Kagan on the Supreme Court?

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is widely reported to be a leading contender for the Supreme Court position being vacated by David Souter.

FRANCIS BOYLE
Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle is author of "Tackling America's Toughest Questions." He said today: "As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan hired Bush's outgoing director of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, as a law professor. Goldsmith is regarded by myself and many others in the field as a war criminal. He wrote some of the memos that attempted to make violations of the Geneva Conventions appear legal. Kagan actually bragged about 'how proud' she was to have hired Goldsmith after one of his criminal Department of Justice memoranda was written up in the Washington Post.

"Then, during the course of her Senate confirmation hearings as Solicitor General, Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration's bogus category of 'enemy combatant,' whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right. Now in her new job as U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan is quarterbacking the continuation of the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional positions in U.S. federal court litigation around the country, including in the U.S. Supreme Court."

Boyle is a former chair of the Harvard Law School Fund Campaign for Greater Illinois and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School.

For background, see Washington Post: "Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees Out of Iraq: Practice Is Called Serious Breach of Geneva Conventions."