WASHINGTON — A conservative law professor with a reputation for championing broad presidential authority — and for writing controversial memos decades ago that were used to justify harsh interrogation of terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks — has confirmed he will serve as an adviser on a federal investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials engaged in a criminal conspiracy against President Donald Trump.
John Yoo told The Associated Press in an email Monday that he would be working alongside Joe diGenova, a former Justice Department prosecutor who was tapped in April to lead an inquiry into whether officials who scrutinized Trump over the past decade participated in a coordinated criminal effort against the Republican president.
DiGenova briefly addressed Yoo’s involvement in a phone interview, saying simply, “He’s a lawyer. He’s going to be helping us,” without providing any further details.
Yoo holds a faculty position at the University of California, Berkeley. During the George W. Bush administration, he was a senior official at the Justice Department and played a central role in drafting what became known as the “torture memos” — documents that government officials relied on to justify so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques against suspected terrorists. The Justice Department eventually withdrew those memos.
In the years following that controversy, Yoo has continued to be a vocal advocate for expansive executive power. In a 2020 interview with the AP, he said he had advised Trump administration officials on multiple occasions that a Supreme Court decision blocking Trump’s attempt to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, had actually created significant new opportunities for presidential authority.
The ongoing conspiracy investigation is taking place in Florida, though its full scope has not been made public, and it is not yet known whether prosecutors will seek any criminal charges.
At least a portion of the probe focuses on the now-completed investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Prosecutors have issued a wide range of subpoenas seeking records and have conducted interviews tied to the development of an intelligence community assessment — made public in January 2017 — which concluded that Russia carried out extensive election interference aimed at helping Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
A 2019 report from special counsel Robert Mueller confirmed that Russia acted to benefit Trump’s campaign and that Trump campaign members repeatedly welcomed that help, but the report did not find enough evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Multiple subsequent reviews of the Russia investigation identified various procedural errors in how the probe was handled, and a former FBI attorney pleaded guilty in 2020 to altering an email during the investigation. However, none of those reviews found criminal wrongdoing on the part of any senior law enforcement or intelligence leaders involved in the case.
Trump has continued to push for accountability, seeking consequences for top officials from that era at the FBI and CIA.
When asked during a Fox News Channel interview in May what steps the Justice Department was taking to address allegations of a long-running effort to undermine Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche responded, “That’s exactly what we’re investigating right now.”
Yoo’s role in the investigation was first reported by Politico and CNN.
