By now, everybody knows about the lawsuit filed by Jose Padilla against former DOJ lawyer (now lawprof at Cal Berkeley) John Yoo.  According to this Liptak article, Yoo’s lawyer says it’s ” ‘a political diatribe’ that ‘belongs, at best, in a journal, not before a federal court.’ “

Yeah?  So?  You’ve got to admit, American citizen cum enemy combatant Jose Padilla has probably brought us more great law on the limits of terrorist prosecution than any other defendant. 

Padilla’s suit seeks damages in the amount of one dollar.  Attorneys fees are no doubt also available on the back end, but I doubt that’s a major motivator here.  This is an opportunity to challenge Yoo, who wrote the memorandums that made the Cheney administration smile, providing legal approval to such potential Olympic sports as waterboarding.

The new suit against Mr. Yoo makes more novel claims. 

“A lawyer who gives the green light to clearly illegal conduct is an accomplice to that conduct,” Mr. Freiman said in describing the theory of the case.

Next time someone asks you at a cocktail party how you could defend “those people,” now you can respond, “Well, at least I’m not John Yoo.”

It would appear that this suit is not just another blind shot in the dark across the administration’s bow, but has support from another insider in the DOJ who was less than thrilled with Yoo’s willingness to give the seal of approval to anything the administration wanted.

The suit is based in part on a recent book by Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who, while serving in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, disavowed some of Mr. Yoo’s work. In the book, “The Terror Presidency” (W.W. Norton), Mr. Goldsmith wrote that two of Mr. Yoo’s memorandums were “legally flawed” and “tendentious in substance and tone.”

Will there be a new cause of action for “tendentiousness“?  There certainly should be, and it should include treble damages.  You’ve got to appreciate Jose Padilla.  Since the demise of Bill Kuntsler, somebody has to be willing to mount a credible challenge to our government’s love of circumventing the Constitution.  Plus, it could be a load of fun to watch some lawprofs rolling in the mud.