Spike the Yoo Findings, Get a Judgeship?
Last week, I suggested that the role Mary Patrice Brown played in softening the conclusion of the OPR report on John Yoo deserved closer scrutiny. Less than a year ago, Eric Holder shifted the head of OPR into a different DOJ role. Almost immediately, OPR backed off its promise that the results of the OPR report would be public. And then, after Holder named Brown to head OPR, the report got stalled and, eventually, softened.
Now, less than a year after Brown took over the office, the Obama Administration reportedly plans to move her into a new position: a lifetime appointment as a DC District Court judge.
The White House and the Justice Department are vetting the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, Mary Patrice Brown, for a federal judgeship, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Brown, a well-regarded career prosecutor, is expected to secure a nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, assuming she clears her FBI background check and American Bar Association review, the people said.
Now, Main Justice reports that Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recommended Brown.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton sent Brown’s name to the White House, along with eight others, for three vacancies on the court. (The names were generated by Norton’s nominating commission, the same group that interviewed candidates for U.S. Attorney in the District.) The White House appears to have pared the list down to three names, and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy has been assisting with the vetting since December, the people said.
Nevertheless, Brown’s career trajectory over the last year makes me all the more curious about precisely how the OPR report has been delayed and softened under her management.
That rug she swept things under is looking pretty lumpy!
How about a new new moniker? Judge ‘Lumpy Rug’ Brown.
It sure meets OLP standards to have a judge who won’t hold DOJ lawyers responsibly for any kind of misfeasance, up to and including participation in solicitation of torture and cover up of torture murders. Great vetting – I think us’uns who use actual vets would say it looks like they decided to just nerve the nag.
OT – but just got through your Sat post on the kill orders and it occurs to me, if awlaki is indeed so steeped in al-Qaeda operations instead of just being a recruiter and rhetoric spewer, then why haven’t they been able to just pull a Derwish operation and blow him up as a collateral damage guy in the “wrong place” as opposed to needing to generate a separate finding to specifically kill him? There are probably a lot of reasons, but I can think of two off the cuff. One, that he might not really be very operational and there’s not much chance of getting him as a collateral damage target; two, that he hasn’t been very operational but by publicizing the decision to kill him they can get him to try to go to ground at an operational (training camp, guest house) facility and then be able to use the collateral damage as a back up for the kill authorization. Or I may be getting way too convoluted.
Since Miller (and others) have said that NSC has oversight of the assassinations programs in general, I think people (like Clinton) need to start being asked about their roles for oversight. How is it that we are supposed to claim to the EU for our SWIFT access that it will all be ok and golly, any EU citizens who are misused by the access will have APA protections when A) el-Masri’s and Arar’s and now quite a few other suits have demonstrated that we don’t even give protections to our kidnap and assault victims, much less people who only have their info taken; and B) we can and may assassinate or disappear individuals whose info we “misused” which would make it hard to pursue that APA claim; and C) we even will assassinate Americans without any kind of due process at all – but Europe is supposed to believe we won’t misuse their financial data without that huge APA protection.
And, for that matter, maybe someone will get around to flat out asking McConnell and Hoekstra and King and all those who are so adamant against giving “rights” to “terrorists” if that doesn’t mean that they think Europe and Europeans are not entitled to the protections of the APA, especially if those Europeans were “terrorist suspects” You know, like maybe they hung out with a souffle chef named Errachidi …
Well, I think the implication of all of the stories taken together is that they tried to do just that in hte Christmas eve strike, and it didn’t work.And then the FIRST report on the kill list was ABC’s, obviously sourced to some hawks, complaining that bc they tried to do it indirectly, rather than directly, they somehow managed to miss al-Awlaki.
All of which supports your larger point, of course. But just means that this has been going on for two months now.
It also means, in a peripheral way, that the guys like Rahm giving advice on what should or shouldn’t happen with torture investigations are also members of the “oversight” mechamism, the NSC, for the US assassination program.
Not that it would give any kind of conflict …
WEll, the DC Cicuit has always been a place for fixers to call home. After all, you could ask (inter alia) John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Laurence Silberman, Abner Mikva, Brett Kavanaugh (former Clinton indep. counsel pornographer/impeachment prosecutor and Bush assistant WH counsel), and the list goes on….
What else is new?
This is a District position, not Circuit. At District, she’ll have to work her ass off.
Sorta – the District Court is
arguablyfar more important than the Circuit, because if it isn’t in the factual record created by the parties in the District Court then the Circuit does not get to review it. Also, appointing her directly to the Circuit would kind of relinquishes the Admin’s ability to bend her jurisprudence to their will or, said another way, to get the results the Admin might want. In the District, she is still subject to the temptation of promotion to the Circuit and thus can be relied upon to shape rulings (as needed) “in the exercise of her sound discretion”. Since essentially all evidential rulings are reviewed for an abuse of discretion, this is a huge playground for the politically inclined judge to use to make sure desirable results are the only ones coming out of her court.And, finally, sitting in the District Court she does not have to gain the agreement of at least one colleague to support her rulings, which she would have to do on the Circuit.
While I think you are right to focus on this appointment, I’m not sure that there wasn’t some spiking going on when Jarrett was involved as well. fwiw – there was a lot of opportunity and very little that came out of OPR during all that time and there’s been (to quote Judge Sullivan after the Ted Steven’s trial) deafening silence from that office under Jarrett as revelation after revelation rolled out on things from destruction of evidence to lack of candor with tribunals to direct defiance of court orders. And it’s not like Jarett was kicked out the door, he did end up (over the objections of a lot of prosecutors who wanted Melson to stay in place) running EOUSA.
fwiw
I might have missed this, but has the OPR report actually been released yet or is it still just the rumored contents via press leaks?
At this point, the only mystery to me is why Yoo hasn’t been appointed to a Federal judgeship. Sounds like the “perfect” Rahm/Obama move for bipartisanship.
Not Yoo, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a Goldsmith (or evena a Comey) nomination as part of a packaging effort.
Well, if we resorted to the methods of O’Keefe and his merry gang of pranksters (like trying to donate to Planned Parenthood only if the funds were used to abort blacks), we could make a push for Yoo to be appointed to the bench since his legal theories have had such a bipartisan impact in Washington. Sadly, your suggestion of Goldsmith is entirely possible.
Sick but accurate, though I agree with mary that Yoo himself is still too radioactive. Comey and Goldsmith are better bets.
It’s laughable, though, when you consider that were the tables turned, Bush or Cheney would never nominate a leftist to curry favor with the opposition, as part of a plan to nominate their own hard right candidates. Removing such candidates is one of their major goals. These Democrats are just prostrate with Stockholm Syndrome.
One thing, at least, is certain. Those who make the short list for such appointments, especially in DC, rarely make it solely based on their academic and professional qualifications: those are a given, not determinative. Relationship networks and political views and “being reliable” are paramount.
Sweet. Margolis must be getting a really big prize.
When I saw EW’s headline, that’s who I thought of first.
Here’s Margolis’s prize: he knows he has the power. He has the bureaucrat’s secret inner assurance that those who have power in the public world come to him on bended knee. He’s the defender of the American flag. He sees Hoover in his dreams, and believes America is threatened by enemies that only he and the anointed handful can defend us against. When he does his favors, all he asks for is “respect”. His very untouchability is his reward, the secret seat of power. To know you are the one who really runs DOJ (or believes he does, with a select group of peers) — ah! that is a sweet reward indeed.
OT–AP saying that John Murtha died. :(
Yes, just read that.
Complications from gallbladder surgery? That does not happen that often.
Probably happens more frequently than you might think (as I speak from personal experience)
I know complications can happen; however, it is a relatively safe surgery and complications are considered, as surgeries go, relatively rare.
I am so sorry he developed fatal complications. Very sad.
May he rest in peace.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/dad-allegedly-waterboarde_n_453484.html
A 4 yo, scared to death of water, is dunked under by a soldier and his girlfriend. The soldier/father “did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this form of punishment.”
And why would he when When two successive commanders in chief, all the top level military and intel officers and DOJ and Exec branch lawyers are ok with it – I guess there shouldn’t be any problem using “enhanced alphabet techniques” on a four year old since it’s all “bipartisany” and crap.
The 4 yo girl was also covered in bruises.
Keeping America safe – one battered, water tortured child at a time.
Are local protective services, prosecutors and courts going to be looking only forward?
Inquiring minds want to know…..
What’s interesting is that NY Daily News suddenly has no problem calling it a torture technique
Marcy or somebody: I thought Margolis was the one who softened up the report. Was he acting on Brown’s orders, or vice versa, or do they have a sideways/dotted-line relationship on the org. chart or what? [voice of old man in “Moonstruck”] I’m confused. [/old man]
Margolis was the final one; but Brown was installed and strung the whole thing after it was already done.
OT sort of;
bmaz have you heard the interview of John Yoo by Victoria Toensing on c-span ‘After Words’?
I’d love to hear your take on it.
Lots of asides scoring political points. She touts him as some kind of great historic scholar for the book. The way I heard it is that he’s scrambling to justify his past positions on the Unitary Executive.
It seemed a little thin to me.
JH
Good lord, not sure I want to hear Yoo interviewed by Toesuck. I’ll think about that……
Then you really want to steer clear of the interview of Peter Schjweizer -‘Architects of Ruin’ by Michele Bachman – 11/14/09 After Words.
That’ll make your head spin.
jh