Source:
Senator Leahy WASHINGTON (Wednesday, April 29, 2009) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today sent a letter to Judge Jay S. Bybee inviting him to testify before the Committee in connection with his role in writing legal memoranda authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques while serving as the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Bybee was the head of OLC from October 2001 until March 2003, when he was confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.
Publicly released memoranda signed by Bybee in 2002 reveal the legal authorizations for harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, a technique widely defined as torture. In 2003, during confirmation proceedings for a lifetime appointment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Bybee refused to answer questions about his work at OLC. In the summer of 2004, more than a year after Bybee was confirmed to the bench, the first “torture memo” signed by Bybee on August 1, 2002, became public. The memo interpreted the federal anti-torture statute only to prohibit causing pain equivalent to “the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
One recent press account cites Bybee associates claiming that he “was not pleased” with the outcome of the OLC memoranda. However, The New York Times today reports that Bybee “believed at the time, and continues to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct.”
“By coming forward and testifying before the Committee, you will have the opportunity to amplify or correct these accounts, and explain your role and your views,” Leahy wrote.
Read more:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200904/042909b.html
full letter here:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/resources/documents/111thCongress/upload/042909LeahyToBybee.pdf
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