Obama Donor Heads Organization that Freed Terrorist Accused of Plotting Attack in Benghazi

There are reports tonight that a radical left-wing organization is responsible for helping to free a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay named Abu Sufian bin Qumu. Bin Qumu has been cited by multiple sources at Fox News as at least being involved with, and possibly playing the lead role in the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Those attacks resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American diplomats.

Michelle Malkin has revealed that the Center for Constitutional Rights represented Qumu and helped lead the charge in freeing him back in 2007.

President Emeritus of the CCR, Michael Ratner, has long advocated for closing Guantanamo Bay's doors, and for the right of Gitmo detainees within. In a 2009 article for the Huffington Post, Ratner sings the praises of his organization's efforts, calling the release of two thirds of Gitmo detainees an "amazing success".

While feeling that terrorists caught on the battlefield were privy to the same rights as ordinary Americans, Ratner also repeatedly advocated for the prosecution of senior-level Bush administration officials, calling the detention of those terrorists, like bin Qumu, unlawful. His op-ed for CNN made a case for prosecuting former President George W. Bush for torture under the War Crimes Act.

In 2008, Ratner signed an endorsement for Barack Obama in his presidential bid, based on a belief that Obama would best represent the rights of Gitmo detainees. He and 79 other lawyers said in a joint statement, that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to "restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community."

CCR President Michael Ratner Talks about Prosecutions of Bush Officials on Democracy Now!

Lawmakers Debate Establishing “Truth Commission” on Bush Admin Torture, Rendition and Domestic Spying

On Capitol Hill, debate has begun over forming a truth commission to shed light on the Bush administration’s secret polices on detention, interrogation and domestic spying. A hearing on the issue was held Wednesday, two days after the Obama administration released a series of once-secret Bush administration Justice Department memos that authorized President Bush to deploy the military to carry out raids inside the United States. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! speaks to human rights attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

https://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-president-michael-ratner-talks-about-prosecutions-bush-officials-democra

International Socialist Review

November–December 2010

Obama’s national security state
Interview with Michael Ratner

Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and is adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School. Ratner has also been a lecturer of international human rights litigation at the Yale Law School and the Columbia School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and radio co-host for the civil rights show Law and Disorder. Ratner serves on the board of The Culture Project in New York City and is vice-president of the board of Voices of a People’s History of the United States. He spoke to Anthony Arnove, a member of the ISR editorial board and author of the book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal.

LET’S START with the Obama administration’s policies on habeas corpus and on torture. As a presidential candidate, Obama said he would close Guantánamo, said he believed in habeas corpus rights, and was critical of President Bush. What’s been his practice since he came to office?

MY OFFICE, CCR, is one of the legal groups that represents many of the Guantánamo detainees and brings these writs of habeas corpus. That is a fancy way of saying, “Let’s go to court, and see if there’s any evidence to hold the person.” The expectations of the team of lawyers representing the detainees was very high that Guantánamo would actually close, that Obama would do it. There were probably a little over 300 people in Guantánamo when he took office. It’s down to maybe 200-some now. But we expected better—and now it may go on for years. We really thought that Obama wouldn’t fight us in court on the rights of the detainees, that he would get the detainees either to another country or he would charge and try them. And of course, it hasn’t worked out that way at all, and it’s a deep disappointment. In fact a lot of the habeas lawyers signed a letter supporting Obama saying his election would actually be good for our clients. Obama’s effort to close it seemingly got off to a somewhat quick start. Obama, within two days of being in office, signed an executive order, which is essentially a presidential order, which said that Guantánamo would be closed in a year. Of course, as we speak now, it’s more than a year and a half after that order, and it is not near closed. Obama’s commitment has been abandoned. And he made a number of other promises that have not been met about secret detention sites, military commissions, and the like.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/74/feat-ratner.shtml

International Socialist Review

The Dean of the Gitmo Bar

http://www.weeklystandard.com/sites/all/files/imagecache/teaser-large/images/teasers/15-27.Theissen.jpg

Meet Michael Ratner, lead terrorist defender.

Mar 29, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 27 • By MARC A. THIESSEN

In recent weeks, controversy has erupted over demands that the Obama administration release the names of lawyers working in the Justice Department who once represented or advocated for captured al Qaeda terrorists. But amid the debate, one name has thus far mostly escaped mention: Michael Ratner. Don’t know him? You should. Ratner is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the organization that is leading the legal crusade on behalf of the al Qaeda detainees.

The center was founded in 1966 by William Kunstler and a group of radical lawyers. Its name is an Orwellian play on words—implying that the organization’s purpose is to defend our constitutional system when its real objective is just the opposite. As Kunstler once told the New York Times, he considered himself a “double agent” whose goal was “working within the system to bring down the system.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/keyword/Michael-Ratner

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