Now that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility report on “torture memos” authors John Yoo and Jay Bybee is out, the Center for Constitutional Rights is calling for action. Specifically, the human rights group wants Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge, to be impeached. From the group’s statement:
Among others, the lawyers John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury have caused incalculable damage to our country and to thousands of victims as a result of the twisted legal advice they provided while at the Office of Legal Counsel. The OLC opinions were intended to provide legal cover for what everyone knew was illegal conduct. They advised the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo outside the law through the purposeful evasion of the Geneva Conventions and they advised the creation of a secret detention network for “enhanced interrogations” in flagrant violation of domestic and international law. Once unthinkable, they authorized and justified torture, rendition and secret CIA detention, often in a hands-on manner so detailed that it gives the lie to the notion they were giving abstract legal advice rather than making policy decisions to use torture.
Ultimately Jay Bybee must be impeached, tried and removed from his seat as a federal judge on the 9th Circuit, but he should have the decency to resign immediately.
If Bybee could bring himself to sign the memos, I doubt he’ll find the “decency” to resign now just because the OPR report is out.
