Waterboarding were dismissed in a memo from Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis who found that Yoo showed "poor judgment" but did not violate ethical standards. Commentators have noted that the memos omitted key relevant precedents, including a Texas precedent under then-Governor George W. Bush when the state convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff for waterboarding a criminal suspect. Bush did not issue a pardon for the sheriff. Former George W. Bush administration officials Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft have stated since leaving office that they do not consider waterboarding to be torture. At least one
Enhanced interrogation techniques Guantanamo prosecutor, and a military tribunal judge, have called "enhanced interrogation" a euphemism for torture. In 2009, both President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder said that certain techniques amount to torture, and repudiated their use. They declined to prosecute CIA, DoD, or Bush administration officials who authorized the program, while leaving open the possibility of convening an investigatory "Truth Commission" for what President Obama called a "further accounting". In July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights formally ruled that "enhanced interrogation" is torture, and ordered Poland to pay restitution to men tortured at a CIA black site