These findings 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 ten 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 Republican member of the U.S. Congress, Ted Poe, has taken a similar position. Other Republican officials have provided less definitive views regarding whether waterboarding is torture. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Republican prosecutor including in the George W. Bush administration, has stated that when used in "some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive", waterboarding should not qualify as torture under the law. McCarthy has also stated that "waterboarding is close enough to torture that reasonable minds can differ on whether it is torture" and that "[t]here shouldn't be much debate that subjecting someone to [waterboarding] repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture". Many former senior George W. Bush administration officials, on the other hand, have seriously questioned or directly challenged the legality of waterboarding. These include former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jack Goldsmith, General Ricardo Sanchez, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and former Convening Authority for the Guantanamo military commissions Susan J. Crawford. During his tenure as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003–2004, Jack Goldsmith put a halt to the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique because of serious concern over its legality, but Goldsmith's order was quickly reversed by others within the George W. Bush administration. A Republican 2008 candidate for president, Senator John McCain who himself was tortured during his years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, has stated unequivocally several times that he considers waterboarding to be torture: Professors such as Wilson R. Huhn have also challenged the legality of waterboarding. In May 2008, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding and concluded that