Jason Leopold: DOJ Formal Probe Into Torture Memo
Posted by Anders den februar 23, 2008
Jason Leopold, Scoop: DOJ Office Launches Formal Probe Into Legal Basis Behind Torture Memo
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The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) confirmed Friday afternoon that it has launched a formal investigation to determine whether agency attorneys provided the White House with poor legal advice when it drafted legal opinions authorizing CIA interrogators to use waterboarding against so-called high-level terrorist detainees to extract information about alleged plots against the United States.
The investigation was launched after an article published by this reporter last week revealed that the author of the August 2002 legal opinion, John Yoo, a former attorney in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), relied on a health benefits statute to form the legal basis for waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, an OPR official at OPR said in an interview this afternoon. The official requested anonymity because he said he was not permitted to discuss the probe.
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