DOJ, Now?
February 16th, 2009Over at The Corner, Mark Levin writes:
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has now been politicized. This is institutionalized corruption of the worst kind.
He says this is “DOJ, Now.” Going back to Isikoff’s original reporting, it’s clear that this institutionalized corruption occured under Bush’s watch:
H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department’s ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos “was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.” According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials—Jay Bybee and John Yoo—as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
But then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, strongly objected to the draft, according to the sources. Filip wanted the report to include responses from all three principals, said one of the sources, a former top Bush administration lawyer. (Mukasey could not be reached; his former chief of staff did not respond to requests for comment. Filip also did not return a phone message.) OPR is now seeking to include the responses before a final version is presented to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “The matter is under review,” said Justice spokesman Matthew Miller.
In fact, H. Marshall Jarrett’s inquiry was first reported in February 2008. I believe this is long before it was clear who would become either party’s presidential candidate, let alone President. According to Jarrett’s testimony in early 2008, the inquiry had already been going on for some time.
The only politicization of the report is refusing to release it on the grounds that folks who’ve been discussing these very issues for years require weeks to formulate a response.