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Another Bush Lawyer on the Hot Seat
Meet Mary Walker. General counsel to the Air Force. Bush appointee to the select working group on interrogations. Plagued by controversy, and for good reason. First, the past:
Last year a blue-ribbon panel headed by former congresswoman Tillie Fowler practically accused Walker of a cover-up after the GC issued a report absolving Air Force brass of responsibility in sexual abuse scandals at the Air Force Academy.
Fast forward to the present:
Now Walker, a former Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison lawyer appointed by President George Bush, is back on the hot seat. At issue this time is her role heading a U.S. Department of Defense group that issued a controversial report in March 2003 giving the administration enormous latitude in interrogating alleged terrorists....Walker's report is one of a series of government memos uncovered in recent months that seem to rationalize the use of torture on detainees.
Who's the first Bush lawyer in the cross-hairs on the torture topic? |
In 2002 John Yoo, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law who was then deputy assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, and Jay Bybee, a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who was then an assistant attorney general at OLC, also wrote on the issue.
What's the penalty for these lawyers? Uh, none. In fact, a promotion. Both Bybee and Haynes were nominated by Bush to the federal bench....Bybee has been confirmed, Haynes is waiting for confirmation.
The initiative for the working group came about after commanders in Guantanamo asked for clarification on interrogation techniques. In a memorandum dated Jan. 15, 2003, Rumsfeld directed Defense Department general counsel William Haynes II, whose nomination to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is now before the Senate, to form a working group "to assess the legal, policy, and operational issues relating to the interrogation of detainees." Two days later, Haynes handpicked Walker to take on the high-profile job. Haynes' office declined to comment for this article.
Though assigned to do an independent review, says a Pentagon lawyer familiar with the report, Walker "tailored her report around Yoo and Bybee's arguments." (Four Pentagon lawyers -- civilian and military -- agreed to speak to The American Lawyer on condition of anonymity.) Her "legal review," says another Pentagon lawyer, "was to authorize what OLC had done." This same source says that Walker actually invited an OLC lawyer "to edit" the working report to ensure its compatibility with that office's wishes.
So did Walker play an incidental role in the final report? Hardly, says one military lawyer who worked on the report: "She had a big, heavy hand [in the report]." So heavy, in fact, that the political appointee pushed out career military lawyers (the judge advocate generals, or JAGs), who strongly objected to conclusions that the Geneva Conventions were not applicable to detainees. "The uniform view was to take the high road and follow the Geneva Conventions, [but] our view was not in the final report," says the source.
Where do you suppose Mary Walker will end up? On the Supreme Court? You never know...just another reason to Boot Bush in November. |
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