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The Robert Jackson Steering Committee works to bring about the criminal prosecution of top government officials in the United States whom there is probable cause to believe have committed war crimes.
FOIA Transmittal Letter
January 7, 2010
The Robert Jackson Steering Committee
c/o Lawrence Velvel
500 Federal Street
Andover, MA 01810
Ms. Marlene M. Wahowiak
Special Counsel for the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts
Office of Professional Responsibility
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Suite 3529
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney Wahowiak:
Included with this letter is a Freedom of Information Act request for production of the long-overdue ethics report of the Office of Professional Responsibility regarding the performance of Bush administration lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2002-2007.
You will see that we are also requesting the OPR report completed in December 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey's rebuttal of that report, and a number of specific documents relating to unsolicited objections from interrogators and government attorneys regarding the torture program envisioned by the OLC attorneys. As we understand it, OPR is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by Department attorneys that relate, inter alia, to their authority to provide legal advice. The documents requested in the attached document relate to such misconduct; as such, they should not be exempted as either predecisional or postdecisional formulations of policy, but rather considered as evidence of how the OLC attorneys skewed their legal opinions to justify illegal torture techniques.
The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, founded in September 2008, works to bring about the criminal prosecution of top government officials in the United States whom there is probable cause to believe have committed war crimes. The committee was named in honor of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who in his opening statements as Chief Prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, stated:
"If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. And we are not prepared to lay down the rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us. We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
We look forward to your response. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Charlotte Dennett, Esq.
Peter Weiss, Esq.
David Swanson, chair
On Behalf of The Robert Jackson Steering Committee
