Guantanamo/Detainees

CIA Reportedly Will Pay Legal Fees of Officers in Interrogation Abuse Probe

The CIA will make sure officers investigated for interrogation abuses have legal representation, according to a senior intelligence official. The unnamed official told the Washington Post that CIA Director Leon Panetta “will do everything he can to ensure that anyone who needs legal representation has it, whether they have liability…

Aug 28, 2009 12:07 PM CDT

Were John Yoo and Jay Bybee Duped into Approving Waterboarding?

CIA medical personnel later objected to a description of the safety of waterboarding contained in a report sent to Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee. The suspect report formed the basis for a legal memo approving waterboarding of terrorism suspects, the Washington Independent reports. The Office of Medical…

Aug 26, 2009 12:37 PM CDT

Lawyers Helped Set Detainee Routine in Painstaking Detail

Newly released CIA documents illustrate that lawyers helped oversee the smallest details of detention and interrogation for terrorism suspects. The documents dispel the impression of CIA operatives run wild, according to the New York Times. Instead they make clear that the rules were “dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing…

Aug 26, 2009 12:05 PM CDT

AG Names Prosecutor for Detainee Interrogation Probe

Updated: Attorney General Eric Holder has named a federal prosecutor to consider whether to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of some current and former CIA employees for abuses in interrogations of terrorism suspects. The Washington Post broke the news earlier today that Holder was set to name federal prosecutor John…

Aug 24, 2009 6:44 PM CDT

DOJ Report to Recommend Pursuing Detainee Abuse Cases

A report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will recommend reopening almost a dozen cases alleging abuse of terrorism detainees during their interrogations, a source tells the New York Times. Many observers believe Attorney General Eric Holder will appoint a prosecutor to investigate; his decision is expected within…

Aug 24, 2009 11:42 AM CDT

FBI Questions 3 JAG Lawyers About Photos Shown to Gitmo Clients

The FBI has questioned three military defense lawyers to learn whether they showed photographs of interrogators for the CIA to Guantanamo detainees accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks. The photos may have included undercover CIA agents, according to stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times. The…

Aug 21, 2009 11:59 AM CDT

Protesters Greet Law Professor John Yoo at UC Berkeley

At least four protesters were arrested in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday after they refused to leave the lecture hall where former Justice Department official John Yoo was teaching a civil law class. Protesters shouted “war criminal” as Yoo entered the building at the University of California Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law…

Aug 18, 2009 11:43 AM CDT

Newport News Is Possible Site for Trials of Guantanamo Detainees

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia are competing to prosecute accused high-profile terrorists housed at Guantanamo, but local leaders in Alexandria, Va., have opposed the proposed site there. Now a new contender for the trials has emerged: a high-security courthouse in Newport News, Va., that opened last year, the…

Aug 14, 2009 11:35 AM CDT

2 Psychologists With ‘Famously Little Experience’ Engineered Post-9/11 Tactics

As U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder considers whether a criminal torture inquiry is needed into the tactics used by the CIA after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, renewed attention is focusing on those who engineered the agency’s interrogation program for suspected terrorists. Contrary…

Aug 12, 2009 11:59 PM CDT

AG Reportedly Close to Appointment of Prosecutor for Interrogation Probe

Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly close to appointing a criminal prosecutor to probe allegations that the CIA committed abuses in the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Unnamed government officials told the Los Angeles Times that the probe would focus on whether officials went beyond techniques authorized in Justice Department memos.…

Aug 10, 2009 3:08 PM CDT

White House Denies Report that Counsel Greg Craig May Be on His Way Out

The White House is denying a report that White House counsel Greg Craig may leave his government post. Unnamed sources told the Wall Street Journal that administration officials are having discussions that could result in Craig leaving the job. He is under fire for failing to manage the controversy stemming…

Aug 4, 2009 11:29 AM CDT

Michigan and Kansas Eyed as Site for Gitmo Detainee Prison and Court

A soon-to-be-closed prison in Standish, Mich., and a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered as possible sites to hold and try Guantanamo detainees. The facility would be run jointly by the Justice Department, the military and the Department of Homeland Security, the Associated Press reports. Some detainees…

Aug 3, 2009 11:59 AM CDT

An Award-Winning ‘Response’

There aren’t many practicing lawyers with backgrounds as character actors on television. And there are even fewer whose acting career includes both The Sopranos and Law & Order.

Aug 2, 2009 2:20 AM CDT

Federal Judge Orders Release of Young Gitmo Detainee

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the release of a Guantanamo detainee who may have been as young as 12 at the time of his arrest. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle said the government should release detainee Mohammed Jawad within three weeks, enough time to filed required reports…

Jul 30, 2009 6:26 PM CDT

What Alberto Gonzales Would Like to Ask Judge Sotomayor

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a few questions he would like to ask U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. And one of them concerns the war on terrorism. Gonzales, whose Justice Department gave legal approval for harsh interrogation techniques of terrorism suspects, writes in the New York Times that…

Jul 13, 2009 1:25 PM CDT