President Trump has nominated Steven Bradbury, an attorney who along with John Yoo and Jay Bybee crafted "torture memos" for the George W. Bush administration, to the role of general counsel of transportation.
Bradbury's arguments supporting "enhanced interrogation" authorized torture techniques including "dietary manipulation, facial slap or insult slap, cramped confinement, water dousing, and waterboarding," Politico reports. The Trump White House statement announcing his nomination described his work for Bush as advising "the executive branch on a wide range of constitutional and statutory questions."
The general counsel of transportation provides legal counsel to the secretary of the Department of Transportation — currently Elaine Chao, another Bush alum — and spearheads the department's legislative agenda, leading a legal staff of 90. In this role Bradbury is unlikely to weigh in on torture-related topics.
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