John Yoo

John Choon Yoo (Korean: 유준; born July 10, 1967) is a South Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. While serving in the George W. Bush administration, he became known for his legal opinions concerning executive power, warrantless wiretapping, and the Geneva Conventions.

Yoo was the author of the controversial "Torture Memos" in the war on terror. As the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice, Yoo wrote the Torture Memos to determine the legal limits for the torture of detainees following the September 11 attacks. The legal guidance on interrogation authored by Yoo and his successors in the OLC were rescinded by President Barack Obama in 2009. Some called for investigating and prosecuting Yoo under various anti-torture and anti-war crimes statutes.

A report by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility stated that Yoo's justification of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation methods" constituted "intentional professional misconduct" and recommended that Yoo be referred to his state bar association for possible disciplinary proceedings. Senior Justice Department lawyer David Margolis overruled the report in 2010, saying that Yoo and Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee—who authorized the memos—had exercised "poor judgment" but that the department lacked a clear standard to conclude misconduct.

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