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One of the American legal profession's most venerable traditions is work performed "pro bono publico" -- free of charge to promote the public good. But today's hottest pro bono gig is raising eyebrows. It's seeking freedom for suspected enemy combatants and terrorists detained by the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay. The lawyers who represent these detainees are from America's most prestigious firms. They may contribute hundreds of hours and make five or more trips to Cuba, indirectly subsidized by fat fees from Fortune 500 clients. Legal giant Mayer Brown is typical. Its website boasts that it considers its "social justice"...

Reality keeps intruding on Attorney General Eric Holder’s approach to terrorism. During recent testimony before the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, Holder had a heated exchange with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), over the rights of terrorists – specifically over whether a captured Osama bin Laden would need to be read his Miranda rights in accordance with the civilian prosecution model that Holder continues to advocate. Holder’s response: “Let’s deal with reality…we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden.  He will never appear in an American courtroom…He will be killed by us, or he will...

Visit Pajamas. Yesterday morning, I had an encounter on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. with Julia Tarver Mason — a lawyer who represents several accused terrorists. I found that Ms. Mason is more willing to speak with terrorists then reporters. My interest in Ms. Mason began two nights ago, when I read the investigative piece by Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn in the Wall Street Journal regarding 400 American lawyers from high priced law firms who have “volunteered” their time to personally wage “lawfare” on behalf of enemy combatants held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. One of the premier...

And possibly incited released terrorists to kill again?Gitmo Attorneys shared photos of CIA covert agents with terrorists. Why no media outrage? Gitmo Attorney's violated the rules and passed along anti-U.S. propaganda inciting terrorists to kill again? Are these lawyers now working in Obama's Dept. of Justice? Keep America Safe asks the question:[VIDEO AT SITE] In an op-ed in Monday's Wall Street Journal Debra Burlingame, sister of "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, describes how attorneys representing the terrorists at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba...

Last June, I noted Gen. David Petraeus's MoveOn.org-like take on Guantanamo Bay -- close it because it causes us problems and violates (unspecified) Geneva Conventions -- and his willingness to attribute to the Palestinian war on Israel "justifications" for the existence of Hezbollah. Now this from Foreign Policy (via Judeosphere): On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli---http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1318/Is-Petraeus-an-Islamic-Tool-Part-2.aspx

On Feb. 20, 2007, a post on the Paul, Weiss Web site proudly announced "Paul, Weiss achieves more victories for Guantanamo detainees." Two detainees were released from Gitmo to their home in Saudi Arabia. One was Majeed Abdullah Al Joudi, a recipient of the Amnesty International "report." The Web site needs an update. The Pentagon has identified Al Joudi as a "confirmed" recidivist who is "directly involved" with the facilitation of "terrorist activities." Yousef Al Shehri, the detainee who led his cell block in the feeding tube rebellion, was also released in November 2007. In early 2009 he was listed...

"Gitmo's Indefensible Lawyers" [Andy McCarthy] That's the title of of a mind-blowing op-ed by Debra Burlingame and Tom Joscelyn in Monday's Wall Street Journal. Debra and Tom make mince-meat of the hallucination that casts the Gitmo Bar as modern John Adamses. The essay recounts, among other things: The Gitmo Bar — in gross violation of the conditions of access to the enemy combatants — provided al Qaeda detainees with a propaganda brochure that instructed them on how falsely to claim that they had been tortured and abused. As the Gitmo commander put it, "The very nature of this document gives...

(snip) But Graham has heard it all before. "What drives my train," he told me when I reached him late in the week, "is not their approval; it's getting it right." The fact that such a sentiment makes Graham an oddball in the Republican Party, and to some extent Congress generally, says less about him than about his colleagues. For all his supposed heresies -- on climate change, judicial nominees, immigration and now his offer to help close the Guantanamo Bay prison -- Graham had a 2009 rating of 88 percent from the American Conservative Union and a lifetime rating...

Al Qaeda, Gitmo & National Security Bethany Stotts, March 9, 2010 Are the Obama Administration’s actions putting Americans at increased risk of a terrorist attack? Keep America Safe and its board members argue that it is. A recent ad released by KAS questions the loyalties of “The Al Qaeda 7,” the seven unnamed Department of Justice lawyers who have either represented terror suspects, worked on related cases, in some cases, advocated for detainees. In a February 18 letter to Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch wrote (pdf) that “To the best of our knowledge, during their employment...

Earlier today, I spoke with Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), and got into a bit of a debate with him over the issue of earmarks. Last Friday, Inhofe offered a spirited defense of Congressional privilege in the National Journal (subscription required), using a separation-of-powers argument that has some merit: Inhofe argues that earmarks have funded many programs that conservatives support, particularly in national defense. As the second-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, behind McCain, Inhofe notes that Congress has used earmarks to keep several military programs chugging along despite executive branch objections, including additional C-17 cargo planes that President Obama...

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney "specially designed" to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing. The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding "session." Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to...

Starr Critiques “Al Qaeda 7″ Ad Bethany Stotts, March 9, 2010 My column today deals with media coverage of the recent Keep America Safe (KAS) ad and the connections between the Little Rock, Fort Hood and Christmas Day attacks. For an alternate perspective, Pepperdine University’s Ken Starr recently appeared on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown (with a guest host). Author of the Starr Report and Dean of Pepperdine’s Law School, Starr said that it’s very important “for lawyers to be willing to take on unpopular causes,” making sure that power is checked and that there are arguments “advanced on behalf of those...

Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday outlined his plan to help President Obama close Guantánamo if the administration agrees to abandon a civilian New York terror trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in favor of a military tribunal. BY MARK SAPPENFIELD On Sunday, two moderate senators defended President Obama’s apparent willingness to reconsider his administration’s decision to use a civilian New York terror trial for the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The first, Senator Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, is seen as the architect behind the Obama administration’s potential change in plans. He has promised...

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals. The South Carolina Republican is considered to be a key player in the administration's strategy to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo....

The ‘most transparent administration in history’ stonewalls. At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to produce a list of Department of Justice employees who had been involved in representing detainees. Holder said he’d consider the request. Three months later he denied it. In a letter to Grassley on February 18, Holder acknowledged that nine Justice Department officials had worked on behalf of detainees before joining the Obama administration. The names of two of those officials—Jennifer Daskal and Neal Katyal—had been reported publicly. But Holder refused to...

When I was a kid, we had a tough little dachshund. Then we got a poodle who was as arrogant as you'd expect a poodle to be. The poodle constantly attacked the dachshund, even though time after time the dachshund would have the poodle on her back with her teeth around the poodle's throat in about 2 seconds every time they got into it. That's sort of like Obama and Bush. With Obama being the poodle, and Bush (despite the fact that he doesn't bother to defend his policies in the media) being the dachshund. Renditions? Obama got his butt...

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At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to produce a list of Department of Justice employees who had been involved in representing detainees. Holder said he’d consider the request.Three months later he denied it. In a letter to Grassley on February 18, Holder acknowledged that nine Justice Department officials had worked on behalf of detainees before joining the Obama administration. The names of two of those officials—Jennifer Daskal and Neal Katyal—had been reported publicly. But Holder refused to disclose the other seven and allowed that...

The no clue ACLU is at it again. This time they're weighing in on the possibility of a White House decision to revert back to military tribunals for 9/11 suspects in hope of gaining Congressional approval for the closing of Guantanamo. The executive director of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero has said, "If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values. The military commissions system is incapable of handling complicated terrorism cases." Death blow to the Justice Department? That might not be such a bad...

The Obama administration said Friday that a decision on where to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks would not be made “for weeks,” following a flare-up in the debate about whether that trial should take place in civilian court or before a military commission. The White House sought to dampen speculation that a decision on where to hold a trial might be imminent. That speculation was fanned by a report Friday that aides to President Obama might recommend that he pull the prosecution out of civilian court and send it back to...