News Release

Solicitor General Nominee Hired Torture Memo Writer

Share

Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan is scheduled to have a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for the position of solicitor general. She has frequently been mentioned as a possible nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court.

FRANCIS BOYLE
Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle is author of Breaking All the Rules. He said today: “As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan hired Bush’s outgoing director of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, as a law professor. Goldsmith is regarded by myself and many others in the field as a war criminal. He wrote some of the memos that attempted to make violations of the Geneva Conventions appear legal. Kagan actually bragged about ‘how proud’ she was to have hired Goldsmith after one of his criminal Department of Justice memoranda was written up in the Washington Post.

“Kagan is neither fit nor qualified to become Solicitor General for the U.S. Department of Justice — the proverbial ‘Tenth Justice’ of the U.S. Supreme Court — and thus become a leading contender to replace the anti-totalitarian but now cancer-stricken Justice Ginsburg.”

Boyle is a former chair of the Harvard Law School Fund Campaign for Greater Illinois and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School.

For background, see Washington Post: “Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees Out of Iraq: Practice Is Called Serious Breach of Geneva Conventions

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167