Chapman University's favorite torture enabler and “Fletcher Jones Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law,” the infamous John Yoo, should face discipline according to his previous employer, the U.S. Justice Department. A New York Times story this morning reports that an internal Justice Dept. inquiry found that Yoo's legal arguments authorizing the use of waterboarding and other forms of hash interrogation practices–commonly known in the English language as “torture”–were so woefully lacking in merit and moral scruples that Yoo's license to practice law should be re-evaluated and possibly revoked.
It remains to be seen just how likely it is that Yoo would be disbarred. But even that punishment is far less than many people, including the folks who showed up for his first post-torture-scandal speech in Orange County at UC Irvine four years ago, believe he deserves.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).