Nadler: Impeach Torture Memo Author (Bybee)

[jefferson_dem]

Nadler: Impeach Torture Memo Author

Rep. Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called Monday for the impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee, one of the principal authors of the torture memos released last week by the Obama administration.

"He ought to be impeached," Nadler said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law."

Nadler, a New York congressman, is chairman of Judiciary's Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee. Bybee is currently serving a lifetime term on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed in 2003 and confirmed before it was publicly known that he had authorized the torture of detainees.

Nadler is meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday to argue that the release of the torture memos further buttresses a call he had made earlier for a special prosecutor on torture.

"Any special prosecutor on torture would have to look at the authors of those torture memos," said Nadler. "And certainly you have real grounds to impeach him once the special prosecutor took a good look at that. I think there ought to be an impeachment inquiry looked at in any event. Which should happen first, I'm not sure."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/senior-judiciary-committe_n_189026.html

[Supersedeas]

1. this could get interesting if the OPR Report gives this momentum