Under Pressure

Much of the legal debate over the Bush administration's interrogation policy centers on the question of whether the lawyers who argued that the interrogation techniques were legal were giving legal advice in good faith or whether they were following orders to give legal cover for a desired program. Recently released emails written in 2005 by then-deputy attorney general James Comey don't settle this question, but they reveal, assuming Comey was telling the truth, that the lawyers were under pressure to draft some of the legal memos. Dan Froomkin reports:

In his April 27 e-mail, Comey describes telling Gonzales directly about his "grave reservations" about the second memo. Gonzales's response? "The AG explained that he was under great pressure from the Vice President to complete both memos, and that the President had even raised it last week, apparently at the VP's request and the AG had promised they would be ready early this week."

Comey also notes that OLC lawyer Patrick Philbin had previously reported that then-acting OLC director Steve Bradbury "was getting constant similar pressure from [White House counsel] Harriet Miers and [Cheney counsel] David Addington to produce the opinions." Comey adds: "Parenthetically, I have previously expressed my worry that having Steve as 'Acting' -- and wanting the job -- would make his susceptible to just this kind of pressure."

What I want to know is what this pressure from Cheney, Miers, and Addington entailed. Were the lawyers under pressure to give whatever their legal advice was as quickly as possible? Or were they under pressure to give the administration the legal cover it wanted for its desired interrogation policy?