Gavel Grab

A prominent federal appeals court judge has set up a legal defense fund. Judge Jay Bybee, who sits on a U.S. Court of Appeals in Nevada, had a role in legal opinions that justified the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation of detainees.

Judge Bybee “quietly set up the fund last July following widespread news reports” that he and a former deputy were the focus of an investigation by the Justice Department’s internal ethics unit, according to the Declassified blog of Newsweek.

A Washington lawyer who is one of the trustees for the fund would not discuss how much it has raised, the blog said.

Some liberal advocacy groups and law professors have called for Judge Bybee’s impeachment. Justice at Stake executive director Bert Brandenburg has cautioned against it. To read more about that controversy, click here for earlier Gavel Grab posts, and to read about the use of impeachment in certain cases to intimidate judges, read Justice at Stake’s issues page on the topic.