Jay Bybee: NYT Calls For Impeachment Of Torture Memo Author

Sunday's New York Times called on Congress to impeach federal judge Jay Bybee over his now infamous role in authoring one of the Bush administration memos arguing for the legality of torture.

"These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution," wrote the paper. "Congress should impeach him."

Separately, Sen. Claire McCaskill left open the door to pursuing such a course during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. Asked by host Chris Wallace whether she would favor the impeachment of Bybee, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Missouri Democrat replied: "I think we have to look at it. But I think we do need to sort out how do you get lawyers at the top levels of the Justice Department to give this kind of advice."

"The lawyers that gave this advice, what's scary to me is one of them got a lifetime appointment on the federal bench," McCaskill said earlier. "Yikes! A lawyer responsible for this kind of advice that clearly went too far in terms of stretching what our law is. It worries me that he's sitting on the federal bench right now. Now, whether we should go down the road, I don't think we want to look in the rearview mirror. I think this president has made that very clear. We've got big problems ahead of us we need to focus on. But I do think there probably needs to be more questions asked of the lawyers who gave this advice."

Congress has the political authority to impeach a lifetime-appointed federal judge, but it's unclear whether the move would have sufficient support. The Senate confirmed Bybee by a 74 to 19 vote, and many congressional Republicans would likely resist impeachment.

But as the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin recently noted, Bybee was confirmed before the torture memos became public:

Today, Bybee is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was confirmed by the Senate on March 13, 2003--some time before any of the "torture memos" became public. He has never answered questions about them, has never had to defend his conduct, has never endured anywhere near the amount of public scrutiny (and abuse) as Yoo. It is an understatement to say that he has kept a low profile since becoming a judge.

Bybee is generally the forgotten man in torture studies of the Bush era. The best known of the legal architects of the torture regime is John Yoo, who was a deputy to Bybee. For better or worse, Yoo has been a vocal defender of the various torture policies, and he remains outspoken on these issues. But whatever happened to his boss?

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Comments

[Kauffner]

10:58 AM on 05/01/2009

If Bybee didn't sign the memo, they would gotten someone else. The CIA was waterboarding before his memo came out. He was a functionary, not a policymaker. The whole country was screaming for blood after 9/11. Congress, Clinton-appointed CIA Director George Tenet -- they were all on board.

[Mikeeee]

06:46 PM on 04/26/2009

"Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't want someone of such low character as Bybee within 300' of my kid and would consider a restraining order to keep him away from children.

[dzent1]

01:42 AM on 04/22/2009

Don't know about the rest of you but I'm infinitely tired of these conscience-less, soul-less sob's in high positions of authority. They're not fit to tell the lowest of the low what to do, much less make decisions on my behalf about life and death, war and peace. It's time to name names and chase them down.

Government officials don't get a pass on right and wrong. This is America, they work for us, and we are damn poor stewards if we don't make sure they pay a penalty for leaving our nation and reputation in utter shambles. Here's a bit of what the GOP promoted in the name of greed:

More people in prison than any other country, worst health care system, plunging middle class wages, manufacturing jobs shipped offshore, the entire infrastructure falling apart, insane gasoline prices, obscene profits enabled by deregulation - shine light on any issue and you'll see GOP bite marks all over it. I've had it.

Obama, if you do ANYTHING during your tenure, cleanse our nation of these snakes who'll say or do anything to plunder the national purse. Otherwise, you'll may wind up with millions of Americans who will "forget" to send in their taxes in order to repudiate the national debt left to us by eight years of GOP chicken hawk pirates. Buyers remorse is setting in fast, and the GOP is blaming you, unfairly, I know. But are you gonna at least throw a punch at the worst offenders?

[jjgg5]

10:57 PM on 04/21/2009

Of course, he should be impeached. Let the Republicans stand behind him. They need the publicity.

[beachrose]

08:51 PM on 04/21/2009

In Obama's own words - " We need to move on!" This is just a political 3-ring circus -
Obama says: "No one is above the law" - yet apparently, that does not apply to "HIS" ADMINISTRATION. (Tax cheat, Geitner, for one.) What a pile of horsecrap!!! This is all just a clever scheme to remove a conservative Judge Bybee - so that Obamma can appoint a new "liberal" judge.

[charon]

08:34 PM on 04/21/2009

If Obama doesn't investigate and prosecute, he is guilty of collusion. These nefarious crimes against humanity must be investigated and those involved in authorizing them prosecuted, and if convicted, imprisoned. Either that, or this is no longer a nation of laws, but of thugs.

And those all the way down the line to those who carried out the torture must be tried. "They were just following orders" is too odious an excuse, too frightening an exculpatory precedent, to be allowed to pass.

All crimes occur in the past. If it's okay to ignore torture because it occured in the past, then no crime can justly be prosecuted. The only difference between the crime of bushco's torture and any other crime is power. Might then makes right. And then it's all absurd: we become a nation of fascists.

[LinkSync]

07:54 PM on 04/21/2009

Prosecute the impeachment and the crime!
I do mean in a court with the attendant standards and rules.
.
Sickos have no place running things in America.
.
Get them all and get them quick or at least make a law removing time limits on these sorts of crimes.
.
And if the international community does IT'S job they won't even be able to flee the country to escape justice!
Now that would be great.

[thrugreeneyez]

07:28 PM on 04/21/2009

Thanks NYT!!!!! Arrest, prosecute, and disbar Bybee, Yoo, Gonzalez, - all of those war criminals!!!

It is shameful that Woo continues to teach at California colleges. Let justice be done!

[hollybork]

02:10 PM on 04/21/2009

Without putting too fine a point on it, we are dealing with several different categories of blame from the Abu Ghraib part time ill trained jailers, to the doctors and medical personnel who violated their oaths while supervising this, to the Vice President of the United States, his next in command, Addington & Feith. Finally, we have the most blameworthy lot from my point of view: the lawyers who were trained to know better, who wrote tortuous legal justifications for the President on order to butter up their bosses and win the career prizes they so recklessly sought. Those individuals are convicted right out of the documents themselves, and they include Wu, Gonzalez and Jay Bybee (now Judge of 9th Circuit).

Now that this is out, it will be impossible for this country to backpedal and make it all okay. These lawyers need to be disbarred and Judge Bybee needs to be impeached. As a lawyer, I am absolutely outraged that Judge Bybee should sit even another day on the federal Bench where the great Juri

[wdw505]

02:25 PM on 04/21/2009

then as a lawyer you would know those individuals could not have been "convicted right out of the documents themselves" without a trial as they are innocent until proven guilty........wow

or do you now operate with a different standard than the US does with the court system

[Yellowbird]

01:41 PM on 04/21/2009

Having this monster on the 9th Circuit Court is just ONE of the many "sleepers" the recent criminal administration has stuffed all over our nation. Another one I can think of is that Roberts dude on the Supreme Court.

disrespectful calling a SCJ a "dude"?

You betcha!

[eagledavey]

05:42 AM on 04/21/2009

Translation: Let's get rid of the conservative judge while we can and put another lib in the NInth Circuit.

[Dustee]

11:19 AM on 04/21/2009

Why not, they saved Senator Stevens behind.

[jaslyn]

01:03 PM on 04/21/2009

Yea. And let's forget that he was given that post by Bush for his actions! This guy is willing to bend the law instead of enforcing it. That's contrary to what the duties of a judge should be.

[wdw505]

02:03 PM on 04/21/2009

haven't you heard the law is flexible

[nonamenm]

11:28 PM on 04/20/2009

It makes a mockery of our justice system that such a morally deficient being as Bybee should be a lawyer much less a judge. Impeach!

[bascombe]

12:05 PM on 04/21/2009

wasn't he approved by democrats, too.

[Eilis27]

03:23 PM on 04/21/2009

The vote on Mr. Bybee's nomination was scheduled the same day that Colin Powell was giving his speach on WMDs. Where do you think the attention was. His nomination and appointment was before it was known that he wrote these memos regarding torture.

[jaslyn]

01:04 PM on 04/21/2009

and please! how do you say his name without cracking up?

[sammyscout]

07:30 PM on 04/20/2009

DISPAR / IMPEACH AND THEN PROSECUTE

[jcole]

10:57 PM on 04/20/2009

I don't know what is wrong with the democrats, they are afriad to make the republican show their hands, if this man wrote some of those torture laws he is not able to interpt the constitution, some one should go back and look at some of his ruling, and that would tie up the court.

[wdw505]

09:38 AM on 04/21/2009

wow, how does one "interpt" the constitution......

[bascombe]

12:06 PM on 04/21/2009

the dems are not afraid, they are well paid.

[wdw505]

09:24 AM on 04/21/2009

do tell how does one "DISPAR"

[Adrio]

07:03 PM on 04/20/2009

-Now, whether we should go down the road, I don't think we want to look in the rearview mirror.-

Will Sen. McCaskill please give the car keys to a responsible driver ....

[toomuchtolose]

07:55 PM on 04/20/2009

If we do look in the rear-view mirror maybe we will see the very low-level soldiers who were

court-martialed because they were following orders at Guantanomo.

[jcole]

11:02 PM on 04/20/2009

And that was a shame that those low level troops went to jail for doing what they were told to do, and now the president is saying that the people at the top are not going to answer for their crimes.

[Peji]

02:28 PM on 04/21/2009

Everyone from top to bottom should be prosecuted...but even worse is having those at the bottom take the hit for those at the top who had the only real power to stop it.

Mr. President, whose side are you on? First the robber-bankers-insurers and now the criminals from the past administration. Do they have something on you? If you keep this up you will lose the next election!

[Wordstosay]

07:00 PM on 04/20/2009

SOLDIERS JOB IS TO SERVE GOD AND COUNTRY! IF GOD SAYS DO YOU DO! IF COUNTRY SAY DO TAKE THE TIME THINK ABOUT IT AND GIVE COUNTRY...ITS DUE! SO NEVER HOLD OUR SOLDIERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COMMANDMENTS SENT DOWN BY HIGHER MANAGEMENT!

[WestcoastSteve]

07:41 PM on 04/20/2009

The Nuremberg Trials helped establish the principle that individual soldiers cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for crimes on the excuse that they were just following orders. This principle is in fact incorporated into modern military regulations, which explicitly state that a soldier has a duty to refuse immoral orders.

However, clear as the guidelines are, real life is a lot more complicated. But anyone carrying out torture for the military or the CIA should have known about it, and if they decided to proceed, then they put themselves in peril of prosecution.

It was better for the leaders to have not brought the question of torture up in the first place.

[LJinFla]

02:41 PM on 04/21/2009

Totally agree with that. What I don't understand is why this reasoning is not more prevalent amongst our United States inhabitants.

The single fact that our leaders brought torture to America is disgusting in its self, but to say that a soldier cannot say no to an order when they know it is wrong is ridiculous.

A soldier M U S T refuse to follow an order that is nothing but torture to any sane human being should also be brought up on charges, otherwise all the people from the Nuremberg trials should be let go too.

What do we want for America? What do we want our people and soldiers to represent to the world?

[citizensrus]

07:56 PM on 04/20/2009

Soldier's OATH is to Protect and Defend the Constitution. It's cut and dried. That's why the following of orders can still result in a court martial. The constitution is the Commander, not the person with the rank.