{"id":527623,"date":"2010-04-14T15:18:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=82255"},"modified":"2010-04-14T15:18:54","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T19:18:54","slug":"holder-defends-911-civilian-trials-defuses-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/527623","title":{"rendered":"Holder Defends 9\/11 Civilian Trials, Defuses Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_82256\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 490px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-82256\" title=\"Eric Holder testifies\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/holder-testifies-480x320.jpg\" alt=\"Eric Holder testifies\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. (James Berglie\/ZUMApress.com)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Eric Holder stepped into the Dirksen building this morning an embattled  man facing Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee fiercely  critical of his desire to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other 9\/11  conspirators in federal court. He left three hours later having defused  some of his critics; conceding little; sticking up for his department&#8217;s  role in counterterrorism; and placing back onto the table the prospect  of a New York trial for the man known as KSM.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_2848\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 140px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2848\" title=\"nationalsecurity\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/nationalsecurity.jpg\" alt=\"Image by: Matt Mahurin\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: Matt Mahurin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"floatButtons\">\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/digg.com\/tools\/diggthis.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n\tsrc=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/ds\/badge2.js\"\n\tbadgetype=\"square\">\n\t<?php the_permalink(); ?><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\">\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\ntweetmeme_source = \"TWI_news\";\ntweetmeme_service = \"bit.ly\";\n<\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For months,  Holder and his Justice Department have been at the center of  conservative ire at the Obama administration&#8217;s national security  policies. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) <a id=\"xdfw\" title=\"called Holder out in a caustic February speech\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/75636\/gop-senate-leader-pledges-to-block-funding-for-911-trials\">called  Holder out in a caustic February speech<\/a> for playing an unduly  influential role in counterterrorism, evidenced by Holder&#8217;s contentions  that KSM and would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should  be tried in civilian courts. <a id=\"amzb\" title=\"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley  (R-Iowa.)\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/78254\/justice-department-smacks-cheneyites-over-al-qaeda-smear-campaign\">Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.)<\/a>,  both Judiciary Committee members, have portrayed administration lawyers  who defended Guantanamo detainees as possessing shadowy, un-American  loyalties, and an ad building on their statements dubbed the lawyers &#8220;<a id=\"x9gq\" title=\"the al-Qaeda Seven\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/78167\/the-gitmo-nine-the-al-qaeda-seven-and-pure-mccarthyism\">the al-Qaeda Seven<\/a>.&#8221; Sen.  Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has spent months working on a deal with the White  House to trade GOP support for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention  facility in exchange for overriding Holder and trying KSM before a  military commission.<\/p>\n<p>But Holder did not appear under fire  during his first Senate testimony since the KSM controversy swelled.  More often, it was his critics who backed down, conceded rhetorical  territory or disagreed among themselves. &#8220;There&#8217;s been a lot of  misinformation placed out there,&#8221; a confrontational Holder testified.  &#8220;Without casting aspersions on anyone in this room, there&#8217;s been a lot  of unnecessary politicization of national security issues that I don&#8217;t  believe has benefited this country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Holder reminded the  committee that civilian courts have convicted &#8220;close to 400&#8243; individuals  on terrorism charges, compared to three in military commissions &#8212;  though Holder, adapting a phrase of Graham&#8217;s, said he would be  &#8220;flexible, pragmatic and aggressive&#8221; in keeping both the commissions and  the civilian courts as options for terrorism trials. That caused  Sessions, who sought to portray Holder as an enemy of the commissions,  to assert: &#8220;It\u2019s pretty clear to me you made a firm decision to go the  other way, with civilian courts with all these other cases.&#8221; Holder  replied that he had referred more terrorism cases &#8212; six, to be specific  &#8212; to the military commissions than he had to the civilian courts.  Similarly, when Sessions attempted to get Holder to say he&#8217;d favor  reading Miranda rights to Osama bin Laden, Holder answered that there  would be no need, since the government has more than enough information  at present to convict bin Laden of terrorism crimes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I  acknowledge that\u2019s possible,&#8221; Sessions said.<\/p>\n<p>That set the  tone for Republican parrying with Holder. Grassley said he never  intended &#8220;to call into question the integrity of any employee of the  department&#8221; when requesting the names of department lawyers who  represented Guantanamo detainees. Holder called the &#8220;al-Qaeda Seven&#8221; ad  &#8220;reprehensible, and said that he would not participate in an effort to  &#8220;tarnish the patriotism&#8221; of attorneys who &#8220;did what John Adams did&#8221; by  defending hated clients. Grassley did not press the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Graham  found himself more in agreement with Holder than with Sessions. He  portrayed himself as a Republican who doesn&#8217;t &#8220;reject all [civilian]  courts&#8221; for terrorism cases, an implicit knock at his GOP colleagues.  After Holder <a id=\"n6bi\" title=\"conceded\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82183\/holder-were-still-working-on-indefinite-detention\">conceded<\/a> that 48 detainees from  Guantanamo Bay were &#8220;not feasible to transfer [and] too dangerous to  prosecute,&#8221; <a id=\"ue.e\" title=\"the two men found themselves in substantial agreement\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82199\/just-like-that-graham-and-holder-find-indefinite-detention-consensus\">the  two men found themselves in substantial agreement<\/a> over designing a  system of indefinite detention with annual administrative review in  addition to permitting detainees to receive habeas corpus hearings  before federal judges. Notably, while <a id=\"isb3\" title=\"Sessions contended that military commissions could  better protect classified information than civilian trials\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82165\/you-make-the-call-are-classified-info-rules-different-for-civilian-courts-and-military-commissions\">Sessions  contended that military commissions could better protect classified  information than civilian trials<\/a>, Graham &#8212; as of February, a  leading proponent of that view &#8212; did not. It was easy to forget that  Graham and Holder have spent months on either side of the issue of  whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed deserves a civilian trial.<\/p>\n<p>On  that issue &#8212; one in which both civil libertarians and conservatives  have awaited Holder&#8217;s testimony to see if he would accept a military  commission &#8212; Holder did not give any ground. &#8220;No final decision has  been made about the forum in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his  co-defendants will be tried,&#8221; Holder said, predicting a decision would  not be made for &#8220;a number of weeks.&#8221; Pointedly, he added that &#8220;New York  is not off the table&#8221; as a possible location for a trial, even though  many New York politicians have objected to the trial and called for it  to be moved &#8212; objections that in January raised the prospect of  scuttling civilian trials for the 9\/11 conspirators altogether. When  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged Holder not to hold the trial in New  York, Holder said the Obama administration would &#8220;take into  consideration, obviously, the expressions of the political leadership&#8221;  in the state but indicated those objections aren&#8217;t decisive, adding that  it would also consider &#8220;what we are able to glean from the population&#8221;  about support for the trial.<\/p>\n<p>Holder&#8217;s steadfastness on  the trial won him plaudits from civil libertarians. &#8220;I was glad to see  Holder standing strong against the Republicans trying to beat the  administration over the head with closing Guant\u00e1namo and using civilian  trials,&#8221; Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for  Constitutional Rights, said in a statement. &#8220;If the U.S. is ever going  to regain credibility in the world, the administration can\u2019t let itself  be bullied by fear mongers with their eyes on midterm elections rather  than the law.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Holder&#8217;s embrace of military  commissions and indefinite detention without charge cast a pallor on  their enthusiasm. &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure about Holder. Some of the folks I know  and respect at DOJ think very highly of him,&#8221; said ret. Air Force Col.  Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at  Guantanamo Bay, in an email. &#8220;On the other hand, what I&#8217;ve seen on the  national security front &#8212; basically adopting the same Bush-Cheney  policies candidate Obama was firmly against &#8212; has been disappointing. I  used to get perturbed when the &#8216;flip-flop&#8217; accusation got thrown  around, but it&#8217;s hard to argue that the label doesn&#8217;t fit the  administration&#8217;s waffling view that military commissions are bad, no  they&#8217;re good, no they&#8217;re bad again, oh wait maybe they&#8217;re good after all  approach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Democrats on the committee rallied to  Holder&#8217;s defense. &#8220;I&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that some of the attacks  are to diminish you, and you should remain strong,&#8221; said Sen. Dianne  Feinstein (D-Calif.).<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a  former Rhode Island attorney general and federal prosecutor, tacitly  compared Holder&#8217;s critics to a mob, a resonant image after The New  Yorker recently\u00a0<a id=\"yxco\" title=\"reported\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2010\/02\/15\/100215fa_fact_mayer\">reported<\/a> that a January New York rally  of conservatives against the KSM trial featured someone yelling, &#8220;Lynch  Holder!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The emblems of American justice,&#8221; Whitehouse  said, are &#8220;the blindfold and the balance, and not the torch and the  pitchfork.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. (James Berglie\/ZUMApress.com) Eric Holder stepped into the Dirksen building this morning an embattled man facing Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee fiercely critical of his desire to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other 9\/11 conspirators in federal court. He left three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}