John Dean on Olbermann re: conspiracy re: torture memos

[Duer 157099]

So Dean makes what he thinks is a pretty important point, to wit, that if it can be proven that certain legal counsel (to, say, the Veep and Peep, aka Gonzo and Addlebrained) actually had conversations with, say, Yoo and Bybee prior to the writing of the "torture memos" -- then there's a case to be made for criminal conspiracy, which might have more legs than just, well, boring old torture.

He seemed to suggest that the forthcoming report (when will it be released? I suppose he meant the Senate report that was referenced today, the one that "advises" the hand slap for the authors of the memos) might have the relevent details.

Edit to clarify: I think it was a DoJ report that was being talked about today

[JDPriestly]

1. I'm with Dean on this. I don't mean to demean Dean, but actually

this should be a pretty obvious thing.

The problem is that generally lawyers are not criminally liable for giving bad advice. They may be civilly liable and they may face ethical charges, but it is an ethics violation as I understand the ethics to advise a client to commit a crime.

But, here, the perpetrators of the crime called on the lawyers to assist them in convincing third parties to join in the crime, that the crime was OK and that therefore they should follow orders to join in the crime.