Did Nazi soldiers who happened to have US citizenship have a right to a lawyer? This absurd legal fiction in which enemy fighters have a right to a lawyer has moved to a new level of madness.
The U.S. military must allow an unnamed U.S. citizen held in Iraq as an enemy combatant access to legal counsel, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday.
The combatant has been held in Iraq since September on suspicion of fighting for the Islamic State. Judge Tanya Chutkan found the ACLU can meet with the prisoner to determine if he wishes to retain a lawyer.
The controversy was occasioned in September when a Syrian militia captured the individual in ISIS-held territory. He was transferred to the U.S. armed forces, who immediately classified him as an enemy combatant.
The court also forbade transferring the combatant to the custody of a foreign power. The New York Times reported Dec. 20 that the Trump administration is considering transferring the combatant to Saudi Arabia, as he was born to Saudi parents.
Three things.
1. He should never have been in US custody. The simplest approach is to keep him in foreign custody and interrogate him. It's still not too late, despite the court order. Judge Chutkan is welcome to try and retrieve the ISIS terrorist once he's in someone else's custody.
2. This isn't a criminal case. The Saudi ISIS terrorist's desire for a lawyer is completely irrelevant to anything and everything. And the administration needed to take a clearer line on captured terrorists abroad from the very beginning.
3. Judge Tanya Chutkan is an Obama appointee. And one of the more dubious picks of a dubious admin.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has recused herself from a second case involving Trump dossier firm Fusion GPS.
Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, recused herself on Monday from a case involving a dispute over subpoenas issued for Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the dossier.
Chutkan recused herself last month from another case involving Fusion GPS. The firm had filed suit against its bank, TD Bank, to keep it from complying with a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee, which sought Fusion’s bank records.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. District Court confirmed that Chutkan recused herself from the case but declined to provide an explanation, citing policy against discussing recusal decisions.
Chutkan’s past legal work could have something to do with the decision.
Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Chutkan was a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner (BSF), an international white shoe law firm founded by David Boies.
At the firm, Chutkan represented Theranos, a medical technology company. Fusion GPS also appears to have worked for Theranos and BSF.
It is unclear when Fusion GPS began working on behalf of Theranos. But The Washington Post reported on Monday that Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch intervened on behalf of the company during a 2015 investigation by The Wall Street Journal.
Fusion GPS is a smear firm. Theranos is a scam. Boies, Schiller & Flexner had links to Clintonworld and was Harvey Weinstein's law firm.
The aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal continues with The New York Times firing the disgraced Hollywood producer’s lawyer David Boies who helped hire a private investigation firm to collect information about the women who accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct and reporters who were investigating his past.
“We learned today that the law firm of Boies Schiller and Flexner secretly worked to stop our reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the same time as the firm’s lawyers were representing us in other matters,” the statement read. “We consider this intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal of trust, and a breach of the basic professional standards that all lawyers are required to observe. It is inexcusable and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies.”
This is the sleazy pond in which the left has been swimming. And now ISIS gets added to the mix.
But Judge Chutkan has been busy.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the government to allow a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant, who was detained after entering the country illegally, to undergo an abortion.
This is what Obama put on the bench.