Maddow: Torture Memo Authors Should Go To Jail (VIDEO)

Media Monitor Brian C. directs attention to a segment from last night's edition of the Rachel Maddow Show, in which the host responded to the recent news from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. The OPR is apparently recommending "disbarment, but not prosecution" for Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Yoo, as punishment for erecting the legal mechanisms that paved the way for the erection of the Bush administration's torture regime. Maddow, in a pointed analogy, opined:

MADDOW: In the United States, both in terms of U.S. law and our international treaty organizations, torture is a crime. When you yourself don't commit a crime, but when you scheme with other people to cause a crime to be committed, that's called criminal conspiracy. So, for example, if you didn't rob the bank yourself, but you provided the robbers with security guard uniforms and an armored car so that their bank robbery looked like normal bank business...you would go to prison, same as the robbers, once you'd been caught.

Not so much, apparently, for those who would create a system that makes torture "appear to be legal." And while Maddow's analogy is not my favorite in making this point, those who would defend these illegalities are presenting criminal defense attorneys with whole new frontiers in framing a criminal act. The DoJ's findings, that Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury, "committed serious lapses in judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted" -- well, I wonder if Bernie Madoff's lawyers are listening closely.

Michael Isikoff, however, believes that disbarring the trio would be a punishment that resonates: "Even if the recommendation is simply -- and I don't mean that to be dismissive -- a recommendation for bar disciplinary procedure against these lawyers would be like a bombshell in legal circles. To have lawyers face potential disciplinary procedures -- to lose their law licenses would be something that would be unheard of."

[WATCH]

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to [e-mail] -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[ConservMom]

These people just can't get over President Bush and they can't do a thing about it, legally. Just a bunch of hot air balloons!

[armadillo]

Let me pose a question to you ConservMom. If your son was captured by the Taliban and subjected to these tactics would you just say "Oh well. He is a soldier and they do take a risk when they join." Me thinks not.

How do you explain the USA putting Japanese and German officials on trial after WWII for the same thing?

Being a conservative or a Republican doesn't mean you can ignore the facts.

To your original statement "These people just can't get over President Bush..." You are right. It will take a long time to get this fould taste out of our collective mouths.

[ReedYoung]

Good point. Although conservative moms give birth to chicken-hawk babies, other readers can appreciate your insight and honesty.

[ConservMom]

Too bad.. Obama did a big side show for all of you and no one will be prosecuted! Yes..it's true!
Soon to hit you when you wake up, kool aid drinkers! Even the Bar assoc. can't do anything because they were waiting for the new President too long! Yes...even they were a bunch of frauds and should be disbarred. Anything over 4 years..is too late to complain! They had their chance..but they didn't do it. Wanted to make a big show with the new president...but it failed too.

[ReedYoung]

"Anything over 4 years..is too late to complain!" ?

What is your source for the claim that any statute of limitations exists for war crimes?

[senseandnonsense]

There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. Maybe we will have to wait for a Spanish judge to do the right thing...

[spacester]

These three shysters each took an Oath of Office, did they not?

To me, this is about we have reached the point where the oath of office is just another pro-forma ritual.

Mr. Holder, if your boss fixes everything else but you let these guys slide with mere disbarment, you have doomed our country to eventual collapse. It is essential to our republic that an Oath of Office is a legally binding, enforceable contract between those who assume power and those who consent to be governed.

Blatant disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law it establishes is a CRIME.

These three shysters are CRIMINALS. They need to begin paying their debt to society.

Mr. Holder, the American people are counting on you. Make the case, that's your job.

[CherokeeGirl]

the more important part of the interview, to me, was when, (towards the end) Issakof clarifies our confusion about this DOJ report "recommending" a slap on the wrist and that's all. We all thought that was the end of it? WTF?

Turns out, according to Issakof, that was a report from the Ethics Dept of the DOJ. They don't decide what will be prosecuted and how laws will be enforced, they just make (apparently weak) recommendations to the Attorney General, Eric Holder. It's still up to Eric what happens next.

Eric? oh ERIC? Why are we hearing crickets? IT's PURE TORTURE!

Start with cleaning house Eric, you may have a few corrupt bugs in your Ethics dept!

but I'm still glad to know that the media spun that report wrong...it's not the end of this.

[sammyscout]

And so the people continue to remain complacent and therefore history will repeat itself

[sammyscout]

If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred - Walt Whitman

[sammyscout]

agree 100%

[Solja]

Rachel is right. These lawyers go to a legal board to have their licenses reviewed and the already implanted Bush judge/panel finds them not guilty, and they get off without any punishment.

If torture is a crime, then they should at least be charged with conspiracy to commit torture or something related to helping the torturers commit a crime. If found guilty, they would automatically lose their law license. This way, they are guaranteed punishment for what they've done. I wouldn't want to chance them going before a panel of other lawyers, which would essentially be a visit to the good ol' boys club.

[JamesA1102]

I like Rachel but she is (and has been) playing judge, jury and executioner here. It's one thing to call for an investigation. It's another thing to pronounce people guitly and say they should be in jail. That's something Rush & Hannity do.

[Solja]

She is 100% correct. If we know for a fact that a crime has been committed, then the people should be prosecuted. Otherwise, why have the law on the books?

The DOJ has said that these lawyers gave advice that they KNEW was incorrect. Their advice was PERMISSION to commit the crimes. They should be punished by the laws of the land.

Even though their disbarment would send a message to other lawyers, it would send a MUCH bigger message if they were prosecuted and convicted of their crimes. They would lose their law license upon conviction anyway.

[JamesA1102]

We still live in a country were people are afforded the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers, not by a cable TV host on a show where she controls the content.

[sophistwatch]

She might be playing judge, but she happens to be correct. The basis of the entire Iraq war was based on falsified intel. That means the war itself was preemptive and, therefore, constitutes a war crime.

It is clear that they knew that they were going to break the law. That is why Yoo and co went to such great lengths to suggest ways that they could avoid prosecution. Yoo went so far as to recommend in a 2006 memoir "War by Other Means," that a president could take a number of steps so that people criminally charged with allegedly torturing prisoners would go free.

Yoo wrote: "There are ways that the legal system could develop effective approaches toward coercive interrogation. A president could decline to prosecute an officer whom he believed properly acted in self-defense or in an emergency, or out of necessity. A President could pardon those involved. Even if a prosecution occurs, a jury must find that that the defense is not met, and convict the agents and his superiors of violating the law. It would require the only juror to agree that it was reasonable for the defendants to believe the coercive interrogation would yield information that would save lives, and that it would be necessary under the circumstances, to prevent the conviction."

[Steve Sanders]

You got that right, like she does on everything.

[IDIOTA]

Is Rachel Maddow Mad now? I am. I don't anything about Bybee or Bradbury, but I know about Yoo, once law professor at Boalt. Yoo'd think that he would have shown more respect for the rule of law in general and the Constitution in particular. He acted like a needy sycophant, eager to assist potential lawbreakers. Who will help us flout the Constitution? Yoo will.

[Clayton139]

Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff is on this ! - There Great !

No disciplinary procedures for any that committed Crimes against the Geneva Convention !
Torture is a crime against the World !

[Steve Sanders]

Yeah, sure. Of course.

[jimrs6]

The point that the Holder report will make without explicitly stating it is that the cannot prove and that any laws were broken. It's not against the law to given a legal opinion, no matter what you think of it. The acts themselves were not even clearly in violation of any statute. Remember, waterboarding was made illegal AFTER the fact. Maddow's analogy is terrible, and she's not the super-intellect that she thinks she is. The bloom is seriously gone from that rose.

[IDIOTA]

I find some of what you say compelling, but I am confused about your statement that "waterboarding was made illegal after the fact."

[KevinH]

I believe that he is saying that Obama banned Waterboarding in Jan 2009. Up until that point, it was not necessarily labeled as torture. So, now it needs to be proven that waterboarding in fact was torture at the time it was done under the Bush adminsitration. The argument is that it' wasn't clearly defined at that time and now that it is, you can clearly prosecute moving forward. I'm sure that there are many other forms of torture used today that are far worse, but this one clearly got the media's attention.

[Solja]

Several things you said are dead wrong.

Torture is against the laws of our international treaties, and right here in these United States. If I were to catch someone coming into my basement window, and just kept them tied up in my basement for months on end, beating them, sicking my dog on them, letting my dogs bite their genitals, hanging them from the ceiling and slamming them into the walls, and other torturous stuff like that, do you think when I let him go that the police wouldn't be raiding my home and throwing me in jail?? I would be that crazy lady who tortured her robber, right here in a HuffPost article for all to throw stones at me.

For sixty years, the United States has led the fight against torture around the world. The U.S. not only signed but helped to draft the international treaties and laws that banned torture after the atrocities of WWII. The U.S. spoke out against inhumane treatment of prisoners and offered refuge to victims of atrocities perpetrated by other governments. Now, betraying a long, proud tradition of humane detention and interrogation practices, the U.S. is using torture.

Secondly, Dr. Maddow, Ph.D., is a Rhodes Scholar, and yes, she has a "super-intellect" if you only kept up with her thoughts, which you obviously cannot.

[nk007]

Why must you deceive to make a point? This is not "the Holder report." The investigations by OPR started well before Holder was A.G. You can play games all you want but what took place in these CIA sites, Guantanamo, Iraq, was torture and violated both the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention against Torture. The last time I checked these international treaties were ratified by the U.S. thus making them laws of the land under the United States Constitution. You word game about not violating "any statute" ignores the clear violations of treaties ratified by the United States. Ms. "Maddow's analogy" may not have been the best but she was spot on about the consequences of lawyers who collude with criminals intent on braking the law.

[jeliz]

I'll take disbarment. I'd like to see Yoo, et al., working in a paper hat. "You want fries with that?"

[SharpDressedMan]

Disbarment only doesn't do justice to the troops who needlessly died or were injured for retribution by Muslim militants.

They need to do jail time. If convincted, disbarment is automatic.

[IDIOTA]

"You want fries with that? Yoo, get fries with that!"

[Chris29]

I love Rachel, but she has a habit of jumping to conclusions and then maintaining them even after being contradicted.

I believe Isikoff went on to say that it would not be appropriate for the writers of this report to "recommend" criminal prosecution - they only address whether or not the memo writers acted within the scope of their professional role.

And - I could be wrong here - I think that the report is actually silent on the issue, as opposed to making an directive statement that "procecution should not be pursued".

I think the door is still open to go forward with a criminal review after the recommendations are reviewed. It's too bad the headlines keep reading "Criminal prosecutions are unlikely".

[ReportThis]

Blowjobs don't kill people -- torture does. Impeach Jay Bybee.