OPR Working Thread Part Three

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emptywheel
Happy Sunday. Here are the HJC copies of all these documents: Memorandum for the Attorney General OPR Final Report OPR 1st Draft Report OPR 2nd Draft Report Yoo Response to OPR 2nd Draft Yoo Response to OPR Final Draft …
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Holder: Zazi's plot "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11th, 2001"

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emptywheel
And all resolved using civilian law enforcement. From the DOJ press release: The Justice Department announced that Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of New York to a three-count superseding information charging him…

Duke Cunningham Rails against Leadership Failures and Scandals

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emptywheel
Okay, it's been a busy day. But I thought I'd throw out this little tidbit just to lighten your afternoon. On page 86 of this FOIA packet, a CIA MFR from a May 6, 2004 briefing on the Abu Ghriab scandal records Duke Cunningham's outrage that…

Goss and Harman's July 13, 2004 Briefing on the IG Report

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emptywheel
The Ghost Detainee FOIA (for more background see here, here, and here) also has a Memorandum for the Record from CIA's briefing for Porter Goss and Jane Harman on the CIA's IG Report on July 13, 2004. The MFR is interesting for the details…

Henry Waxman Agrees w/Me; Toyota Study Is Horrible Whitewash

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emptywheel
Last week I promised I would come back and explain why the report Toyota had produced, purportedly claiming that they had shown they don't have a software/electronic problem with their electronic throttle controls, did no such thing. I never…

Najibullah Zazi: Another Counterterrorism Victory for Civilian Law

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emptywheel
The AP is reporting that Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested last September as he was preparing to deploy bombs made out of beauty supply derived TATP, will plead guilty later today. Which means that less than a year after a person allegedly…

Bybee's Lawyer: Bybee Distracted from Torture Memo because Protecting Cheney's Energy Task Force

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emptywheel
I'll have more on Maureen Mahoney's first response on behalf of Jay Bybee to the OPR report later today. But I wanted to draw attention to a footnote she includes to--apparently--explain that Jay Bybee was a very busy man at the time when he…

Pat Roberts' "10 Reasons Right Off" Not to Exercise Oversight Over Torture

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emptywheel
Practically the first thing Pat Roberts did after he became Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee was to back down off nascent efforts Bob Graham had made as SSCI Chair to exercise real oversight over the torture program. That's one of…

Michael Hayden Lied to SSCI on April 12, 2007

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emptywheel
The latest Ghost Detainee FOIA materials [long pdf] (for a general overview see this post) prove that Michael Hayden lied to the Senate on April 12, 2007. One of the things included in this packet is a heavily redacted transcript of Hayden's…

Ghost Detainee FOIA Release

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emptywheel
In the midst of all the excitement over the OPR release, there's an equally revealing FOIA release in CCR and Amnesty International's Ghost Detainee FOIA. I will do very detailed posts on each of the Memoranda for the Record included in this…

Toyota's "Wins for Toyota-Safety": $100 Million by Avoiding Finding the Acceleration Problem

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emptywheel
The Toyota hearings this week--particularly Wednedsay's hearing featuring Akio Toyoda--are looking more and more devastating. The Detroit News reports that the House Oversight Committee has an internal Toyota presentation from last July boasting…
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The Inherent Conflict Of Interest With DOJ's OPR And David Margolis

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bmaz
The first, and most obvious, issue of conflict with OPR is that it places evaluation and resolution of ethical complaints against DOJ attorneys in the hands of the DOJ. The power to determine whether there is any impropriety is solely within the hands of those supervising and/or ultimately responsible for the impropriety. It is a process ripe with conflict and cronyism that protects DOJ malfeasants at the expense of the public interest and well being.

The Emails the Bush Lawyers Were So Worried About

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emptywheel
As I noted yesterday (though I got the details slightly wrong), the OPR report revealed that a number of John Yoo and Patrick Philbin's emails had been deleted (and that Goldsmith's had been deleted but were subsequently recovered). OLC initially…

OPR Working Thread Two

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emptywheel
Happy Saturday. Memorandum for the Attorney General OPR Final Report (a searchable copy, courtesy of burnt, is here) OPR 1st Draft Report (a searchable copy, courtesy of burnt, is here) OPR 2nd Draft Report Yoo Response to…

OPR Report Working Thread

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emptywheel
A great way to spend a Friday night--reading this with all my friends! Memorandum for the Attorney General OPR Final Report OPR 1st Draft Report OPR 2nd Draft Report Yoo Response to OPR 2nd Draft Yoo Response to OPR…

DOJ Anthrax Report Working Thread

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emptywheel
DOJ has posted its Anthrax Report and related documents. The Justice Department, FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service today announced that the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five individuals and sickened 17 others,…

Unsolved Anthrax Case to be Closed Today

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emptywheel
Though DOJ will presumably insist that Ivins did it. The FBI is expected to issue a final report today on its six-year investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, according to the attorney representing former Frederick resident Bruce…

Toyota Pays Whitewash Firm to Produce UNBELIEVABLY Bad Whitewash

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emptywheel
To get an idea of just how ridiculously bad the Toyota-funded study of its "sticky accelerator" problem is, you need only compare the 6 vehicles the contractor in question purchased to study, with the years and makes of vehicles Toyota has recalled. Here…

Will Akio Toyoda Testify on Brakes?

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emptywheel
As you may know, there are a slew of hearings scheduled next week to try to understand the Toyota brake problems. The head of Toyota (and grandson of the company founder) caused a bit of a stir yesterday when he tried to correct the mistaken…

UK Relations with Israel "in the Deep Freeze" over Dubai Assassination

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emptywheel
Those JSOC guys doing America's assassinating better make sure they don't get caught using British passports. Because if the Brits' claimed anger at Israel for giving its Mossad killers UK passports is any indication, it would not help relations. Britain…
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