Constitutional Law

Ted Olson Sharply Dismisses Right-Wing Attacks on Koh

In a rebuke to the right-wing blogosphere and FOX News – which have leveled factually questionable critiques against Obama's nomination of Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh for State Department legal adviser – Republican legal lion Ted Olson defended Koh as 'a brilliant scholar and a man of great integrity.'

'He has been in international law his entire professional life,' said Olson, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush and argued Bush's position in Bush v. Gore. 'I have the greatest respect for Harold Koh.'

TAPPED reported the 'ugly subtext to conservative opposition to both' Koh and Dawn Johnsen, who has been nominated to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel:

 [The attacks are] tied to the question of torture. In June of 2004, Koh described the legal reasoning in Justice Department memos on torture as 'embarrassing' and 'abominable.' Likewise, Johnsen blasted the legal reasoning of one of John Yoo's torture memos: 'The shockingly flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration continues to withhold other memos like it -- all demand our outrage.'

Johnsen has also been defended from partisan attacks by legal heavyweights, including former-Solicitor General Walter Dellinger.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 03, 2009 (boomark / email).