Kudos to our guest alumna, Dawn Johnsen (left), whom President-Elect Barack Obama's just nominated to restore the Department of Justice office notorious in recent years for having produced the "torture memos" and another memo condoning rendition of persons from Iraq to other countries. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn will head a team of lawyers charged with giving the President and others in the Executive Branch on any number of issues.A law professor at Indiana University-Bloomington and the former Legal Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Dawn's no stranger to OLC: she was its Acting Assistant Attorney General from 1997-1998 and Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1993-1996, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, Washington, D.C. And she's been a fierce critic of what happened to OLC in this last administration, having coauthored Principles to Guide OLC as a response to disclosure of the torture memos.
Her IntLawGrrls' guest post, published last February, took on the questions of whether to "prosecute the waterboarders," and how to reform OLC. (The full string of IntLawGrrls posts by or about Dawn may be found here.)
Heartfelt congratulations, Dawn!
