Statement from website:
When the last administration decided it wanted to break the law, it turned principally to John Yoo, a bright young attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel. Yoo drafted and oversaw the drafting of legal memos that would give the administration the green light to torture, to deny due process to detainees at home and abroad, and to deploy the military for operations within the territorial United States. Yoo's positions had no basis in law or fact. As an attorney, he had a legal obligation to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, an ethical obligation to refrain from advancing frivolous or fraudulent legal positions, and a moral obligation to safeguard the notions of liberty and justice held sacred in the United States. Yoo failed in each of these duties and as a result he should no longer be allowed to practice law.
We are young attorneys. In 2005, while many of us we were still in law school, we read the first of Yoo's infamous memos. Even then, the positions asserted were obviously contrary to much of what we already knew about the text and structure of the Constitution, and appeared to fly in the face of the international laws and norms that we were just learning about. Four years and several revealing memos later--including Yoo's "monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency"--the legal folly and dire consequences of the memos have become still more clear. Â
Yoo did more than justify torture or violate international law. He revealed the dangerous if often hidden truth that the law itself, in the hands of a lawyer, can be rendered meaningless, or worse, used as truncheon against the same people it is meant to shield. Surely, many members of the last administration should be judged for their actions, and further investigations are necessary, but Yoo represents the singular danger that occurs when a lawyer comes untethered from his legal, ethical, and moral duties and serves instead the whim of his client. We believe that when this happens, injustice is the natural and necessary outcome. And we plan to hold John Yoo to account for it.
Yoo did more than justify torture or violate international law. He revealed the dangerous if often hidden truth that the law itself, in the hands of a lawyer, can be rendered meaningless, or worse, used as truncheon against the same people it is meant to shield. Surely, many members of the last administration should be judged for their actions, and further investigations are necessary, but Yoo represents the singular danger that occurs when a lawyer comes untethered from his legal, ethical, and moral duties and serves instead the whim of his client. We believe that when this happens, injustice is the natural and necessary outcome. And we plan to hold John Yoo to account for it.
Sign the letter here.
