Daniel Bernard Levin (born March 4, 1956) served as Acting

Assistant Attorney General Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an assistant attorney general. The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the advice and ...

for the

Office of Legal Counsel The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General's position as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies. It drafts legal opinions of the Attorney ...

of the

U.S. Justice Department The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States ...

from July 2004 until February 2005. He is notable for having upheld legal opinions during the Bush administration that narrowly defined

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

and authorized enhanced interrogation techniques. These opinions were mostly secret during this period, but rumors of abuse of prisoners were widespread, particularly after the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner torture and abuse scandal in Iraq. These opinions were repudiated in 2009 by the Obama administration.

Activities during Bush administration

Daniel Levin was appointed to the

(OLC) under President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

. In July 2004, he was appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General and head of the office. On August 6, 2004, he sent a letter to the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

advising the CIA that it was lawful to use

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

as an interrogation technique. He prepared early drafts of OLC opinions, later signed by Steven G. Bradbury, finding all 13 of the CIA's " enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding, to be lawful under the federal torture statute, 28 U.S.C. 2340-2340A. These opinions were issued in the spring of 2005 under the signature of James B. Comey, Deputy Attorney General, although he had objected internally and encouraged the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in May 2005 to argue against them at a White House meeting. The lawyers were under intense White House pressure to approve these memos. On December 30, 2004, Levin signed an opinion updating OLC's interpretation of the torture statute and replacing an unclassified August 2002 opinion by then Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee. This 2002 opinion had been withdrawn by

Jack Goldsmith Jack Landman Goldsmith III (born September 26, 1962) is an American legal scholar. He is a professor at Harvard Law School who has written extensively in the fields of international law, civil procedure, federal courts, conflict of laws, and na ...

, head of the OLC from September 2003 to June 2004. ''

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

'' reported in November 2007 that Levin himself had voluntarily undergone waterboarding in 2004 before declaring torture "abhorrent" and concluding that "waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision." In September 2004, Levin wrote a letter to the general counsel of the Health and Human Services Department, stating the OLC's opinion that the anti-prostitution pledge could constitutionally be required from all U.S.-based organization receiving federal funds. This requirement was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013 in the case '' Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.''

Post-OLC Career

Levin is a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm

White & Case White & Case LLP is a global law firm based in New York City. Founded in 1901, the firm has 46 offices in 31 countries worldwide and has been ranked among the top ten firms worldwide by revenue. History The firm was launched on May 1, 1901 wh ...

References

George W. Bush administration controversies Living people Harvard University alumni United States Assistant Attorneys General for the Office of Legal Counsel University of Chicago Law School alumni 1956 births {{US-gov-bio-stub