This is just wonderful. According to Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, some jackass named David Margolis has softened the conclusions of the DOJ’s Office of Personal Responsibility which had concluded that Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo “violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving” torture. Who is David Margolis? He’s the Associate Deputy Attorney General, and according to the Newsweek article, he saved Bybee and Yoo’s bacon.
But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.
Harper’s Scott Horton has been wondering what’s wrong with David Margolis for completely different reasons. I’d never heard of him before today. But he supposedly changed the conclusions of the OPR without any consultation with Attorney General Eric Holder or the president. This seems like bullshit of one variety or another to me. Either it’s bullshit that the Deputy Assistant Attorney General gets to make decisions without review, or it’s just a bullshit decision.
Why can’t this country ever hold anyone accountable for anything? Tony Blair got hauled before a commission to explain what the fuck he was thinking when he poodled up to Bush and his excellent Iraqi adventure, but we’ve got deputy assistants exonerating human rights violators so that they continue on the bench or teaching our children about the law. What kind of insanity is this?
I’m tired of it.
