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John Yoo and Jay Bybee are cleared of anything but "poor judgment" in a report that was "softened" by a senior Justice Department official.

Newsweek reveals the findings of the report from the Office of Professional Responsibility:

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other ?enhanced? interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors?Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor?violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed ?poor judgment,? say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) ...

A Justice official declined to explain why David Margolis softened the original finding, but noted that he is a highly respected career lawyer who acted without input from Holder....

So it wasn't a political decision, we're being told, that the Obama administration is would like  the "torture memo" issue to go away. But consider this new development in the larger context:

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset...

And the 9/11 trial isn't going to be in NYC anymore.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 30, 2010 (boomark / email).