Noting the need to clarify a number of questions surrounding the legal advice provided by the Office of Legal Counsel under Jay Bybee’s leadership, Senator Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter today to Bybee inviting him to testify before the committee. In particular, the letter points out press accounts that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asked Bybee, who was interested in the seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which he now holds, if he would first serve as head of OLC. Leahy offers Bybee the opportunity to “come forward and set the record straight with respect to whether and, if so, how your judicial ambitions related to your participation at OLC.”

Further, noting the contrast between a Washington Post story over the weekend suggesting that Bybee has regrets over the memoranda issued while he headed the Office of Legal Counsel and today’s New York Times story quoting Bybee as saying that he ‘believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct,’ Leahy offers Bybee the opportunity to clarify what he meant in his public discussion of these issues. Leahy concludes: “There is significant concern about the legal advice provided by OLC while you were in charge, how that advice came to be generated, the considerations that went into it, and the role played by the White House.”

These are excellent questions. The American public deserves to have the answers.

Two August 1, 2002 OLC memos signed by Bybee have been released. One, released in 2004, concludes that to violate U.S. law against torture, conduct must cause pain equivalent to “the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” The second, released earlier this month, authorizes the use of coercive interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah, including extended sleep deprivation and waterboarding.

This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Eric Holder, a case involving a small municipal district in Austin, Texas seeking to invalidate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - one of the most important civil rights laws in American history.

With the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress finally acted to prevent discriminatory tactics designed to prevent minorities from exercising their fundamental right to vote. Section 5, in particular, is the centerpiece of the Act, and requires certain covered jurisdictions where voting discrimination has been the most flagrant to seek a preclearance from the Justice Department or a three-judge panel of the federal court in DC for any voting related changes. According to the statute, preclearance will be given as long as the proposed change does not have the purpose or the effect of denying or infringing on the right to vote because of one’s race or color.

In this case, the party seeking to invalidate Section 5 is a municipal utility district in Travis County, Texas, that conducts elections to select the members of its board of directors. Because the State of Texas is a covered jurisdiction, the district is subject to the preclearance requirements of Section 5, and sought relief under the Act’s bailout provision in federal court in the days following the reauthorization of the Act in 2006. Alternatively, the utility district sought to invalidate the provision if it could not bailout from its requirements. It failed on both counts in the courts below.

Today’s arguments confirm that Justice Kennedy again holds the deciding vote on whether the Court will weaken or invalidate a provision upheld by the very same Court four times in the past.

To those who argue that Section 5 is no longer needed because racial discrimination no longer exists, as evidenced by the election of the country’s first African American president, look at the facts. Because of Section 5’s sunset provisions, Congress was required to re-examine whether the statute is needed and last conducted an examination of this type in 2006. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees held a combined 21 hearings over 10 months and received testimony from over 90 witnesses, including state and federal officials, experts and private citizens. And although they concluded that significant progress had been made, they recognized that “[d]iscrimination today is more subtle than the visible methods used in 1965” and concluded that discrimination continues to result in “a diminishing of the minority community’s ability to fully participate in the electoral process and to elect their preferred candidates of choice.” Congress voted 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate that, among other things, Section 5 was still necessary.

We hope that Justice Kennedy will remember the extensive record finding Congress performed in 2006 and remember his words earlier this year when he wrote in Bartlett v. Strickland, “Still, racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history. Much remains to be done to ensure that citizens of all races have equal opportunity to share and participate in our democratic processes and traditions. . .”

Deborah Liu is General Counsel to People For the American Way, which is a defendant-intervenor in the case.

Great news on the accountability front: Today, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave the thumbs-down to the blanket invocation of the pernicious "state secrets" doctrine.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

A federal appeals court rebuffed the Obama administration's assertion of secrecy today and reinstated a lawsuit by five men who say a Bay Area subsidiary of Boeing Co. helped the CIA fly them to foreign countries to be tortured.

A lawyer from President Obama's Justice Department argued to the court in February that the issues surrounding the "extraordinary rendition" program, including government-sanctioned interrogation methods and the company's alleged connection to the CIA, were so sensitive that the very existence of the suit threatened national security.

The Bush administration had taken the same position and persuaded a federal judge in San Jose to dismiss the suit.

In today's ruling, however, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the government and the company could take steps to protect national secrets as the case proceeded. The suit should be dismissed only if secret information is essential for the plaintiffs to prove their case or for the Bay Area company to defend itself, the court said.

"According to the government's theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law," Judge Michael Hawkins said in the 3-0 ruling.

Citing last year’s Boumediene Supreme Court case, the court writes that

while security depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus, it subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles [including] freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers. [internal quotations omitted]

So now the lawsuit against the Boeing subsidiary can proceed. Perhaps it will see some light shed on the Bush Administration's frightening "extraordinary renditions" program.

In a nation governed by the rule of law, we cannot allow the government to shield its illegal actions from judicial scrutiny simply by claiming -- with no supporting evidence required -- that allowing a lawsuit will threaten national security. This "state secrets" doctrine was one of the many ways the Bush Administration evaded responsibility for its own lawbreaking, slammed the courthouse doors on victims of injustice, and arrogated extra-constitutional power to the president. Sadly, in the Ninth Circuit case, the Obama Justice Department took the same approach to this as did Bush's.

Those who knowingly sent people abroad to be tortured by foreign governments, just like those who ordered and enabled torture American style, must face the consequences. Otherwise, America will have become a far different nation than the one that I have always loved.

People For the American Way co-hosted a press call on 4/27 concerning the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel.

We were joined by Walter Dellinger, Solicitor General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Clinton, Douglas Kmiec, head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Aviva Orenstein, an Indiana University law professor and longtime colleague of Dawn Johnsen.

All three vouched for Johnsen's legal acumen and commitment to the rule of law and expressed disbelief that Senate Republicans were attempting to block her nomination.

You can listen here:

 
The Washington Post reported on the call -- "Scholars Urge Confirmation of Johnsen to OLC" -- along with progressive bloggers like Christy Hardin Smith and Armando LLorens who have reported extensively on the Johnsen nomination: "The War Against Dawn Johnsen" and "Kmiec Calls Out “Rank Politics” Against Dawn Johnsen’s OLC Nod."

The call was co-hosted by the Alliance for Justice, National Women's Law Center, and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Republicans are trying to paint OLC nominee Dawn Johnsen as "out of the mainstream." Rachel Maddow turned the tables on them last night in an interview with Salon's Dahlia Lithwick. Lithwick noted that Republicans are creating a storm — threatening to filibuster — because of two things: First, that Johnsen was ahead of her time in pointing out what everyone now knows about how bad the OLC memos were, and second, that she's pro-choice... hardly positions that place her "out of the mainstream" since, unfortunately for Republicans, those views are shared by most Americans.

A bit from the interview:

Lithwick: This is a dry run for future confirmation wars. ... She's been very vocally critical of the work that happened at the OLC in the Bush administration. ...

I think this has nothing really to do with Dawn Johnsen It's sort of a little warm up, a practice run for when they REALLY go after someone in a confirmation hearing for the courts. ...

Maddow: At Johnsen's confirmation hearing there was one comment from Republican Senator Jeff Sessions that stuck with me because he accused her of, and I'm quoting here, "blogging, advocating, and speeching for the opposite sides." Essentially he's saying, "She's got a side, she has known positions on things." Does it make any reasonable sense that would be an objection to an OLC candidate?

Lithwick: Well, it's doubly paradoxical if you think about it, because the thing she was blogging and "speeching" about was torture! It was how bad OLC was and how sloppy their work was. So it puts the Republicans in this awful position of having to say "Because the work they did in the Bush OLC was terrific. How dare they call it into question?" ... This is an issue on which she was very clear — before the rest of us were clear — that the memos were bad, the lawyering was sloppy, and that torture was torture.

And video:

There was also a segment at the beginning of the show about impeaching Jay Bybee that was good. Watch it here.

We just got word from the Senate Judiciary Committee that Republicans are going to get another shot at questioning Judge David Hamilton, President Obama’s first judicial nominee who is being put forward for a seat on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Senator Leahy is indeed bending over backwards to accommodate Republicans, who, as we’ve reported, threatened to filibuster the President’s judicial nominees before a single name was put forward and who boycotted Hamilton’s first hearing, because they claimed they did not have enough time to prepare, prompting Senator Leahy to ask their questions for them.

As Senator Leahy said in making the announcement of this rare second hearing, “It has been four weeks since Judge Hamilton first appeared before the Committee, and I am disappointed that Committee Republicans have yet to ask a single question of this nominee.” Hopefully, this time the Republicans will show up and ask their own questions. Judge Hamilton is eminently qualified for this position – his nomination should not be further delayed.
 

Sunday's New York Times included an editorial calling for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, a U.S. Appeals Court Judge on the Ninth Circuit (nominated by Bush) who, while at the Department of Justice, authored memos providing the "legal" justification for the Bush administration's torture policies.

The Times is absolutely right: "These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him."

Here's some more from the excellent editorial regarding the investigation that should take place (my emphasis added):

That investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

...

And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.

If the administration won't do it, Congress must hold the executive branch accountable. Sounds familiar.

PFAW's Campaign to Restore Justice

Checks and balances. What a novel concept...

People For the American Way Foundation board member Kathleen Turner posted a piece today on the Huffington Post making a forceful case for confirming Dawn Johnsen as the head of Office of Legal Counsel.

To restore integrity and respect for the rule of law to the Department, President Obama has nominated an inordinately qualified individual - Dawn Johnsen - who is now being attacked by Republicans and her right-wing allies for having the nerve to criticize Bush administration excesses. They're faulting her for criticizing OLC opinions that the Bush administration itself repudiated. In other words, she's being pilloried for having the very integrity and respect for the rule of law that the Bush OLC so clearly lacked.

If you want to speak out to support Dawn Johnsen’s confirmation, don’t forget to sign the petition.
 

Two of the most damaging legacies of the Bush Administration - the gutting of FISA through warrantless wiretapping, and the assertion of the almost monarchical "unitary executive" theory of executive branch authority - returned to center stage late last week, as the government responded to the suit brought by the EFF in Jewel v. NSA.

Glenn Greenwald writes in a post yesterday the disappointing direction Obama's DOJ has taken in regards to the warrantless wiretapping lawsuit the Electronic Frontier Foundation brought against the Bush Administration in October. On Friday the DOJ offered up its first response to the court. Greenwald:

[T]he Obama DOJ demanded dismissal of the entire lawsuit based on (1) its Bush-mimicking claim that the "state secrets" privilege bars any lawsuits against the Bush administration for illegal spying, and (2) a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim of breathtaking scope -- never before advanced even by the Bush administration -- that the Patriot Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is "willful disclosure" of the illegally intercepted communications.

Greenwald's post involves a lot of legal heavy lifting, but it's very accessible and worth reading.

This development is scary, but sadly not the first time Obama's DOJ has taken cues from its predecessor. In February we noted with disappointment the continued use of the "state secrets" privilege in the extraordinary rendition case Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen.

One of the much lauded compromises of the FISA amendments last year was the fact that while telecom corporations were immune from suit, government officials could still be brought to court for illegal wiretapping. So while the new FISA now allows for longer periods of warrantless wiretapping (7 days, up from 48 hours) and permits the destruction of wiretap records, the DOJ now aims to snatch away the single bone thrown to civil libertarians.

You can read the EFF's press release here.

According to the Daily Beast, the GOP is threatening to filibuster President Obama’s legal nominees if he moves to release the infamous “torture memos” that came out of the John Yoo-era Office of Legal Counsel:

A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

It was bad enough that George W. Bush spent the last eight years politicizing the Department of Justice and degrading the rule of law. Now, instead of working with the new administration to clean up the DOJ, Republican Senators are apparently doubling down and desperately attempting to cover up the Bush Administration’s misdeeds and their own complicity.

As several of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said during the Committee’s vote on Dawn Johnsen’s nomination: bring it on. If the GOP wants a public debate about what’s been going in on the Justice Department, that’s the kind of debate the American people will understand.

In the mean time, now would be a good time to remind every member of the U.S. Senate, Democrat and Republican alike, that it’s time to confirm Dawn Johnsen and clean up the DOJ.