Assistant Sec. of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles Stimson suggested blacklisting law firms employing lawyers who provide free legal assistance to Gitmo detainees.
In a Thursday interview he said:
"I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s 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."
Shockingly, the Wall St. Journal editorialized on the same subject Friday.
And what prompted Stimson to review the firms where these lawyers work? Why a FOIA request from right-wing pundit Monica Crowley, former employee of Tricky Dick Nixon...
More down in the sewer.
In addition to Stimson's profoundly anti-American suggestion that the accused do not deserve legal representation, he further smeared pro bono defense lawyers by insinuating they may be secretly on the payroll of terrorists. As the NYTimes reports:
When asked in the radio interview who was paying for the legal representation, Mr. Stimson replied: "It’s not clear, is it? 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 moneys from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that."
Bar Association leaders and lawyers responded with outrage, including some who successfully secured the release of innocent detainees:
Christopher Moore, a lawyer at the New York firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton who represented an Uzbeki detainee who has since been released, said: "We believe in the concept of justice and that every person is entitled to counsel. Any suggestion that our representation was anything other than a pro bono basis is untrue and unprofessional." Mr. Moore said he had made four trips to Guantánamo and one to Albania at the firm’s expense, to see his client freed.
Of course, when we consider the sewer from whence this garbage flows and the coordinated timing, it's clear where the right-wing noise machine intends to take it.
Yes, the FOIA request for names of pro bono lawyers and their law firms was made by right-wing pundit and Nixon apologist Monica Crowley, a shameless plagiarist who learned all about political smears and blacklists at the very feet of the Jedi Master of Jew-Hating.
It appears that these lawyers have been effective at weeding-out those detainees who were wrongly incarcerated and mistreated --and in the process calling attention to the Bush administration's incompetence, corruption and willful indifference to our America's sacred Constitution.
Are detainee lawyers close to revealing something even more scandalous than what we already know, prompting Stimson's to launch such a public un-American smear? The Bush Cult clearly is afraid of something...
Stimson, it turns out, is a lawyer himself. So, as we count-down the minutes before the FOX Nazis, Drugs Limbaugh, Sean Inanity and FairyDrudge go full-bore demanding boycotts of companies who hire the law frms who hire the pro bono lawyers, perhaps any Bar Associations of which Mr. Stimson is a member should consider whether his behavior merits a review of his license to practice law?
Just asking...
UPDATE: Josh Marshall has produced some interesting details connected to this incident, including the experience of a St. Louis TV station employee who was invited by DOD to visit Gitmo with Stimson as his tour guide.