By far the biggest news in today’s DOJ Oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is that the Office of Public Responsibility report on the role of OLC lawyers in torture “should be released” this month.
Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been pushing for release of this report for years, asked Eric Holder when the report would be released.
Holder responded that the report is completed. Is is in the last stages now–a career prosecutor has to review the report. At the end of the month, the report should be issued.
Holder explained that the report took longer than anticipated because DOJ gave lawyers representing subjects of the report more time to review the report. (This means, for example, that Miguel Estrada took his sweet time reviewing what it said about his client, John Yoo.) DOJ then had to react to responses from those lawyers. But, Holder reiterated, the report is now complete and is being review by the last career attorney before it gets released.
Now, I’m 90% sure that Holder said this was being reviewed by a “career prosecutor.” Should we take any significance from that?