Attorney General
DOJ Will Pay Yoo’s Legal Tab, But Its Lawyers Won’t Handle the Case
Posted Jul 14, 2009 9:22 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo plans to appeal a ruling in a suit claiming his legal memos led to torture, but he won’t be represented by government lawyers.
The Justice Department will drop its defense of Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, according to a court document cited by the San Francisco Chronicle. Yoo is appealing a ruling that he can be sued for overseeing a policy that allegedly violated the rights of Jose Padilla, held as an enemy combatant before being convicted of conspiring to aid terrorists.
Yoo will be represented by private lawyers, according to the court filings, which did not name the new counsel. Bloomberg News says the legal bill will be paid by the government.
Padilla claims he was subjected to extreme temperatures, confined in painful positions and threatened with death. He is blaming Yoo’s legal memos approving harsh interrogations.
Yoo filed his appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco.
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Comments
B. McLeod
Jul 14, 2009 10:15 AM CST
So, now Yoo (who could certainly use some better, long-term employment prospects) gets to direct these defense fees (to be paid by the Gub’mnt) to a large firm of his choosing. . .
I hope there’s a cap, and some review of reasonableness, as opposed to this being the introductory payment for a new job after the case is over.
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T.R.
Jul 14, 2009 11:42 AM CST
Beyond the issue of fees (which is interesting on a few levels), I’d be curious to see how this impacts the parties’ access to classified information. Presumably Yoo’s private counsel will not have the same access that DOJ staff would, so woud that make it more difficult for Padilla to compel some discovery?
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