrote the memos, or their clients — the Bush administration’s most senior officials — to testify.

On Tuesday night, Sen. Sheldon More…

DOJ Doesn’t Let ‘War on Terror’ Whistleblowers Comment on Professionalism Reports

By | 05.06.09 | 5:42 pm

Interesting fact about the soon-to-be-declassified report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility on the propriety of the Bush-era torture advocates at the department: while the office has gone out of its way to accommodate former Office of Legal Counsel officials John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, More…

House Judiciary Committee to Hold Hearings on Torture Memos

By | 04.21.09 | 5:06 pm

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, just released the following statement:

Recently disclosed legal memoranda from the former Bush Administration raise grave legal, ethical, and constitutional questions. The use of tactics described in these memos runs counter not only to basic notions of decency, but places

More…

Panetta’s Problem

By | 04.10.09 | 11:49 am

Following up on Spencer’s post about CIA Director Leon Panetta’s letter to his employees: Panetta’s statement that CIA officers “should not be investigated, let alone punished,” because this “is what fairness and wisdom require,” is not surprising. But it may not be all that wise, either.

Holder Names New Justice Department Ethics Chief

By | 04.08.09 | 5:13 pm

Attorney General Eric Holder this afternoon named Mary Patrice Brown as the new head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, the Justice Department’s internal ethics unit.

The changing of the guard at the sensitive ethics office comes just after embarrassing revelations of federal attorney misconduct in the prosecution of More…