Aw: Bybee regrets signing torture memo now

Still, in the years since the original Bybee memo was made public, his misgivings appeared evident to some in his immediate circle.

“On the primary memo, that legitimated and defined torture, he just felt it got away from him,” said the fellow scholar. “What I understand that to mean is, any lawyer, when he or she is writing about something very complicated, very layered, sometimes you can get it all out there and if you’re not careful, you end up in a place you never intended to go. I think for someone like Jay, who’s a formalist and a textualist, that’s a particular danger.”