Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, Attorney General Eric Holder faced a number of criticisms from House Republicans on the use of civilian courts to try suspected terrorists. In doing so, he addressed a number of myths underlying Republican criticism of using civilian courts instead of military commissions.
Ironically, Holder sounded least confident when defending the Obama administration's continued use of military commissions, noting that the commissions allow hearsay evidence but that “it doesn’t mean that you’re being unfair to the defendant; you’re simply looking at the particular forum that suits the particular facts of each case.” Nothing says "legitimacy" like forum-shopping for where you'll get the best result.
Classified information: Holder noted (as Spencer Ackerman reported last week) that the procedures for handling classified information in military commissions are based on the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA, which governs the disclosure of such information in federal court. “The system that is in place in the military commissions is actually based on CIPA,” Holder noted.
Using trials as a platform: Holder noted that Aafia Siddiqui, who was recently tried in New York on terror-related charges, was removed from the courtroom after the first day because of her outbursts. “Article III Judges are used to dealing with people like this and know how to deal with them,” Holder said, adding that judges in military commissions "don’t feel as comfortable clamping down on a defendant who’s trying to do that.”
Civilian Trials for terrorists are a radical departure from Bush: Texas Rep. John Culberson asked Holder why one of the alleged Tanzania bombers, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was getting a civilian trial when he was a foreign national. Holder's response was to point out that the other conspirators had already been tried in civilian court, during the Bush administration.
Federal Courts mean terrorist defendants are being "coddled": Holder said this presumption got his "blood boiling," adding that “they have the same rights that a Charles Manson would have, any other mass murderer ... those are the comparisons people should be making, not to average citizens who have done no harm and committed no crimes.”
Culberson didn't like this answer and asked Holder whether Osama bin Laden would also have the same rights as Manson. Holder seemed to joke that they were "comparable people" at which point Culberson accused Holder of not realizing that the nation was at war. The hearing hinted at the intellectual influence National Review writer Andy McCarthy has on the GOP's national-security policies. Rep. Frank Wolf entered several of McCarthy's screeds into the record, and Culberson practically quoted McCarthy verbatim when he accused Holder of wanting to "clothe Osama bin Laden in the rights of the U.S. Constitution.”
After a lengthy exchange, Holder told Culberson the debate over bin Laden getting rights was an academic one.
“We will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden; he will never appear in a U.S. courtroom -- that is the reality,” Holder said.
The GOP opposition to a trial for bin Laden is bizarre. As I've said before, complaining about a trial for bin Laden would be like winning the lottery and then complaining because the money was given to you in euros.
-- A. Serwer
