Free Republic

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military's "up or out" promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander. He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a...

Five supreme Court justices left President George W Bush's policy on Guantanamo Bay in chaos last week but it was a diligent career navy officer who plotted the legal downfall of his commander-in-chief. Lt Cdr Charles Swift, 44, an experienced military defence attorney, was expected to draft a simple plea bargain after prosecutors requested the appointment of a lawyer to represent Osama bin -Laden's driver in 2003. Instead, he launched a series of ground-breaking legal challenges that ended with the ruling by America's highest court that the military commissions backed by Mr Bush for international terrorism suspects were unlawful. "As...