He had been general counsel of the Department of the Army during the administration of the 41st president,George H. W. Bush,a partner with the law firm of Jenner &Block,an associate general counsel of General Dynamics Corporation,and,beginning in 2008,chief corporate counsel of Chevron Corporation. Haynes is currently general counsel and executive vice president of SIGA Technologies,Inc.
Childhood and education
Haynes was born in Waco,Texas,to William James Haynes and his wife. His family moved frequently during his childhood. He participated in the Boy Scouts while growing up,eventually achieving the rank of Eagle Scout. In 1976 Haynes graduated from Parkway High School in Bossier City,Louisiana,where he played tennis and won a state championship in wrestling.[failed verification][1]
Following his clerkship,Haynes was commissioned an army second lieutenant through the ROTC program and entered active duty in 1984. He served four years,advising and representing the Department of the Army in matters ranging from international research and development agreements,to hazardous waste cleanups,to government contracts. Haynes was twice awarded the Army Meritorious Service Medal,in 1986 and again in 1988.[4]
In 1993,Haynes joined the D.C. office of Jenner &Block as a partner. Upon moving to General Dynamics Corporation in 1996,Haynes was initially staff vice president and associate general counsel,and later general counsel for the company's Marine Group. In early 1999,Haynes spent four months as a volunteer in central Asia working on microcredit programs for Mercy Corps International,before returning to his partnership at Jenner &Block.
Shortly after his inauguration,President George W. Bush appointed Haynes to be General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Donald Rumsfeld was the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. In his capacity as general counsel,Haynes oversaw some 10,000 lawyers,and advised on the department's internal affairs and its relations with other government and non-government agencies at home and abroad. Because of the position's wide-ranging responsibility for overseeing thousands of ongoing cases,legislative matters,and policy decisions,the DoD's general counsel has been described as "one of the most powerful and influential lawyers in the entire federal government."[6]
Haynes was in one of the Pentagon's command centers on September 11,2001,when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the western face of the building. At the time,Haynes was on the far side of the Pentagon. Later,during the 2008 Lewis F. Powell,Jr. Lecture before the American College of Trial Lawyers,he recalled feeling "a shudder pulse the monstrous concrete structure," and that he sent a deputy of his to a survival site,in case any additional attacks were to affect the Pentagon.[7]
As general counsel,Haynes was often sent to meet with foreign officials. In 2003,for instance,he met with British Attorney GeneralPeter Goldsmith to discuss the cases of two British men held in Guantanamo Bay (a total of six British residents were held there).[8] In 2007,Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dispatched Haynes to Turkey to speak with officials about militants in the country thought to be using U.S.-supplied weaponry.[9]
Haynes also advised the Bush administration in its effort to create military commissions that would try detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The commissions were authorized by Military Commission Order No. 1,which Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld issued on March 21,2002. No detainees were tried under the provisions of that order. In 2006,the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the commissions were unconstitutional,and that congressional authorization was required before any commissions could commence.
Col. Morris Davis,the former chief prosecutor of military commissions at Guantanamo described how he was pressured into indicting Guantanamo prisoners for war crimes as soon as the Military Commissions Act was signed into law by Bush in October 2006 and even before the "Manual for Military Commissions" was prepared and no "convening authority" to oversee was appointed yet. His experience was that of receiving a call from Haynes as early as January 2007 asking him how quickly he could charge the Australian prisoner David Hicks.[10]
In chapter 13 (pp.213–237) of her book The Dark Side,Jane Mayer describes how Alberto Mora,then the general counsel of the US Navy,as early as 2003 mounted a challenge to the interrogation policy used by the United States which he saw as potentially leading to war crimes charges. Mora reportedly warned Haynes,Donald Rumsfeld's chief counsel,to "protect your client!" To rebut Mora's and others' concerns about the legality of the conduct of the interrogation policy followed not only by DoD personnel but also by the CIA,Haynes apparently solicited an opinion from John C. Yoo,then in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel,which opinion,in spite of being based on a questionable legal foundation,countenanced "enhanced interrogation techniques." For reasons which Haynes never disclosed,this opinion was adopted as official policy in spite of Mora's objections. Underlining his rebuke,Haynes never informed Mora that the policy adopted by the DoD took no account of Mora's objections.[11]
Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith,who briefly worked at the Pentagon as Special Counsel under Haynes before becoming head of the Office of Legal Counsel,United States Department of Justice (2003-2004),notes in his book,The Terror Presidency (2007),that at the time Haynes did urge the powers that be in the Bush administration to seek and obtain congressional authorization for the policy and military commissions,but that others in the administration felt doing so was unnecessary.[12]
In November 2002,Haynes wrote a memo for Rumsfeld concerning interrogation techniques to be used at Guantanamo Bay. This followed what were known as the Torture Memos of August 2002,largely written by Yoo and issued by the Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA and DOD,with two signed as well by Jay S. Bybee. These also authorized the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," brutal interrogation tactics that are widely considered to be torture. Haynes's memo,which the Secretary of Defense approved,recommended authorizing several techniques,but advised against the authorization of three more-aggressive techniques,including one that resembled waterboarding. Such treatment of detainees,Haynes noted,would be inconsistent with American Armed Forces' "tradition of restraint."[13]
That memo led journalist Stuart Taylor to write,in a 2008 article for the National Journal,that Haynes "is the only former [Bush administration] official whose paper trail also shows that he blocked a request to use waterboarding and two other harsh methods that administration lawyers had advised were legal...."[14]Brookings Institution fellow Benjamin Wittes went further in the pages of The New Republic,claiming Haynes's memo was "the reason that the military,unlike the CIA,never waterboarded anybody."[15]
While the memo was criticized for recommending techniques that were used abusively at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere,it did not apply to interrogators working anywhere outside Guantanamo Bay. But,on March 14,2003,five days before the United States began the invasion of Iraq,John Yoo of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion/memo to Haynes,concluding that federal laws related to the use of torture of prisoners and suspects did not apply to interrogations overseas.[16]
In August 2004,the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations,which was convened in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal that broke in April 2004,issued a report claiming that the methods Haynes recommended were "strictly limited for use at Guantanamo" and that officers there "used those...techniques with only two detainees,gaining important and time sensitive information in the process."[17]
The panel's report faulted Haynes for formulating his November 2002 interrogation memo to the Secretary of Defense without giving greater consideration to the input of Judge Advocates General and the general counsels of the armed services. The authors of the report suggest that had Haynes done so,the military might not have needed to revise its Guantanamo interrogation standards in April 2003,following objections from some within the military that the standards adopted in late-2002 might lead to abuse of detainees.[17]
In March 2008,Haynes resigned from his position at the Pentagon. His nearly seven years in office made him the longest-serving general counsel in the history of the Department of Defense.[18] Upon his departure,Secretary of Defense Robert Gates awarded Haynes the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service,the highest award for a civilian appointee.
The Judiciary Committee approved Haynes's nomination in November 2003,but he did not receive a vote in the full Senate. Although re-nominated in subsequent Congresses,Haynes never moved past the committee level. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was revealed to be the principal opponent to the appointment.[20] In December 2006,after the Senate adjourned following the Democratic gains of the 2006 elections,Haynes asked President Bush to forego re-nominating him to the Court of Appeals.[21]Scott Horton in a February 2008 blog in Harper's noted that Graham was a reserve judge in the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) and had opposed Haynes' conflicts with JAG lawyers at Defense.[22]
Dick Durbin questions
Senator Dick Durbin asked questions of Brett Kavanaugh during his circuit court confirmation hearing in 2006 regarding the vetting of Haynes for a nomination to the federal bench,saying "At the time of the Haynes nomination,what did you know about Mr. Haynes' role in crafting the administration's detention and interrogation policies?" Kavanaugh responded,"Senator,I did not–I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants or–and so I do not have the involvement with that." "And with respect to Mr. Haynes' nomination,I've–I know Jim Haynes,but it was not one of the nominations that I handled."[23] But in 2007 Durbin read a Washington Post report[24] regarding the resistance of Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora,to the so-called "Torture Memos"[25] which seemed to imply that Kavanaugh had not given honest answers. He recently tweeted a copy of a letter to Kavanaugh,saying,"In 2007 I sent Brett Kavanaugh this letter asking to explain his inaccurate and misleading testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm still waiting for an answer."[23]
In June 2012,Haynes took over as general counsel and executive vice president of SIGA Technologies,Inc.,a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City. Additionally,he holds an appointment as a Distinguished Fellow at the George Mason University School of Law Center for Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security.[27]
Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army major general who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba,and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison,Camp Cropper,and Camp Bucca. He is noted for having trained soldiers in using torture,or "enhanced interrogation techniques" in US euphemism,and for carrying out the "First Special Interrogation Plan," signed by the Secretary of Defense,against a Guantanamo detainee.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a Mauritanian engineer who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17,2016.
Yaser Esam Hamdi is a former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States government claims that he was fighting with the Taliban against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces. He was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and detained for almost three years without charge. On October 9,2004,on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions,the government released him and deported him to Saudi Arabia,where he had been raised.
Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan is a Yemeni man,captured during the invasion of Afghanistan,declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to November 2008. He admits to being Osama bin Laden's personal driver and said he needed the money.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States,in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism,refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context,the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers,called black sites,operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists,investigations,and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there,and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong,and had nothing to hide.
The US Army Field Manual on Interrogation,sometimes known by the military nomenclature FM 34-52,is a 177-page manual describing to military interrogators how to conduct effective interrogations while conforming with US and international law. It has been replaced by FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations.
Alberto JoséMora is a former General Counsel of the Navy. He led an effort within the Defense Department to oppose the legal theories of John Yoo and to try to end the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB),also called GTMO on the coast of Guantánamo Bay,Cuba. It was established in January 2002 by U.S. President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects and "illegal enemy combatants" during the Global War on Terrorism following the attacks of September 11,2001. As of August 2024,at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation,of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere,9 died in custody,and 30 remain;only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
Susan Morrisey Livingstone was the first female Acting United States Secretary of the Navy.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram,Guantanamo Bay,Abu Ghraib,and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating,binding in contorted stress positions,hooding,subjection to deafening noise,sleep disruption,sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination,deprivation of food,drink,and medical care for wounds,as well as waterboarding,walling,sexual humiliation,rape,sexual assault,subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold,and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures,to which he himself was subjected,were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration","rectal fluid resuscitation",and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees,there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children,and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Kevin M. Sandkuhler is an American lawyer,and retired brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps. His 2003 memo expressing concerns about the US interrogation of terrorism suspects,released in 2005 after a declassification request by Senator Lindsey Graham,received national and international attention.
Jack Landman Goldsmith III is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School,where he has written extensively in the fields of international law,civil procedure,federal courts,conflict of laws,and national security law. Writing in The New York Times,Jeffrey Rosen described him as being "widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament".
Robert J. Delahunty is an American legal scholar. He is a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis,Minnesota. From 1989 to 2003,he worked in the Office of Legal Counsel. During his tenure there,he cowrote several legal opinions with John Yoo relating to interrogation,detention,and rendition of terror suspects.
A number of incidents stemming from the September 11 attacks have raised questions about legality.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee,head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency,the United States Department of Defense,and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation,binding in stress positions,and waterboarding—and stated that such acts,widely regarded as torture,might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
Mary Walker is an American lawyer who served as a high-ranking appointee under Presidents Ronald Reagan,George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
John Anthony Rizzo was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror,during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe.
Michael E. Dunlavey is a former major general in the United States Army. Following his retirement from the Army he was elected a State Judge in Erie Pennsylvania.
References
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004) W.W. Norton &Company, ISBN0-393-32671-3.
Goldsmith, Jack L., The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration (2007) W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN0-393-06550-2.
Mayer, Jane, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (2008) Random House, ISBN978-0-307-45629-8.
Thiessen, Marc A., Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack (2010) Regnery Publishing, ISBN1-59698-603-4.
Cheney, Dick and Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (2011) Threshold Editions, ISBN1-4391-7619-1.
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