C.I.A. interrogation program broke the law




Two department lawyers involved in analyzing and justifying waterboarding and other interrogation tactics — Jay S. Bybee, now a federal judge, and John C. Yoo, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley — had demonstrated “professional misconduct.” It said the lawyers had ignored legal precedents and provided slipshod legal advice to the White House in possible violation of international and federal laws on torture. David Margolis, a career lawyer at the Justice Department, rejected that conclusion in a report of his own

The Office of Professional Responsibility, however, suggested in its report that the legal conclusions were in effect pre-ordained. It said that John Rizzo, the C.I.A. lawyer who requested the opinion, had “candidly admitted the agency was seeking maximum legal protection for its officers” against possible criminal prosecution. Mr. Rizzo objected to the way his remarks were characterized by the office.

“While I have declined to adopt O.P.R.’s findings of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to author opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, view of executive power while speaking for an institutional client,” Mr. Margolis said.

The ethics report is not the last word on the emotional national dispute about torture. In August, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. opened a criminal investigation to determine whether the C.I.A. interrogation program broke the law, and that inquiry is expected to continue for months.