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 More…
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) More…
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 More…
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 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…
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…
Congratulations to Michele Flournoy, whom the Senate just confirmed as the new undersecretary of defense for policy; Jeh Charles Johnson, whom the Senate just confirmed as Pentagon general counsel; and Robert Hale, whom the Senate just confirmed as Pentagon comptroller. All of these newly-minted senior Pentagon officials testified together in More…
Kate’s last post about Eric Holder brings up something that struck me kind of funny, as Bruce Springsteen would say.
Notwithstanding Holder’s language about whether we’ve been at war since before 9/11, Kate tells me she hasn’t heard Holder use the phrase “war on terror” or “war on terrorism” in More…
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