9-11-2018

As I do every 9-11 I turn this post over to my friend the talking dog who was actually in New York City on that day.
Because of technical problems you will need to click on the link below.
Perhaps tomorrow this will be fixed.
Perhaps not.

http://www.thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001932.html

Kavanaugh (Continued...)

My concerns about Kavanaugh go beyond what I have read about him -- I have appeared before him. It was not a pleasant experience.

After losing my client's habeas case -- following a "hearing" that was not only a farce but also a shameful display of shenanigans by the attorneys handling the case from the department of "justice." As I have mentioned more than once, having been an attorney for 35 years I have gone up against the best lawyers and the worst. The attorneys that I was up against in Razak Ali's case were amongst the worst I ever dealt with.... but I digress.

I filed the appeal and had some battles early on with the panel assigned to Mr. Ali's case which were disturbing. One of those battles involved  exculpatory documents (those are documents that are helpful to my client) that were withheld by the "justice" department until after the hearing was over. These were not just exculpatory.. they went to the very heart of my client's right to have habeas granted. The government claimed, disingenuously I might add, that they forgot to provide the document -- that the document was classified at the highest secret classification level -- and they therefore did not think that I should be able to see the document anyway... The government attorneys finally remembered this important document right about the time the judge was ready to enter his order (denying habeas). Unbeknownst to me the government attorneys and the judge met and talked about this issue several times after one of the attorneys privately told the judge about the mishap.  When the judge and the government figured out how they would proceed I was informed of all of this. (Kafka would have been proud.)

The judge announced that the government would still not agree to let me see the document and so the judge decided he would not look at the document either.The document was in regards to the government's main "witness" against my client (a fellow detaineed who had been brutally tortured by my government and in statements made by him under torture identified my client as having been in Afghanistan-- a place my client had never been until taken there by the military -- I guess I should also mention that the photo used by the military to get this tortured individual to identify my client was not actually a photo of my client...sigh.)  The judge, who didn't care that the government could come up with an accurate photo of my client, said he would disregard any evidence that came from that particular"witness."

The problem was the whole 5 day "hearing" was about the credibility of this one witness. The judge never did get a handle on that fact and I had to file 3 or 4 post hearing motions to get evidence that came from this individual out of the judge's opinion-- leaving my client's habeas denial down to the only "evidence" against my client -- that he was in a guesthouse where another guest was staying who was wanted by my government.

My appellate panel announced that they wanted to review that document and I fought like hell to keep them from reviewing a document on appeal that neither the judge below nor I had ever seen. They finally relented. I am guessing it was at that time that I learned that I had Kavanaugh on my panel. The only thing that I knew about Kavanaugh at the time was that he probably had lied to the Senate at his confirmation hearing about his role in Guantanao issues while at the white house. So I did what any rightous and hard working attorney would do -- I moved to recuse him. Less than 24 hours later my motion was denied without comment.

At the oral argument I watched this smug judge sit there and glare at me knowing that nothing I said about this case would matter. He is and was a rubberstamp to the Bush administration and that is what he will be to the republican agenda if he makes it to our highest court. I wrote to the judiciary committee this week and sent copies of everything to that committee. Since Mr. Ali's case is again working its way up to the Supreme Court I feel pretty confident that even this judge would have to recuse himself from hearing his case should we be so unfortunate as to have him sitting on that Court but regardless -- he should not sit on that court.

There is alot more I could say about this but that will have to wait for another day.

My good friend the talking dog has posted my letter to the judiciary committe (and the motion to recuse) on his website and you  can read it here.

The Nightmare Nominee to the Supreme Court (UPDATED)

By a nightmare president:

I dont know if we will get to the bottom of this in time to stop Kavanaugh from winning confirmation to the supreme court but it is starting to look like he was more involved in torture than we prevously understood. This from emptywheel.

More emails from Kavanaugh have been released by Senator Booker. The senator is refusing to abide by the republican's designation of these email as "confidential." The emails show that the day after John Yoo wrote his torture memos Kavanaugh was pushing to have Yoo appointed to the 9th Circuit Court of appeals. Yoo however wanted to be made counsel to the CIA. Kavanaugh's fallback was to suggest Yoo be named counsel to the CIA for about a year and then moved to the 9th Circuit.

Read more about these released emails here.

musical interlude....

Because we need one about now.

THE LUNATICS LATEST IDEA...

So it seems that Trump is considering sending a few of the ISIS prisoners to Guantanamo. Sigh.
Read about it here.

One of the many reasons to OPPOSE Kavanaugh

If you have not made calls or sent emails or letters to your senators opposing Kavanaugh's ascension  to the Supreme Court please do so NOW. And of course when it comes to Guantanamo he would be a disaster. Click here to read more.

h/o to Michigan Don.

A stunning development

It is always a pleasant surprise when a judge hearing Guantanamo issues actually follows the rules of law:

Judge Bars Statements Made by Guantánamo Detainees During F.B.I. Interrogations


https://nyti.ms/2nMB7dr?smid=nytcore-ios-share

h/o to David R.

From Roger Fitch and Our Freinds Down Below at Justinian

Controversy continues at Guantánamo, with the political firing of the commissions' Convening Authority; the sudden retirement of the judge in the Cole bombing case; fresh revelations in declassified prosecution documents; and new disclosures of top-secret CIA cables from Thailand detailing al-Nashiri's torture at the time Gina Haspel (now CIA director) was in charge.  

The group habeas previously reported in Fitch, al-Bihani, has now been argued in Washington DC, with the Trump administration claiming it can hold the men (including this man) for "100 years", more here. 

It's not very different from the government's justification in 2003 before the 9th Circuit. There, in the Gherebi case, the Justice Department lawyers - led by Robert McCallam, afterwards ambassador to Australia - presented arguments the court characterised as follows:

"Under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and those detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel, and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged. Indeed, at oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture and that it was summarily executing the detainees."  

READ THE REST HERE. 

We shall see...seems some psychologists are still trying to get back there....

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

to do the military's dirty work...

PSYCHOLOGISTS VOTE NOT TO RETURN TO GUANTÁNAMO AMID HEATED DEBATE OVER TORTURE LEGACY

Shilpa Jindia

August 9 2018, 2:16 p.m.

Read about it here.

The man who almost escaped Guantanamo....

Paige Lavender (@paigelav) tweeted at 6:49 PM on Tue, Aug 07, 2018:
After 14 years of imprisonment without charge, Abdul Latif Nasser thought he was finally going home. Then Donald Trump won. https://t.co/g2o37QyGXr (by @jessicaschulb)
(https://twitter.com/paigelav/status/1026963446456311811?s=03)

h/o to Walt

Yes, it is time for a musical interlude...again.

The forgotten men...

Yes, it has been a long time since my last post. A lot has happened ... and yet nothing has happened. I will update when I can gather the psychic energy.
Until then --

Read this letter from one of the remaining forgotten men.

Happy 4th....

DIFFERENT PRESIDENT -- SAME SENTIMENT.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian....

With a morally bankrupt torture-embracing president, rubberstamp Republican congress, and torture supporters everywhere, it's possible that torture experience helped a torture-camp director become CIA Director.

Gina Haspel formerly ran the CIA's depraved Thai torture operation (on-going under local direction), and some - including conservatives - call her a war criminal. More here and here. Nevetheless, Haspel was narrowly confirmed when six Democrats crossed the senate floor.

It marked a continuation of the free pass Haspel received from the Obama administration for both torture and its cover-up.  She should, however, avoid future travel in rule-of-law countries, e.g, Germany.

Even as Haspel was being confirmed, the CIA's original "legal opinion" supporting its proposed use of torture was produced - after redacting the name of the "lawyer" who concocted it.  

Another incriminating response to FOI requests was the CIA's demand for an advance DoJ "declination of prosecution" for its planned violations of federal laws and the Covenant Against Torture.  

*   *   *

The most absurd case ever brought at Guantánamo, that of the Haspel-supervised torture victim Abt al-Rahim al-Nashiri, has been put on indefinite hold by the presiding military judge, more here.

In a companion nonsense case,  Ahmed Mohammed al-Darbi has been repatriated to Saudi Arabia, having done his duty by grassing up Mr Nashiri in the MV Limburg and USS Cole cases. More here.  

The Limburg bombing involved peacetime piracy against a Panamanian-flagged French tanker in international waters. There's no connection to the US, but the Pentagon's reliable (if shambolic) Court of Military Commission Review reversed the military judge's dismissal of the claims.

The Cole bombing involved Americans, but still no war; even if hostilities had been implicated, the attack would be legal, absent "perfidy". 

All the other USS Cole defendants were successfully convicted in civilian US courts years ago, where Nashiri - now depicted in his military commission as the mastermind and architect of the Cole bombing - was just an "unindicted co-conspirator". He was unavailable for US trial because the CIA was busy torturing him in three countries overseas. Two of them, Poland and Romania, have been ordered by the European Court of Human Rights to pay Nashiri damages for their part in his CIA torture. More here.

Nashiri's ordeal in Thailand was personally supervised by the psychologists Mitchell and Jessen (the CIA has settled a civil suit for damages against them) and by Gina Haspel, the new CIA director.  

Steve Vladeck sorted out the Nashiri mess here and here.

*   *   *

The military commission of Abd al-Hadi is picking-up speed at Guantánamo. Al Hadi is one of the few at Gitmo charged with a real war crime - killing civilians. Many of the other charges seem doubtful in light of his combat status, but a freshly-stacked supreme court may ultimately rewrite international law, the Geneva Conventions and the US constitution to make "conspiracy" and other civilian offences valid tribunal crimes.

The 9/11 defendants are likewise accused of killing civilians, although there wasn't any war underway on September 11, 2001. The military judge in that case got around the lack of hostilities by deferring to the self-serving characterisations of military jurisdiction by congress and the executive.  

*   *   *

In a new global attack on Gitmo detention, a group habeas petition has been brought in DC supported by the human rights law firms Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights. More from Lawfare, HRW's Laura Pitter and Just Security. 

The case, styled al Hajj v Trump, emphasises Mr Trump's anti-Muslim animus, and is beginning to bear fruit under an Obama-appointed judge. 

READ THE REST HERE....

No surprises here.

So the lunatic is trying to cut off due process rights to individuals who are seeking asylum in my country -- as though seeking asylum is a crime! And now he is trying to hold the children hostage by offering to release the kidnapped kids in return for their parents giving up claims of asylum.

I expect next, in continuing with parallels to Guantanamo, that the republicans will seek legislation barring the asylum seekers from obtaining any damages from these illegal practices.

Read more here.