[JURIST] US President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) withdrew her candidacy on Friday. Dawn Johnsen, nominated as the OLC’s Assistant Attorney General in January 2009, has faced over a year of objection from Republicans for her criticisms of the interrogation methods approved by the OLC during the Bush administration and her support of abortion rights. In March, the US Senate Judiciary Committee for the second time recommended her to the Senate for confirmation on a strict party-line vote. However, it is unlikely that Johnsen would have been able to obtain the votes necessary for confirmation and overcome a possible filibuster. The White House refrained from appointing Johnsen during the Senate recess last month, which would have avoided the confirmation process. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that the Senate should put politics aside and bring impartial legal advice back to the OLC.
Johnsen, who previously served as acting head of the OLC under former president Bill Clinton, argued to restore the OLC’s reputation and political independence. Under the Bush administration, OLC lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee produced confidential memos authorizing the use of controversial CIA interrogation techniques that critics have called torture. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said at a February hearing that he was prepared to subpoena the DOJ if it did not turn over missing e-mail records dealing with the so-called “torture memos.” In February, the DOJ overruled the findings of a report concluding that Yoo and Bybee committed professional misconduct. Instead, the DOJ said that they were only guilty of “poor judgment” in writing the memos. Former US attorney general John Ashcroft has defended the advice the DOJ gave the Bush administration on the use of certain interrogation techniques, saying that all guidelines issued by his office were legal.