 During the Bush Administration, Philbin served as a political appointee in the Department of Justice, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003 and then as an Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General from 2003 to 2005.Philbin was one of the lawyers who helped counsel President Bush that as head of the United States' Government executive branch, the president had the authority to charge Guantanamo captives before military commissions (see the Legal opinions section of the Wikipedia article on John Yoo).During the Bush administration, Philbin reviewed the Torture Memos and raised concerns with John Yoo and Jay Bybee about their contents.