CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin does not have the guts to "man up" and criticize ex-Justice Department official John Yoo — author of the CIA guidelines on torture — to his face, Yoo charged Thursday on
Newsmax TV.
"Toobin's just unhappy that he wasn't allowed to appear at the same time with me," Yoo said Thursday on Newsmax's "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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Toobin, who spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday shortly after she interviewed Yoo, bristled at Yoo's ongoing defense of the torture techniques he OK'd in the wake of a Senate committee report that condemned the CIA for using them.
"If you look at the villains in this sad chapter in American history, John Yoo is really near the top of that list," Toobin declared.
"Because the one thing every torturer knew — the waterboarders, the rectal hydrators, the people stringing people to the top of cells — they all knew there were lawyers in Washington that said it was OK.
"And that's what drove this process, and it is so outrageous that he is still defending these appalling acts that he and his colleagues justified."
But Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney with the Justice Department, wasn't impressed with Toobin's insult and said the TV legal pundit was teed off because he didn't get to appear during Yoo's interview, only afterward.
"That's funny. I've been with him face-to-face on panels and things and he doesn't man-up enough to say that to my face. I'm really disappointed at him."
Continuing his rebuttal, Yoo said, "I wonder if Jeff Toobin or these other Senate Democrats are going to go out there and accuse President [Barack] Obama of being a war criminal because [those] outside the country, they all think the use of drones is a war crime.
"I would say, let's count up the numbers .... Waterboarding is used on three al-Qaida leaders and that's it. Drones not only kill al-Qaida leaders, which is a bad idea — not because I have any sympathy for them but because we're losing intelligence they have — but it kills hundreds of civilians who are nearby."
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