The Justice Department reviewed newly found e-mails sent by a Bush administration lawyer and stands by a conclusion that the attorney did not commit professional misconduct in authorizing CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics, a department letter shows.

The review of the additional e-mails did not alter the earlier assessment that the lawyer, John Yoo, merely had exhibited poor judgment, according to the letter to the House and Senate judiciary committees. The letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The content of the newly found e-mails was not described in the letter. Department officials, however, briefed congressional staffers on the matter last Friday after making the recovered e-mails available to the two congressional committees for review, the letter said.

The issue of Yoo and missing e-mails arose in one of the major lingering investigations into the counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush's administration.

Liberal Democrats had pressed for action against the former Justice Department lawyers who wrote the so-called torture memos — Yoo and Jay Bybee.

An initial examination by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility found that Bybee, now a federal appellate judge, and Yoo, now a law professor, had committed professional misconduct. However, the Justice Department's top career lawyer reviewed the matter and disagreed.