Yoo's Bad Lawyering, Not Investigations, Threatens CIA

Yoo's Bad Lawyering, Not Investigations, Threatens CIA
By Frank Naif | Huffington Post

Bush administration lawyer John Yoo's latest screed in thePhiladelphia Inquirer relies on false arguments and conservative intelligence folklore to blast John Durham's inquiry into CIA's torture program. Yoo bemoans the "decimation" of US intelligence capabilities and the "persecution" of CIA, but predictably takes no responsibility for how his own egregiously sloppy legal advice exposes to legal jeopardy the military and intelligence personnel whom he unctuously praises.

Apparently, Yoo's reading of history is about as good as his lawyering, which has taken lumps from nearly every quarter.

Yoo summons up that old chestnut "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail," uttered by Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, and then adds his own rejoinder.

"Unfortunately," writes Yoo, attempting to duct tape some historical legitimacy to his assertion, "we do not live in a world of gentlemen."

Yoo is putting forth a false choice. Yoo would have readers believe that amidst the vast machinery of US intelligence and defense, there was only one alternative to the program of torture and extrajudicial detention he helped justify: doing nothing. Read more.