And all the while, I though that Ashcroft was one of the Evil Minions^™

It turns out that in early 2003, John Ashcroft refused to appoint torture memo author John Yoo to head the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, which had among its roles certifying interrogation techniques as legal, and there was a major blowup on this.

It was eventually settled with a compromise on Jack Goldsmith, who promptly review Yoo’s work and put a big red BS on it.