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February 10, 2012
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David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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January 30, 2012
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Jewish World Review
Jan. 26, 2010
/ 11 Shevat 5770
Questions for Holder in Detroit terror case
By
Byron York
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It seems like a simple question. Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant?
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al-Qaida, equipped with an al-Qaida-made bomb, and dispatched by al-Qaida to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al-Qaida. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
Recently that simple question who? became more complicated after several of the administration's top anti-terrorism officials testified on Capitol Hill. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said he wasn't consulted before the decision was made. The Director of National Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair, said he wasn't consulted, either. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said she wasn't consulted. And the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, said he wasn't consulted.
So how did it happen? We know from a new Associated Press report that after Abdulmutallab was taken into custody, he was questioned for all of 50 minutes yes, less than one hour before going into surgery for treatment of the burns he suffered trying to blow up the plane. While Abdulmutallab was in surgery, the Justice Department in Washington made the decision to read Abdulmutallab the Miranda warning and provide him with a court-appointed lawyer.
And that was that. "Isn't it a fact, that after Miranda was given … the individual stopped talking?" Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions asked Mueller.
"He did," Mueller answered. But Mueller declined to say who made the decision to grant Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent.
The issue is enormously important because Abdulmutallab, newly trained by al-Qaida in the terrorist group's latest hot spot, Yemen, likely knows things that would be useful to American anti-terrorism investigators. He's not some grizzled old terrorist who has been sitting in Guantanamo Bay since 2003 and doesn't have any new intelligence. He's fresh material. Yet he is protected by U.S. criminal law from having to answer questions.
Why? Republicans on the Judiciary Committee increasingly believe there is only one person who can answer: Attorney General Eric Holder.
It was Holder who made the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a criminal trial in New York. It is Holder who has expressed his desire to grant full American constitutional rights to foreign terrorists. It is Holder who is leading the administration's sputtering effort to move some Guantanamo inmates to the United States. And it is Holder who is apparently cutting other parts of the government out of crucial terrorism decisions such as the treatment of Abdulmutallab.
"These days, all roads lead to the attorney general," says one well-placed Republican source in the Senate. "They seem to have aggregated quite a bit of power inside Main Justice." The problem is, the Holder Justice Department appears to be handling terrorism issues from a defense-attorney perspective, and doing so without the input of the government's other terrorism-fighting agencies.
That was the message of that rather stunning testimony from Blair, Leiter, Napolitano and Mueller, all of whom were out of the loop on the Adbulmutallab decision. Their accounts left a number of Republican senators shaken; as the GOP lawmakers see it, the decision to read Abdulmutallab Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of questioning was a dreadful mistake, one that could have serious consequences down the line. There should be some accountability.
So on Jan. 21, all seven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Holder asking for a full explanation: Who made the decision and why, and whether the administration now has "a protocol or policy in place for handling al-Qaida terrorists captured in the United States."
Republicans were troubled by the decision even before Senate testimony showed that major administration figures knew nothing about it. Now the lawmakers want to know what happened, and they believe the only person who can tell them is Holder.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on Byron York's column by clicking here.
Previously:
01/19/10 The Republican dilemma: Good Michael or Bad Michael?
01/12/10 Now the lawmakers are figuring out what they didn't know
01/05/10 GOP deserves blame for Democratic excesses
12/29/09 Dems' dreams of a blue West begin to turn red
12/22/09 Why Dems push health care, even if it kills them
11/30/09 Dems' kamikaze mission: Health care by New Year's
11/23/09 Why it's a mistake to bring Gitmo prisoners here
11/16/09 Dems' slick fix: $210 billion of fiscal restraint
11/10/09 Obama can't be community organizer for the world
11/02/09 At key moment, Obama leaves health post unfilled
10/26/09 Fierce urgency' for jobs, not health care
10/12/09 Facts hurt Jennings in youth sex controversy
10/05/09 Amid terror threat, Dems chip away at Patriot Act
09/27/09 In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors
09/21/09 Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in drove
09/14/09 Dems stifle Republican health care plans
09/08/09 For Dems, a serious Charlie Rangel problem
09/07/09 Obama's speech: Wrong setting for a sales job
09/01/09 What happened to the antiwar movement?
08/24/09 Why Dems may jam through health care plan
08/17/09 GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010
08/10/09 The empty words of a journalist turned flack
08/03/09 Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal
07/27/09 Obamacare haunted by unkept promises of stimulus
07/20/09 Why the GOP failed the Sotomayor test
07/13/09 What the GOPers will ask Sotomayor
06/29/09 Serious questions remain for Mark Sanford
06/22/09 How GOPers can crack the AmeriCorps scandal
06/16/09 Worried about Sotomayor? Consider Andre Davis
06/08/09 Can Mitch Daniels save the GOP?
06/01/09 When the Dems derailed a Latino nominee
05/26/09 Why the GOP will defeat Obama on healthcare
05/19/09 Rosy report can't hide stimulus problems
05/12/09 The Reagan legacy is the man himself
05/05/09 Sen. Specter, meet your new friends
04/27/09 Ted Olson: ‘Torture’ probes will never end
04/20/09 Who's Laughing at the Axis of Evil today?
04/14/09 Congress needs Google to track stimulus money
04/06/09 Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
03/30/09 On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right
03/24/09 It's Obama's crisis now
03/17/09: Geithner-Obama economics: A joke that's not funny
© 2009, NEA
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