Conservative lawyers slam Liz Cheney's group over DOJ attack ad

A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush Administration, is denouncing as “shameful” Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists…

Also signing were David Rivkin and Lee Casey officials in the Justice Department in the first Bush Administrations. Rivkin and Casey ‘s participation underscores the depth of discomfort with the attacks, as they have been among the most vocal defenders of Bush Administration detainee practices. Last April, for example, they wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the controversial Department of Justice memos widely viewed as justifying harsh treatment in fact “detail the actual techniques used and many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.”…

Liz Cheney’s partner in Keep America Safe, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, wrote Sunday to dispute the notion that his group’s sharp-edged ad constituted an “attack” on the lawyers. His aim, he wrote, was to push for Justice to release their names and to raise “the question of whether former pro bono lawyers for terrorists should be working on detainee policy for the Justice Department.”