jeh johnson

The Pentagon general counsel, July 7:
Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson suggested to the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the difficulties inherent in bringing legal charges against (or deciding on preventive detention for) about 220 detainees at Guantanamo Bay means that some continued detention past President Obama’s January 2010 deadline for closing the detention facility [...]

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 whether the administration views that as [...]

Minnesota’s Mohammed Abdullah Warsame has admitted to providing material support to al-Qaeda in the form of cash, military training and personnel. He visited al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in 2000. And he kept in touch with old friends. “If you have any news or important information please let me know, because I don’t want to [...]

Jameel Jaffer, head of the American Civl Liberties Union’s national security project, has a few problems with Defense Department General Jeh Johnson’s speculation yesterday that the Obama administration might detain people even after they’ve been acquitted in a terrorism trial. From a just-released statement:
“Continuing to detain a person indefinitely without charge or trial for a [...]

In my just-published piece on the Obama administration and Congress’s plans for military commissions, I quote a former military-commission prosecutor, U.S. Army Reserve Lt. Col Darrel Vandeveld who’s an unlikely commission opponent. A former true-believe in the widespread guilt of the Guantanamo detainees, Vandeveld ultimately resigned from the commissions last September after suffering a crisis [...]

I mentioned this in my 11:37 post this morning, and I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention, so here goes again. Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson suggested to the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the difficulties inherent in bringing legal charges against (or deciding on preventive detention for) about 220 detainees at Guantanamo Bay [...]

I asked the American Civil Liberties Union’s Chris Anders, a military commissions opponent, to react to Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson’s indication that the administration might consider detaining someone even after he’s been acquitted of wrongdoing in court. In replying, Anders pointed to another exchange from the Senate Armed Services Committee that I had neglected:
Jeh [...]

Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the [...]

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 right,” MacDonald said. There’s a fundamental [...]

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, accordingly: how does the administration distinguish [...]