The Bush Justice Department lawyers responsible for the memos authorizing torture will be referred to bar associations for potential disciplinary action, according to a report today from National Public Radio. They also report that the findings will not recommend criminal prosecutions.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has been conducting a review of the actions to see of they were a violation of the lawyer's ethical responsibilities.
The three most prominent lawyers who could be affected by this are John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Steven Bradbury.
NPR says their report is based on two sources who are familiar with the draft report.
According to NPR
The sources say the report includes referrals to bar associations for possible disciplinary action. That means once-prominent government lawyers could be barred from ever working as attorneys again.
It is not clear how many of the lawyers would be referred to a bar association for possible actions. A state bar association could implement a number of possible penalties up to and including disbarment. This could prevent them from being able to practice law - and particularly problematic for Jay Bybee who sits as a federal judge.
NPR is also reporting that the final report will probably be issued in late May, and that it will:
"provide a detailed play-by-play of how the memos were produced. It will contain e-mails sent from one Justice Department employee to another and from Justice Department employees to other government officials."
Sadly, I am not surprised by the lack of a recommendation for prosecution -- while I personally would love nothing more than to see these guys hauled up on criminal charges, the standard for criminally prosecuting a lawyer for opinions they have offered is probably too high even in an outrageous case like this. While I consider these memos to meet the definition of a "war crime," it increasingly seems unlikely that the US government will fulfill our treaty obligations to prosecute war criminals.
Because of that, disciplinary actions by the bar association would probably provide the strongest sanctions realistically possible under the US legal system. (I haven't yet given up on the possibilities of an international prosecution though.)
This is also being reported by the New York Times, according to a diary from kyeo NYT reports-no-prosecutions-for-torture-memo-authors