One lingering question from today’s Senate hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder is just how the Justice Department determines which terror suspects get tried in a criminal court and which get tried in a military commission. It’s a persistent uncertainty: David Kris and Jeh Johnson, the two senior-most officials More…
Mike Isikoff scoops the world that retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald is going to be appointed new chief “convening authority” of the revamped military commissions — basically the guy who decides if prospective detainees will receive the military-commissions version of indictments — a sign that the new commissions are More…
Just in case he wasn’t familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today to urge reauthorization of expiring provisions of More…
This is from a just-issued FBI press release about a new terrorism indictment against seven men in North Carolina:
From roughly November 2006 through at least July 2009, the indictment alleges that Daniel Boyd and the other defendants conspired to provide material support and resources to terrorists, including currency,
Ever since Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson mused that the Obama administration had the power to detain people acquitted at trial of terrorism charges — and he didn’t distinguish between the limited detainee cohort currently at Guantanamo Bay and future terrorism captures, either — it’s been difficult to gauge More…
Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the Navy judge advocate general, has some problems with the Obama administration’s desire to place a “voluntariness” standard on evidence entered into military commissions. “This is an area where I do disagree with the administration and I think the [Senate Armed Services] committee got it More…
President Obama established five categories of detainees in his May 21 National Archives speech and discussed creating or reforming different mechanisms for dealing with them, including trials in federal courts, military commissions and preventive detention. During today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) wanted to know, More…
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wants to know why the Justice Department’s David Kris thinks the military commissions need to withstand constitutional scrutiny by the courts. Does this mean the administration thinks the detainees might have constitutional rights, McCain asked. “Yes, they More…
All three witnesses — the Defense Department’s Jeh Johnson; the Justice Department’s David Kris; and the Navy Judge Advocate General, Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald — praised the Senate Armed Services Committee’s new legislative initiative to reform the military commissions. But MacDonald went a bit further from a civil libertarian perspective More…
Remember in May, when President Obama spoke about five categories of terrorism-related detainees for which his administration was creating or updating the legal architecture to process? Category two — detainees who “violate the laws of war and are therefore best tried through military commissions” — will be debated in More…
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