White House Calls GOP’s Attack on ‘Al Qaeda Seven’ at Justice Department a ‘Bizarre Criticism’
EmailWhite House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked today about criticisms several conservative groups and Republican lawmakers have launched against Justice Department officials who previously supported or represented in some way the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a debate we covered at length here on the blog yesterday.
GOP lawmakers and pundits had taken to criticizing nine officials of the Obama Justice Department who defended detainee rights as the “Gitmo Nine.” Attorney General Eric Holder had disclosed the names of two of the nine; the group then called the remaining unidentified officials the “Al Qaeda Seven.”
Gibbs today was asked for a reaction to the criticism.
“I think the best reaction might be from somebody like Theodore Olsen or — who, I think, has written extensively about this,” Gibbs said, “or somebody, I think, at the Giuliani firm, who might be able to speak to the bizarre criticisms.”
Gibbs was obliquely referring to a Legal Times article co-written by Ted Olsen, the Solicitor General for President George W. Bush, written in response to comments by a Pentagon official criticizing law firms providing legal defenses for some detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
"The ethos of the bar is built on the idea that lawyers will represent both the popular and the unpopular, so that everyone has access to justice,” Olsen wrote. “Despite the horrible Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, this is still proudly held as a basic tenet of our profession.”
"When government officials are called 'war criminals' and when public-interest lawyers are called 'terrorist huggers,' it not only cheapens the discourse, it scrambles the dialogue. The best solutions to these difficult problems will emerge only when the best advocates, backed by weighty resources, bring their talents to bear. And the heavy work of creating solutions for these complicated issues can only move forward when the name-calling ceases."
(Hat tip to Huffington Post’s Sam Stein.)
Olsen co-wrote the story with one of the Obama Justice Department attorneys being criticized, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who won the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, challenging the legality of President Bush’s military commissions.
Gibbs’ reference to “somebody…at the Giuliani firm” was targeted at Carol Elder Bruce, listed as counsel in two habeas cases for detainees, El Mashad et al v Bush and Alladeen et all v Bush, who is a top attorney at Bracewell Giuliani, the firm partly run by former New York City Mayor and GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
It does not appear that any of these conservative and Republican critics stated any objections to the Bush Justice Department’s hiring of Trisha Anderson, who represented 13 Yemeni detainees at Covington & Burling; or Varda Hussain, who at Venable represented three Egyptian detainees.
- jpt
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It’s all about raising cash from the fearful. The recently revealed RNC presentation shows as much. In Washington, you can’t call it hypocrisy if someone will give you a dollar to say it.
Posted by: Joseph Nobles | March 4, 2010, 5:06 pm 5:06 pm
“obliquely”
I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
Posted by: Flash Override | March 4, 2010, 5:24 pm 5:24 pm
I remember someone using fear to promote health care.. like if we don’t pass this bill, the economy will go south permanently.. it’s an emergency.. we must do it in September 2009.
Fear the POTUS… seems to be a common theme inside the beltway.. Fear the Rahm.. Fear the Pelosi.. it’s just the fear business as usual.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 4, 2010, 5:25 pm 5:25 pm
“Obama’s telling perspective in Audacity of Hope:
“I will stand with them [Muslims] should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
IOW when the right wing decides to go the concentration camp route, Obama will be among those to stand against it.
So will I and all decent Americans.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 4, 2010, 5:55 pm 5:55 pm
Simon…I am not being cynical here but please do your homework on the subject before venting your anger. People who are not citizens of this country can and are handled in our judicial system just like you and I. If you hve picked up this “American Rights for American citizens only” from some right wing pundit or blog – they have just misrepresented the facts to you to play on your fear and anger. They are just using you (and your lack of knowledge) to get your vote.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 4, 2010, 5:58 pm 5:58 pm
Ted Olsen is of course correct. Anyone who is tried deserves legal council.
What I AM against are the leftist lawyers like Lynne Stewart who pass messages on to middle east terrorists.
Posted by: Denbo | March 4, 2010, 8:00 pm 8:00 pm
If these lawyer were really so proud and believed in thier cause why wouldn’t they ADMIT that they represented terrorists? If the notion of representing “anybody” is so noble why are they, or Obama, afraid to admit it? Shouldn’t they be shouting it from rooftops? It is apparent that they aren’t proud and then defend the terrorists not out of honor but some other reason (for the money, anti-US feelings, pro-Islamist tendencies, make headlines, bragging rights, etc).
Posted by: Ed | March 4, 2010, 9:19 pm 9:19 pm
Obama VS America
Posted by: another crisis- | March 4, 2010, 9:57 pm 9:57 pm
Holder’s affinity to terrorists goes back to his beseeching Clinton to pardon FALN members.Holder’s firm has been representing anti American terrorists for most of his career so it follows that he has purposely hired former associates who sympathise with these people who would like to destroy our way of life.If that is not PC enough for you Jake,well,sorry.If it walks like a duck…
Posted by: bobmac | March 4, 2010, 10:37 pm 10:37 pm
So we can know who served in the Bush Department of Justice but we cannot know who these seven lawyers are that serve us now? Where is the new transparency? If this situation is all so righteous, what is there to hide?
It is pretty clear that there is a circus going on in our Justice Department, from the outrageous dropping of a solid Voting Rights Act case against intimidation in Philadelphia (and silencing the staff that prepared it) to the Keystone Kops ploys about detainee hearings. I say, keep the pressure on this incompetent Attorney General and his management of the department.
Posted by: Carol | March 4, 2010, 10:54 pm 10:54 pm
Ted Olson lost his first wife, Barbara, when Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11th.
I think maybe we should listen to him on this one.
Posted by: andy | March 4, 2010, 10:56 pm 10:56 pm
Lefty lawyers rule the roost. The chick-
ens are coming home. You go, Eric, you
go. Stick that rodent nose in the air,
and pray that Obama can afford your
incompetence. Obama’s petty cash
drawer is waiting for a Soros “infusion”.
Posted by: Sir Toby Belch | March 4, 2010, 10:58 pm 10:58 pm
“Happy, Dopey, Sleepy, Doc……” The
Big Seven have been named.
Posted by: Sir Toby Belch | March 4, 2010, 11:02 pm 11:02 pm
Let’s see… thousands of lawyers out of work and they choose to hire those that eagerly represent terrorists?
Hmmmm, I don’t get it, do you?
Posted by: Quo Warranto | March 4, 2010, 11:11 pm 11:11 pm
Posted by: Sir Toby Belch | Mar 4, 2010 10:58:13 PM
Keep working on the verse, Toby. Its getting a bit better, but still not quite there…
Shakespeare shrugs?
LOL.
Posted by: progressive mama | March 4, 2010, 11:51 pm 11:51 pm
Holder’s firm has been representing anti American terrorists for most of his career
_____________________________________
Imagine that – lawyers representing people charges with crimes! Who would have thought? When did this start? Isn’t it against the Constitution?
Posted by: tierra | March 5, 2010, 5:38 am 5:38 am
Remember the last time a group of people started speculating people in government were in league with terrorists?
They got called Truthers and were deservedly marginalized. Obviously this won’t happen to Cheney and Kristol, but it would be nice if someone would point out the parallel.
Posted by: Edgonzo | March 5, 2010, 6:50 am 6:50 am
so it is somehow wrong to question putting leftwing pro socialist lawyers in charge of convicting terrorist who want to inflict mass murder on Americans? How about the apointment of the ACLU judge? I hope all you conservitives who sat out the last election, as McCain wasn’t pure enough for you are happy. we are the next Greece.
Posted by: thetruthhurts | March 5, 2010, 9:19 am 9:19 am
Anyone who ascribes a defendent’s values and beliefs to their legal counsel are completely ignorant of how our legal system functions. Without vigorous representation of the accused, there is no justice.
You idiots need to get yourself to the nearest elementary school and get a refresher civics course.
Oh, and BTW, the Bush administration assigned hundreds of attorneys to represent accused terrorists in both military and civilian trials. I suppose they are terrorist sympathizers as well.
The grotesque accusations hurled by Liz Cheney and her ilk say much more about them than they do about the targeted lawyers.
Posted by: bdop4 | March 5, 2010, 12:28 pm 12:28 pm
McCarthyism back in vogue with the ‘villagers’..
in the 50′s it was ‘communists’, even Pres. Eisenhower was accused by the fringe,..now.. it’s Al Queda… this version tho’ by Liz Cheney is even more hateful and insane.
If Liz Cheney is looking for Al Queda supporters she needs to look no further than her father and the other neo-con liars who forced the US into invading Iraq with their false assertions.
Posted by: PO'd | March 5, 2010, 1:25 pm 1:25 pm
so it is somehow wrong to question putting leftwing pro socialist lawyers in charge of convicting terrorist who want to inflict mass murder on Americans?
_____________________________________
Imagine that – lawyers representing people charged with crimes! Who would have thought? When did this start? Isn’t it against the Constitution? Doesn’t it mean they’re commie criminal terrorists too? Or worse . . . can you say ‘McCarthy’ boys and girls? Can you say ‘witch hunt’ boys and girls? The Republican right is . . .. creepy.
Posted by: tierra | March 5, 2010, 6:56 pm 6:56 pm
LOL – leftists love to scream about McCarthyism except they forget that after the fall of the Soviet Union, much of what McCarthy talked about was absolutely correct. There were many well placed communists (State Dept anyone?) in America who sought to do harm.
Posted by: ConservativeWoman | March 6, 2010, 8:01 am 8:01 am
“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.
“This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies.”[
–John Adams
Posted by: Flash Override | March 6, 2010, 12:08 pm 12:08 pm