Posted on 01/23/2010 10:12:03 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
New details about the events surrounding the Christmas Day interrogation of the bombing suspect aboard Northwest Flight 253 raise questions about the accuracy of testimony provided Wednesday by senior U.S. intelligence and Homeland Security officials.
In testimony that has fueled controversy on Capitol Hill, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were all asked the same question during an appearance before the Senate homeland-security committee by Sen. Susan Collins, the panel’s ranking Republican: “Were you consulted regarding the decision to file criminal charges against [suspect Umar Farouk] Abdulmutallab in civilian court?”
Leiter and Napolitano gave the same answer. “I was not.” Blair also said, “I was not consulted,” and asserted that the government “should have” brought in a special High-Value Interrogation Group (HIG) to conduct the questioning of the suspect—a comment that infuriated senior officials in the White House and revealed an apparent rift among national-security officials over the handling of the Christmas Day incident.
But some officials (who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue) said those responses to the panel may have been misleading and glossed over the extent to which all the relevant national-security agencies, including top aides to Blair and Napolitano, were fully informed about the plans to charge the suspect in federal court hours before he was read his Miranda rights and stopped cooperating.
A key event was a 5 p.m. secure videoconference call on Christmas Day that included Leiter, who reports to Blair, and presided over by John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Also on the call was Jane Lute, the deputy secretary of homeland security and Napolitano’s No. 2.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
Hmm. I don’t have time to comment on this, but by Michael Issikoff of all people. And Newsweak. One day after their head guy took Obama to task for all his failures.
Looks like Obama’s teflon is wearing pretty thin.
Sorry newweak, given your prove track record of journalistic fraud, unless you provide us on the record sources we have to assume you, not the swore testimony, is misleading us.
This is an attempt to cover for Obama by making sound like everyone in the security agencies agreed to have it tried in Criminal court.
It appears there is a full scale spin effort by the 0 regime to cover up the fact that this was yet another example of 0 and Holder playing politics with our national security issues.
That’s what I got out of the article too. They’re trying to cover for Obama by saying everyone signed off on it.
Not much different than saying that "we" considered your previous sniveling complaints when "we" wrote up and passed a health care scam; so you were consulted and are Un-American if you don't agree with the outcome.
I read this as cover for the Obamanation’s determination to keep it in a civilian “criminal” context.... but as the article points out at the end, it was/is already a certainty that the admin. would not allow any “enhanced interrogation techniques” in any case, and that the libs have already triumphed on the idea that terrorists arrested within the USA are to be treated like ordinary criminals.
Yes, that’s where things stand, we have to “Mirandize” even terrorists captured in the midst of their attack, and ensure that they can hide behind the curtain of some leftist lawyers gaming the system on behalf of Al Qaeda.
"In the six and a half years since al-Marri, hundreds of terror suspects arrested in the U.S. have been prosecuted in federal court without any consideration being given to transferring them to military custody, officials said."
He's implying that these other terror suspects had the same level of training and support as the boxer bomber.
I get the feeling not all of the press wishes to be lashed to the side of the SS Obama when it sinks...
They are holding their nose and telling you half the truth for a change...
OK. I had to go to lunch, so I only read the lead. Typical misleading lead. Might have known.
Yes, see #14.
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