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Lawyers Want Senate To Hear About Ex-Ghost Detainee Before Mukasey Vote
There isn't much time before tomorrow's vote on attorney general-designee and torture agnostic Michael Mukasey. But lawyers from the only former CIA "ghost detainee" still in U.S. custody and with access to legal counsel want the Senate to know what the consequences of a torture regimen are before they give Mukasey their stamp of approval. In a letter written November 1st, they requested a meeting with key Senators, but the letter was only cleared today for release by U.S. authorities.
Two lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Gita Gutierrez and J. Wells Dixon, recently returned from a two-week meeting with their client, Majid Khan, at Guantanamo Bay, where he's been detained since last September. Before he was taken to Guantanamo, Khan spent three years in an off-the-books detention facility run by or in cooperation with the CIA. Neither the Red Cross nor anyone outside a select few U.S. national security officials knew Khan's whereabouts. Since President Bush's 2006 decision to transfer 14 so-called "black site" detainees to Guantanamo, Khan is the first ghost detainee to meet with an attorney.
Gutierrez and Dixon, however, are subject to tight restriction over what they can say publicly about their client. They want to call attention to Khan's treatment from 2003 to 2006 when, for at least some portion of that time, he and other detainees in CIA custody were -- according to the president -- subject to the "enhanced interrogation procedures" that the Bush administration approved in mid-March 2002. While it's not clear what interrogation methods Khan endured, among those "enhanced" techniques was waterboarding -- the inducement or simulation of drowning that Mukasey won't say is torture.
But all of the notes that Gutierrez and Dixon took from their conversations with Khan are under scrutiny by Justice Department and CIA officials to ensure that classified information isn't revealed. Any information related to Khan that might be released in court filings or anywhere else by CCR goes to a CIA information officer for review. Gutierrez and Dixon experienced difficulty even letting Senators know that they had information about Khan that they wanted to share with the Senate.
A letter drafted by the two attorneys on November 1st -- containing absolutely no information about interrogation techniques -- to six U.S. Senators was just cleared for release today by Justice Department and CIA officials. In it, Gutierrez and Dixon plea for a closed-door meeting with Pat Leahy (D-VT), Arlen Specter (R-PA), John McCain (R-AZ), Jim Webb (D-VA) and Khan's home-state senators, Democrats Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin. The letter -- which you can read here -- implores the Senators to meet with the attorneys and "consider our client's experiences in CIA secret detention while exercising your own constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities."
Those responsibilities take on a new salience with Mukasey's nomination. While CCR isn't getting its hopes up that Senators will pencil in a last-minute meeting with Gutierrez -- who's still in Washington reviewing her notes at a secure facility in town -- it does want to make sure that lawmakers hear what's been done to Khan, even if they can't describe the interrogation regimen to their constituents. "We want to meet with them no matter what, but we do want to meet before the Mukasey vote, because it applies to that issue," says a CCR spokesperson. "But it also applies to issues of secret detentions and interrogations" that go beyond Mukasey.
Dixon will be in Washington tomorrow morning in preparation for a possible meeting.
Even by war-on-terrorism standards, Majid Khan's case is unique. As a teenager, Khan moved with his family from Pakistan to a Baltimore suburb in 1996, where the Khans operated a gas station. (He never became a U.S. citizen.) He returned to Pakistan to get married in 2002, but his family suddenly lost contact with him in March 2003, and didn't hear anything about him until September 2006. Only then did they learn, via a release by the Director of National Intelligence, that Majid Khan was believed to have ties through his Pakistani uncle and cousin to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Khan allegedly worked with KSM, as he's known, to plot a bombing of U.S. gas stations; moved money to al-Qaeda associates in southeast Asia; and allowed another al-Qaeda affiliate in the U.S. to use his identity.
Gutierrez, Dixon and CCR filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of Khan in late 2006. In court filings and elsewhere, his relatives have stated that Khan told them he was tortured.
Update: This post has been modified for clarity.
Josh
Zachary
If you think a bunch of suits discussing poor treatment of a Evil Brown Person Who Wants To Kill Us All is going to change the votes of a single Republican, I've got stock in a Pakistani vote-counting machine manufacturer I'll sell ya.
And there's no way Schumer, who's already sold his soul to Israeli interests, reverses. A complete waste of time.
November 5, 2007 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jolly, you said it all.
As the poet said:
"I heard great argument about it and about/But evermore came out the same door wherein I went."
November 5, 2007 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
the center for constitutional rights has been fighting the good fight for some time now. i laud them and would contribute funds for their work if i had more resources.
November 5, 2007 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Recess Appointed-AG Can Be Impeached
It's all well and good for some lawyers -- this late in the game -- to suggest "more evidence." Looks like the Senate is ready to confirm, despite their oath to defend the Constitution.
Some suggest, even with this new evidence, the President could override any Senate delay in confirming a new AG by having a recess appointment. This is meaningless non-sense: Congress can, to override that recess appointment, impeach the offending AG.
If the lawyers are serious about "Presdenting new evidence for Congress to review," they should be serious about presenting evidence of impeachable offenses. If Congress has "no time" to review this new evidence, but will still rubber stamp, then let's stop worrying about whether the new AG is or isn't confirmed, but prosecuting Members of Congress for oath of office violations.
November 5, 2007 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
How does the legal community, in light of the Supreme Court ruling that rendition --- supposedly of ghost detainees -- is a state secret?
Conversely, if this evidence of a ghost detainee "is reviewable", how does the Congress and President explain the claim that rendered prisoners are a "state secret"?
The two are not reconicling.
November 5, 2007 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not a waste of time. This testimony might not change any single Senator's mind, but it's important to get it all on the record. Some day there might finally be criminal prosecutions of this regime and its co-conspirators in Congress. I want it all to be read back to them when they are in the dock.
November 5, 2007 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who will say, Bush Lost Pakistan? That's the big new threat to the White House over the weekend. Bush allowed Pakistan to arrest most of its lawyers and judges. Could that happen here? Why not? What's to stop Bush from copying Musharraf?
Would Mukasey at least denounce Musharraf's actions as tyranny and say no U.S. President has the power to do what Musharraf has done? Leahy must postpone the confirmation vote until Mukasey at least answers that question. Meanwhile, the CCR attorneys can gain a few days to brief Senators on what it really means to allow cruel & inhuman treatment of detainees. Then the Senators can demand that Mukasey denounce cruel & inhuman treatment as a war crime and unconstitutional, and demand that Mukasey pledge legal action against any Executive branch official who orders, allows or conceals war crimes.
Who Lost Pakistan? When will Congress finally acknowledge officially that the White House is an imminent threat to national security and must be restrained by enforcement of war crimes laws?
November 5, 2007 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
jolly ranchero wrote on November 5, 2007 4:14 PM:
And there's no way Schumer, who's already sold his soul to Israeli interests, reverses. A complete waste of time.
Legalize wrote on November 5, 2007 5:20 PM:
It's not a waste of time. This testimony might not change any single Senator's mind, but it's important to get it all on the record. Some day there might finally be criminal prosecutions of this regime and its co-conspirators in Congress. I want it all to be read back to them when they are in the dock.
Jolly Ranchero is absolutely right: at this point, nothing will prevent Mukasey's confirmation but Legalize has a good point: many unpleasant details will emerge and can FINALLY go on the record. Hopefully, someday they will be declasified and available for "us, the people" to examine and for history to pass the final judgement on this dictatorship in disguise known as the Bush admnistration and on our so-called "representatives" in both branches of Congress who looked the other way while our rights were being trespasssed.
November 5, 2007 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody else think that Bush and Cheney are advising Musharaff? Or at least taking notes on how to administer a coup?
November 5, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
We expect our Senators to actually confront the reality of waterboarding and torture by the U.S. government in the form of a real life person who was subjected to these techniques? That's asking too much. Schumer has already made up his mind to sell out his vote in favor of a buddy from the New York club. There is no plausible explanation other than patronage for Schumer's continued support of another Attorney General who waffles on torture. Come on Schumer. You are supposed to be better than them! And Feinstein. You are as bad as Pelosi. Trying so hard to prove you're not the late drinking Volvo driving liberal from California? I'll let you in on a little secret Feinstein, this Republican redneck thug bunch of hicks from Texas are just that. The chip on their shoulder is totally undeserved BS. They are the ones who are crap. Everything they touch, whether it's Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, trade policy, taxes or whatever turns to crap like them. The few die-hard Republicans left are crap. That's reality.
So will the real politicians please stand up already??? Come on Schumer. You are better than this. Stop being a lollipop liberal. Don't just stand there and keep getting licked. Get tough already. No more compromised principles. Let's do the right thing rather than the politically expedient thing. This Administration really can't get any worse. Whether they have an AG in place doesn't matter. Let's get real.
November 5, 2007 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I highly recommend the below link to This American Life (NPR) episode. Ira Glass won a Peabody Award for this episode which is an interview with two Pakistanis that spent a long time at Gitmo.
If you haven't already heard it, be prepared for a shock. It's not angry, lacks hyperbole, but will break your heart. Its funny and sad, the best insight to how bullshit Gitmo and the rest is.
http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1185
November 5, 2007 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Between its opening and Feb. 14, 2002, the number of prisoners at Guantanamo swelled to 300. In late January of that year, Vice President Cheney said the detainees were "the worst of a very bad lot" and added: "They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans."
But of the 773 detainees who have spent time in Guantanamo, the government has released roughly half, most because they had no information and no role in any fighting. The majority were sent home after the evidence against each was formally reviewed at military hearings required in 2004 by the Supreme Court, which rejected the Bush administration's claim that it could detain foreign nationals indefinitely without such sessions.
Of the 393 prisoners who remain today, the military has determined that 85 pose so little threat, they should be transferred to their home countries. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because some evidence about the prisoners is classified, estimate that about 200 pose a danger to Americans.
(source above Washington Post Tuesday, January 16, 2007; A01)
The Gutierrez case however was what Lindsey Graham 'specifically' adressed in the confirmation hearings. Here we have 14 "black site" detainees.
And that is really the 'rub' of all of this: The Supreme Court in 2004 stated that these people had to be given a hearing. And concisely that was what Lindsey Graham was attempting to avoid, seeking legislation to 'circumvent' the Supreme Courts ruling, based on the Jag assumption that if the detainees had been 'coerced' or tortured that their admissions were invalid in hearings and or courts.
You know that if globally there was an appehension of non-US personal, and there was 14 people, instead of the over 700 that Rumsfeld created, that were deemed of significant intel value, then I can imagine detaining these people for a pre-determined amount of time based on time decay of actionable intel, and then having a hearing!
What I would like to know is: What 'draconian circumstances or evidence' prompted the apprehension of these people, and what subsequent anecdotal information was derived that served as the basis of a 'jury nullification' argument for "extraordinary" rendition.
My observation is this:
The unwillingness of the CIA and the Senate to put forth this information is troubling in that it seems that the actionable intel, even after 'time decay' does not meet the bar of the word "extraordinary" in as it required secret rendition.
This seems to be similar to where unqualified interrogators sought confessions from detainees at Gitmo for acts that 'factually' could not have been comitted by the detainee if the case file had been analyzed and the background information taken into consideration, as an example, the cofession of a crime on the first day of the year in two countries at the same time of day by the same individual, can be coerced but undermines both of the confessions made! One must be false!
It seems to me that there is a reluctance to admit that this is not going well in respect to actually garnering any useful intel, that there is a reluctance to admit this fact, and that there is an obstinance to stating categorically that on par this was a bad idea from inception, and as Lindsey Graham points out 'illegal.'
It would seem to me that at the very least: That waterboarding could at least come up with some microfiche in a pumpkin.
And the absence of that folks, is really just the tip of a troubling iceburg as former US allies get democracies that are more akin to Iran and Palestinian and possibly now Pakistan instead of the appointed coallitions we have trouble managing. And I think that 'on par' and minus a genuine 'microfiche in a pumpkin' that this policy used as a GOP plank with Democratic support, has been overall a mistake.
I could see "extraordinary" rendition if you had something damn "extraordinary" to show for it, in court, that would jury nullify the means to have collected the information.
But in as much as nearly 2:3 of the Gitmo folks were picked up wrong.. I think the number by black sites could 1:2.
JMHO folks and I think that the oversight comittees of the Senate don't want the results of their ill conceived authorizations.
The Senate isn't going to listen to the Gutierrez case attorney, the 'experts' might not know sh1t about the act of waterboarding, but know intimately what the Gutierrez case entails, that it is contrary the Supreme Courts ruling, and that the Senates acceptance of the delay of the Supreme Courts ruling troublesome for the institutions that the Senators have oversight over.
So ya see folks...
Maybe the Dems got more in common with Rumsfeld than ya imagined.
November 5, 2007 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't blame Bush for thinking Congress is a lapdog with more bark than bite. They've spent the last 6 years proving that true. Nothing can stand in the way of Bush from getting his way. Congress has done nothing but make speeches as America's security, civil rights, and security have all been victimized by this Presidency. If Bush were to appoint an Attorney General who believed waterboarding is torture, then he'd be setting himself up for a trial that would make Watergate pale in comparison.
The only problem with Bush's strategy is that history proves it can only be effective in the short-term. The Bush legacy will be based on what is revealed in the years after he leaves office.
November 5, 2007 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I absolutely despise the GOP and the Democratic weak-kneed sell out...all they care about is their selves..slime..! I pray their is a special place in hell for those who want to turn this country into aother despotic dictatorship..and I pray with all my heart that these turncoats..these haters of Democracy pay every day for the rest of their miserable lives
November 5, 2007 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am shocked that Schumer & Feinstein are willing to approve Mukasey's nomination in committee.
Every day but the first, his testimony in his nomination hearings proved that he is ALREADY willing to mislead and deceive Congress; to prevaricate and obfuscate; to put King George above U.S. law.
This guy... why are they even talking to this guy? Why NOT force Bush to make a recess appointment? Why put their stamp of approval on someone who has already proved, no matter what his reputation and habits were before his nomination, that now, ethics and intellectual honesty mean nothing to him?
DEMOCRATS PLEASE FIND YOUR SPINES!
November 6, 2007 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
We shall soon learn something useful: which "Democratic" senators are pro-torture.
November 6, 2007 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Men corrupted by power are ignorant of spiritual laws. Bush/Cheney and company will pay for every ounce of suffereing they have caused for many, many lifetimes.
They mistakenly think that they need only to deal with the here and now. If they can cover up or strike down their enemies, they think they will be safe. The laws of men they try to bend or break for their own purposes are nothing to the unalterable law of karma.
November 6, 2007 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't even allow the recess appointment. It's only for vacancies that arise during the recess, not ones that continue into the recess ("all vacancies that may happen during the recess", not "all vacancies that exist during the recess").
This interpretation has eliminated nearly any point of requiring advice and consent, particularly on executive branch (non-lifetime) officers. The power was not given so the President could just "wait out" the Senate--a long series of imperial Presidents have just taken that power without any challenge from the Senate.
At what point is Congress going to reach out and pull back on the recess appointment power?
Oh...right.
November 6, 2007 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Schumer argues in his Times Op-Ed that if Mukasey is not appointed torture will continue under a recess appointment by Bush. Congress should impeach both Bush and the recess appointee should that occur.
Even if Pelosi meant to take impeachment out of the Constitution 15 months more of torture though a dire price is small in comparison to the ratification by the Congress and the Dems if Mukasey is confirmed.
I am prepared to believe that Schumer's rationals and beliefs are as stated. He is too bright to believe that torture is effective. The claims that this is Israeli induced are ridiculous and offensive and hamper the case against confirming Mukasey.
At a minimum Schumer should have refused to vote for Mukasey without obtaining pledges from Spector and others to vote for provisions against torture.
Torture is aleady illegal and waterboarding is torture but since Bush tries to dumb down the definition of torture, it is important to deprive Bushco of this excuse.
November 6, 2007 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
For those asking about the Bush/Musharraf mutual admiration society, you might want to take a look at Scott Horton's latest post:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001608
November 6, 2007 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I applaud the efforts of lawyers to discern "what the consequences of a torture regimen are," I'd be way more impressed to see those lawyers out on the streets, the way their colleagues in Pakistan have been.
When I first heard about the march of all those lawyers in business suits through the streets of Pakistan, I said to myself that that could never happen here. But why couldn't it? And shouldn't it--not only for these questions about Guantanamo, but also for all the perversions of the law that our society has endured in the past seven years?
A bunch of anti-war activists, or mothers, or minorities, or just about any other group? Ho hum to the MSM and a mere gnat to the Administration. But thousands of those millions of lawyers in the US taking to the streets, in full business regalia, would make an impact that would make the six-o'clock news.
If these lawyers think that the USA scandals, Guantanamo abuses, and affronts again the Constitution are bad for the country, get out there and make an impact that Mr. and Mrs. Middle America are going to notice.
November 6, 2007 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink