Yoo To Testify?

Brian Beutler, Media Consortium

John Conyers sends John Yoo a gentle invitation to testify before his House Judiciary committee in early May(with a quiet threat at the bottom to "compel"--read: subpoena--his appearance if Yoo refuses). I'm not quite sure why he's convinced Yoo will demur. It's not like former and current Bush administration officials have a tendency to blow off congressional oversight! More seriously, Yoo, who penned the famed (and discredited) DOJ legal justifications for torture (and, apparently, another memo suspending the fourth amendment for domestic military operations) hasn't been all that averse to discussing his time in Washington and his role in the torture fiasco. Just last week, he spoke to Esquire magazine and The Washington Post about the release of the March 2003 memo (which the ACLU recently acquired after a lengthy battle with the administration). And, as Glenn Greenwald notes, John Yoo will be appearing live and unplugged on April 14 at the Bancroft Hotel (just across the street from his offices at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall school of law) as part of a conversation about "the intersection between privacy and national security law." If Yoo declines Conyers' invitation before that date, Congressional staffers know where to find him.

The text is from the poem “QUADRENNIAL” by Golden, reprinted with permission. It was first published in the Poetry Project. Inside front cover photo by Golden.
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