Thursday, February 04, 2010

Mukasey flip-flops: X-mas bomber should be treated as unlawful combatant and not defendant

On PBS Jim Lehrer News Hour show yesterday, Lehrer asked former AG Michael Mukasey should the X-mas day bomber case be handled through the federal civilian court. Mukasey answer? No. He feels that X-mas should be treated as an intelligence asset and unlawful combatant and not defendant. Read more.

Mukasey's words will bite him:



Via TAPPED, you can read the full letter from AG Eric Holder below.


Adam Serwer picks up on a key paragraph in which Holder responds to the argument of some Republicans that Abdulmutallab should not have access to a lawyer. Look, Holder argues, at the past actions of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey:


Some have argued that had Abdulmutallab been declared an enemy combatant, the government could have held him indefinitely without providing him access to an attorney. But the government's legal authority todo so is far from clear. In fact, when the Bush administration attempted to deny Jose Padilla access to an attorney, a federal judge in New York rejected that position, ruling that Padilla must be allowed to meet with his lawyer.



Notably, the judge in that case was Michael Mukasey, my predecessor as Attorney General. In fact, there is no court-approved system currently in place in which suspected terrorists captured inside the United States can be detained and held without access to an attorney; nor is there any known mechanism to persuade an uncooperative individual to talk to the government that has been proven more effective than the criminal justice system.



1 comment:

airJackie said...

You know the money is good when Mukasey openly lies and did the same thing AG Holder did. Mukasey looked like a complete idiot and again degraded his reputation as a Law Official. He couldn't even come up with something one could believe and then got mad. Yes Mukasey was told he had to make the decision because the President had no Law knowledge, while Holder had Obama who is a Constitutional Lawyer to help with the decision.