Legal News

Another Look at Obama?s More Liberal Lineup at the Justice Department

By Dan Slater

Yesterday, news of Obama’s picks — which included Harvard’s Elena Kagan and Indiana University’s Dawn Johnsen — for four top spots at the DOJ raised the question of just how aggressive the new department will be in reshaping the last eight years of national-security policy.

Today, the WSJ’s Evan Perez and Jess Bravin address the question. They write that, with the nomination of Johnsen (pictured) to run the Office of Legal counsel, Obama “picked an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush over terrorist interrogations for a top Justice Department job, part of a liberal lineup at the department that is likely to overhaul national-security policy.”

Johnsen, who served in the office during the Clinton administration, has said she was “appalled” by memorandums that allowed what critics call torture of terror detainees, notes the WSJ. In comments in 2007 at a legal conference, she said: “The president of course is not above the law. Clearly what we need to do is restore OLC’s tradition of independence and integrity.”

The NYT adds that Johnsen, in a law review article last year, criticized the “unnecessary unilateralism of the Bush years” in programs like the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants and the administration’s approval of simulated drowning, or waterboarding, in the questioning of suspected Al Qaeda operatives.

As for Harvard Law School’s dean, Elena Kagan, the nominee for solicitor general, the WSJ reports that she’ll have to oversee pursuit of the Bush administration’s contentious legal positions — and may modify them, if the president-elect fulfills campaign expectations. The new administration won’t drop all Bush arguments, particularly on routine matters, “but where the direction of the country is at stake,” change is likely, said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who taught both Obama and Kagan.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).