|
HARRIS: Motivation of attorneys worth questioning |
|
|
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 |
My doctor and I have a running joke about his motivation in keeping me alive. I want him to have more of a reason to keep me breathing that just the fact I pay my bills on time.
I’ve often told him that if I die before he does, the first line of my obituary will read “Jim Harris of Bryant, a patient of Dr. Jeff Mayfield, died yesterday.”
So far, this has worked. I’ve come into his office at least twice with chest pains that signaled that I was minutes away from death and he has saved my life with his medical skill.
While we joke about this, I know his real motivation is that he is a caring man who will not let anyone die if he can help it. Please note I am free to use his name because other people have figured this out and he has so many patients he can’t take any new ones.
Still it is important to understand people’s motivation for what they do in life. What drives a person isn’t always easy to determine, but a look at their background can often be revealing.
More than a year ago when the Obama transition team was trying to find people to serve in the new administration, those applying for federal appointments were required to answer 63 background questions before they could be considered.
The Obama questionnaire was one of the most detailed in history. One of those questions had never been asked before. It sought information on gun ownership of potential presidential appointees.
The question read: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”
This question raised concern that gun ownership might be a litmus test for presidential appointees. If you or your family – parents, children, brothers of sisters – own a firearm, you could be disqualified from serving in the Obama administration.
The question was never fully resolved and even after a year in office, Obama has not filled many of the top political appointments he gets to make in federal agencies.
Questions about Obama’s anti-gun position go back to his earlier career in the Illinois Legislature.
During his first run for the Illinois Senate in 1996, Obama said on a candidate questionnaire that he supported legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” When challenged about the questionnaire during the 2008 presidential election this year, Obama said his campaign staff had filled out the questionnaire incorrectly.
Later in the campaign, a version of the questionnaire was discovered that had Obama’s own handwriting on it. Oops.
In 1999 Obama, then a state senator, proposed banning so-called “junk” guns. Junk guns is a code word for what was once called a “Saturday Night Special.” It is what anti-Second Amendment groups call handguns affordable to the average working man.
In 2003 Obama voted to limit handgun purchases to one per month.
Those who support the Second Amendment were right to question the motivation behind this question for appointees.
Strangely, the potential appointees’ questionnaire did not include a very important question for those being considered for jobs in the Department of Justice.
The 64th question for potential Justice Department appointees should have been whether they as attorneys or their law firms had ever represented terrorists. It seems like a fair questions since the DOJ is responsible for prosecuting terrorists.
However, that question wasn’t asked. The Obama administration wants to close the terrorist holding facility at Guantanamo Bay and bring those terrorists to the United States for prosecution. It turns out that about a dozen Justice Department lawyers in the Obama administration have come from private firms representing Guantanamo Bay detainees.
One of those who once worked for a law firm representing terrorists is none other than U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder did not represent any of the people held in Gitmo, but others in his old law firm did.
Last year, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Holder on reports that two DOJ appointees had a conflict-of-interest on prosecuting those held in Guantanamo Bay.
At the time, all that was known publicly was that two high-ranking DOJ officials now working on detainee issues had previously represented Gitmo detainees. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal once represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, and Jennifer Daskal, an official in the National Security Division, worked to free detainees for the ultra liberal Human Rights Watch.
Grassley wanted Holder to disclose the names of all political appointees who had represented or advocated for detainees, the cases they worked on, and their terror-related responsibilities in the Justice Department.
Holder promised to get back to Grassley on that but then didn’t provide the information. This caused all Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to join in Grassley’s request. Holder dragged the answer to that request out a few months, but recently provided that information.
Holder said at least nine other DOJ attorneys had some connection to trying to free detainees.
Holder phrased it “at least” because he said he did not make a complete survey of the DOJ’s political appointees.
The Attorney General confirmed that Katyal and Daskal are working on detainee issues.
Holder gave his personal assurance to Grassley that “all department appointees understand that their client is the United States.”
“As a general rule, DOJ officials will not participate in reviews of specific detainees whom their firms represented, consistent with ethics rules,” a DOJ spokesman said.
The phrase “as a general rule” leaves Holder and other appointees with some wiggle room to work on these cases.
Grassley is right to question this. Can attorneys who worked in the private sector to free detainees in Gitmo be trusted to turn around a year later and prosecute their former clients or their former co-workers’ clients to the full extent of the law?
These detainees are not being held because they parked illegally. Many detainees were captured with a gun in their hands after fighting American troops and their allies in the Global War on Terrorism. If freed, they can be expected to return home and resume fighting Americans.
The motivation of this dozen or more DOJ lawyers isn’t clear. The American people don’t want someone going into court to represent them against these terrorists if these very lawyers have some secret doubt that the people they prosecute aren’t terrorists, but are somehow victims of United States actions against them.
Jim Harris of Bryant is former member of the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force for the Eastern District of Arkansas and former member of the Southern Governors Association Homeland Security Committee. He was the Homeland Security Policy Advisor to former Gov. Mike Huckabee. His column appears on Tuesdays.
|
Razorbacks
