John Yoo's Magnum Opus

After years of unjustified delay, the Pentagon has now declassified a centerpiece of the Bush Administration torture memorandum: an 82-page torture tour de force instructing the President he can "torture", "maim", "assault", employ "mind-altering drugs" and even take up "interstate stalking" if he felt so inclined. All of these things are legal, in Yoo's view, because no person, institution, or law, can bind the hands of the Commander-in-Chief in wartime.

Marty Lederman has rightly called this memo "the source of the Nile for the abuse that occurred in Iraq in 2003." The memo (available here and here) is also the smoking gun that places Yoo, and co-conspirator Steven Bradbury, in the cross-hairs of future domestic prosecution. As discussed by Scott Horton:

Yoo and Bradbury are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to subvert the law and may be chargeable in connection with the underlying crimes. And indeed, while Michael Mukasey certainly won’t charge these cases, the Attorney General he cited to the Judiciary Committee as his personal model, Robert H. Jackson, absolutely would. In fact, we can cut from the speculative: he did.

The case is called United States v. Altstoetter and the defendants in that case include two officials of the Justice Department who gave erroneous advice under international humanitarian law which led to more than a thousand persons being tortured or shot. The sentence? Ten years, less time served. And in fact the lawyers got off lightly– they were released after seven years for good behavior.