Bush administration lawyers have suffered a variety of embarrassing legal setbacks in their handling of Guantanamo detainees, in large part because the president’s team has tortured them and denied them due process rights.
As Michael Froomkin noted, the administration is now poised to lose in court, so one of Bush’s lawyers has decided to take the low road. The very low road.
Most Americans understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
“Actually you know I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,’ and you know what, it’s shocking,” he said.
Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”
Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. “It’s not clear, is it?” he said. “Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.”
Ideally, it’s the kind of incident that should force Stimson’s resignation. It’s simply beyond the pale.
Stimson, unprompted, unethically, and dishonestly, accused a series of respected law firms of literally traitorous behavior. He ignored the fact that some of these detainees may be innocent, rejected the fact that our system guarantees that everyone is entitled to a defense, and implied, on the air, that these firms may be financed by terrorist funds.
The WaPo added:
[I]t’s offensive — shocking, to use his word — that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It’s shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms’ corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work.
And it’s shocking — though perhaps not surprising — that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo.
For all our hopes that McCarthyism is a thing of the past, the Bush administration reminds us that we still aren’t rid of these disgusting tactics.
Post Script: Michael Froomkin adds, “[T]he first firm to cave on this issue is going to find it awfully hard to recruit elite law students, as they will have demonstrated a serious lack of moral fiber. If you won’t stand up for your most desperate clients, what kind of firm are you?”