Guantanamo

 

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Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 3
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What you missed : On Friday, Lt. Col. Frakt agreed to an exclusive interview with Maddow. But shortly after the interview was taped, federal agents, sporting a secret warrant from the FISA Court, forced their way onto the set and confiscated the video footage, citing national security. Fortunately, one of the technicians secretly recorded the interview on his iPhone, which is how Salon obtained the following transcript:

Maddow: Lt. Col. David Frakt is a JAG officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and a law professor in California. Professor Frakt, welcome back to the program.

Frakt: Happy to be here, Rachel.

Maddow: Is it true that you’re a terrorist sympathizer?

Frakt: Yes, Rachel. That’s why, in 2008, I volunteered to represent detainees at Guantánamo. The chance to actually be a U.S. government-paid spokesperson for al-Qaida under the guise of "promoting fairness, justice and the rule of law" was just too delicious an opportunity to pass up. I figured the military commissions at Guantánamo would be the perfect soapbox for me to espouse my terrorist ideology.

Maddow: And did your position as a defense counsel give you the opportunities that you were seeking?

Frakt: Not exactly, Rachel. The whole experience was a bit disappointing. Initially, things looked very positive. The first detainee I was assigned to represent, Ali Hamza al Bahlul, was a member of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle and a very committed al-Qaida member. In fact, he has been frequently referred to as the al-Qaida minister of propaganda. So, I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

Maddow: So why didn’t it work out?

Frakt: Well, sadly, Mr. al Bahlul wouldn’t cooperate. He refused to let me represent him in court or speak on his behalf. He said he didn’t trust me because I was an American military officer. In fact, he basically boycotted the proceedings and ordered me to do the same. Can you believe that?

Maddow: That must have been very frustrating for you. Didn’t you also represent another client, a juvenile?

Frakt: Yes, I did represent another young Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, but he was a big disappointment also.

Maddow: How so?

Frakt: Well, as it turned out, he wasn’t a member of al-Qaida, or even the Taliban. In fact, he wasn’t a terrorist at all. He didn’t even know any terrorists! The only real consolation with Mohammed was that the United States had tortured him, so I was able to exploit that for substantial propaganda value, but otherwise, he was a dud.

Maddow: What happened to him?

Frakt: Unfortunately, after I proved that his confession was the product of torture and that he was innocent, he was ordered released by a federal judge. I’m pretty sure she is a terrorist sympathizer as well. In fact, your viewers may be interested to learn that all the judges on the Federal District Court bench in Washington are part of one big al-Qaida sleeper cell.

Maddow: How do you know this?

Frakt: Well, it’s obvious, Rachel. What other explanation is there for the fact that they’ve granted habeas corpus petitions and ordered the release of 33 detainees out of the 44 cases they’ve heard?

Maddow: Could it be that the government didn’t have sufficient evidence?

Frakt: Don’t be naive, Rachel. They’re obviously fellow al-Qaida sympathizers. The only reason they don’t let them all go is they don’t want to blow their cover.

Maddow: I see. One final question, professor Frakt. In your previous appearances on the program, you were in uniform; why aren’t you in uniform today?

Frakt: Well, after I actually won a case at Guantánamo, the Pentagon didn’t want to give me any more cases, so I was forced to leave active duty and return to my civilian position as a law professor.

Maddow: And how is that going?

Frakt: It’s not so bad. At least in this position, I can indoctrinate the impressionable young minds of the next generation of lawyers with my pro-terrorist views, while getting paid to churn out pro-terrorism "scholarship." Academic freedom has its advantages, although I’m obviously opposed to it for those with differing viewpoints. If I didn’t have to grade papers, this would be the perfect job. Fortunately, I have teaching assistants for that.

Maddow: Well, we appreciate your taking the time to be on our program this evening.

Frakt: Any time, Rachel. I’m always glad to have any opportunity to advance my pro-terrorist agenda.

David Frakt is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve who has defended Guantanamo detainees Mohammed Jawad and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul in front of military commissions.

But there's a catch: The effort to rehabilitate and revive Cheney-style politics doesn't revolve around the man himself. Instead, his daughter Liz has taken up the mantle. Running a now-infamous group called Keep America Safe, she's vaulted herself  to prominence.

Keep America Safe has been in the news recently for an ad it produced, in which it labeled seven lawyers representing Guantánamo prisoners the "al Qaida seven." This provoked outrage from just about everyone who's not a Cheney family member or close family friend. Over the weekend, a statement circulated criticizing the group and calling the video "shameful." Signatories include a number of moderate and conservative figures, and a number of past Cheney allies and former members of the Bush administration.

Cheney consigliere Bill Kristol is firing back the best way he knows. In his magazine, the Weekly Standard, Kristol yesterday went after his new critics as "shrinking violets" who are misrepresenting the issue. Call it a hunch, but I suspect the scales of history won't be tipped by this.

On the other hand, Liz Cheney seems to be planning something a little more aggressive. As rumor has it, at the urging of friends, family and GOP operatives, she's thinking of a run for Senate or Congress, either from where she lives in Virginia or the Cheney ancestral homeland of Wyoming. According to longtime Cheney friend former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., Liz was especially hurt by what she saw as her father’s mistreatment at the hands of the press and even other Republicans.

Simultaneously, however, since as early as 2000 she’s been hearing that she’s a potential candidate, or even a potential president. Her new group seems like a clear dry run for her higher ambitions. "I was excited about Palin; I’m more excited about Liz," enthuses Michael Goldfarb, an operative with the group and a former Weekly Standard blogger. And, although her purpose in running would clearly be to resurrect her father's legacy and agenda, Cheney backer Elliott Abrams warns liberals against identifying Liz with Dick. "If you have a woman candidate and what you’re saying is, 'Don’t pay any attention to what she's saying, just pay attention to her father,' it's not going to be very long before people say, 'What kind of crap is that? This is sexism.'" 

You really have to love a political effort that’s calling critics "shrinking violets" out of one side of its mouth and accusing them of sexism out of the other. (Also, Cheney's own sister Mary says, "I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any daylight at all between Liz’s and my father’s views.")

Of course, isn't clear yet exactly when or where Cheney is going to take the leap. But it looks like she will, and that her ambitions aren’t exactly small. If this is how the battle over the legacy of the Bush administration will be fought, then liberals could hardly have wished for a better opponent. Liz Cheney will give her father and his allies the crudest representation they could possibly find. She’s shown a willingness to attack the president with any weapon she can get her hands on: his birth certificate, pictures of Osama bin Laden, claims that he's kowtowing (literally) to foreign leaders.

So, not really a fresh break from the past yet. Moreover, her group, Keep America Safe, is bankrolled by a Florida strip-mall developer. If you wanted to put a face on the over-building that characterized the worst of the Sun Belt’s excess during the real estate bubble, you could do worse than to point to Mel Sembler. The developer, GOP fundraiser and former ambassador to Italy has urged Cheney to run for office, and says he's "as supportive as (his) budget will allow." Sembler also founded, with his wife, a chain of drug rehabilitation clinics called Straight, Inc., which ultimately folded under charges of abuse. As Reason magazine puts it, "At all of Straight’s facilities, state investigators and/or civil lawsuits documented scores of abuses including teens being beaten, deprived of food and sleep for days, restrained by fellow youth for hours, bound, sexually humiliated, abused and spat upon."

So there you have the rough outlines of a Cheney revival, coming into view: an agenda so discredited that advocacy for it consists mainly of crude and completely unsubstantiated attacks on opponents, funded by a Florida real estate magnate whose primary achievement appears to be bringing Abu Ghraib to American teenagers. It sounds to me like we should start clearing a couple places on Mount Rushmore for the two Cheneys already.

As difficult as the politics are concerning how and where to try the most notorious terror suspect in U.S. custody, that's only one step toward the even more fraught and complicated goal of closing Guantanamo where Mohammed and nearly 200 other terror detainees remain.

Closing Guantanamo was a signature promise of Obama's presidency, and it is still unkept well past his original deadline of January. Failing to keep it would have huge implications for the president, both with his base of supporters in the Democratic Party and in his efforts to remake America's image around the globe.

Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and four other accused Sept. 11 terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City for civilian trials. City officials initially embraced the idea.

But they later reversed themselves, citing the enormous costs, security and logistics of hosting a 9/11 trial -- making things awkward for the Obama administration. And then the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing altered the political dynamic further, as Republicans focused anew on Obama's terrorism policies in general, including the trials.

The drumbeat of policy criticism, combined with the increasingly loud outcry from New York, made it nearly impossible for the White House to hold on to Holder's decision without review. That review is not finished, so no new recommendation is yet before the president. A decision is not expected for weeks, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss private deliberations.

But the recommendation almost certainly will be for a switch to a military process for the five accused men, said administration officials.

The reason for the probable reversal is simple: The more the trial controversy spun out of control, the harder it was becoming to make progress on other, already difficult issues crucial to closing Guantanamo, such as securing funding from Congress for the closure, arranging a replacement facility in the United States and planning other trials.

White House officials now see the Mohammed trial decision as the key to unlocking those logjams.

Republicans in Congress, including Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have proposed a ban on trying terrorism defendants in any American community.

The administration believes a civilian trial is doable, even preferable, as a demonstration of U.S. commitment to rule of law. Officials have cited the numerous terrorism trials held previously in U.S. criminal courts. They also argue that decisions on how to prosecute defendants are not for lawmakers to make.

But the White House also wants to move on.

As the Obama administration has been forced to defend its terrorism policies, the White House has taken control of the decision-making process on major terror trials and in negotiations with key lawmakers, all with greatly reduced input from the Justice Department.

In political terms, that could suggest Obama and his top aides have lost confidence in Holder for not having generated enough political support with local officials before making his decision to try Mohammed in New York. But privately White House aides blame New York officials' reversal and the heightened security fears that followed the Christmas Day bombing attempt.

If Obama does settles on a military commission for Mohammed and the others, he will face criticism from liberal Democrats. This was evident Friday even based on the hint of such a decision.

"If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values," said the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony D. Romero. "Even with recent improvements, the military commissions system is incapable of handling complicated terrorism cases and achieving reliable results. President Obama must not cave in to political pressure and fearmongering."

Donna O'Connor, a spokesperson for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a national organization of more than 200 relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks, also bemoaned the potential choice. "Civilian trials in federal courts have resulted in hundreds of successful terrorism prosecutions whereas military commissions are an illegitimate system that undermine the rule of law," she said.

New York officials cheered, however.

"It makes absolutely no sense to hold a multiyear, almost billion-dollar trial in a community that had already grappled with Sept. 11 and is the financial capital of our country," said Julie Menin, who is chair of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan.

Regardless of reactions, the White House hopes the eventual decision will accomplish one import objective: moving beyond one controversy so Obama can tackle others.

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Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik in New York and Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this story.

The GOP then, like Lucy in "Peanuts," yanks the football away: Party leaders denounce the centrist compromise as radical and dangerous, and employ procedural tactics to stall while building their case with the electorate. By this point in the process, the compromise stance begins to wilt in the face of hardening public opinion. The emboldened opposition intensifies its attacks, the administration retreats, and whichever disastrous situation is being debated -- the job market, say -- continues to deteriorate. The administration, appearing ineffectual and counterproductive, loses much of its remaining purchase on public opinion on this particular issue.

This story is an obviously recognizable one on many of the signal issues of Barack Obama’s presidency thus far. The healthcare fight is the one that fits this pattern most tightly -- and painfully -- but conflicts over stimulating the economy, slowing climate change, and stabilizing and regulating Wall Street have all looked more or less like this. A bit more surprisingly, so has the increasingly vicious debate on what the legal response to terrorism ought to be.

Politico today reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, ever a sly political fox, has found his wedge issue for the midterm elections: the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the president and administration’s incomprehensible (partial) commitment to the rule of law. He's launching what is described as a "relentless, blistering" attack on the administration. Says McConnell, "The core question is whether the attorney general of the United States ought to be in charge of the war on terror. And the answer is no."

This is the end stage of the process. In an excellent article in the current New Yorker, reporter Jane Mayer traces the whole unpleasant business up to this point. When Obama came into office, there was widespread, if not universal, agreement that President Bush’s legal approach to terrorism and detention had to change. Washington wise men like former Secretary of State Colin Powell had largely turned against the administration’s harsh methods, which were of questionable effectiveness and dubious legality. The Supreme Court had rebuked Bush and his aides several times, and even Bush himself said of the prison at Guantánamo, "I’d like it to be over with." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., repeatedly called for closing the base while running for president. (However, foreshadowing what lay ahead, then-candidate Mitt Romney responded to McCain by saying Guantánamo should be doubled.)

But once the president and Attorney General Eric Holder tried to implement the plan they thought had gained the consensus position, everything came apart. The efforts to transfer detainees to the United States provoked a "not-in-my-backyard" backlash in Congress. Then a pair of attacks on Americans, at Fort Hood and on a flight to Detroit, unnerved politicians and, apparently, voters. The parallel idea of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan -- a location chosen because of its high security -- caught fire in the Massachusetts special election for Senate, and according to a consultant for eventual winner Scott Brown, became the most potent issue the Republican had to run on. Moderates like New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, once supportive of the idea of trying Mohammed in New York, got the willies. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who had once pledged his support to Holder, called the idea of moving the trial away from New York "obvious."

Even within the administration, attacks on Holder have mounted as he’s pursued an agenda that seems to be weakening the president politically. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as always concerned with keeping a friendly majority in Congress, accused the attorney general of endangering his relationship with key Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Said Emanuel, "If we don’t have Graham, we can’t close Guantánamo, and it’s on Eric!"

The rule of law is different from, say, healthcare, in that the attorney general doesn’t have to -- and isn’t supposed to, bow to political necessity. Holder seems to believe that he can just push through what is, by his judgment, the best legal course. He told Mayer last month,

This is something that can get a rise out of me, the notion that somehow Eric Holder and Barack Obama, this administration, is not tough. We have the welfare of the American people in our minds all the time. We’ll fight our enemies, and we’ll do that which is necessary, and we won’t turn our backs on the values and traditions that have made this country great. That is what is tough.

Maybe, over time, heat from the public and from the Republicans will dissipate on this, as it did slowly over the course of the last decade before resurging this year. For the moment, though, the GOP is planning to score every point it can. Don’t take it from me -- take it from McConnell: "I’d be the last one to suggest that absolutely everything the administration does is incorrect. When we think that they’re on the right path, they’ll find Republican support." The minority leader continued, "Would I love to have the election tomorrow? I sure would. Early signs are that this could be a good year, but we have a long way to go."

Has anyone else noticed that the once-fierce GOP, which used to be (ickily) considered the "Daddy party," strong enough to protect us (the sexist formulation had Democrats as "Mommy," always wanting to take care of us and wipe our noses), lately seems like a bunch of bed-wetters, afraid to let our Democratic institutions work to keep us safe? We've tried hundreds of terrorists in criminal court and convicted them, and they sit in supermax American prisons. Not one has gotten out to terrorize again. But now Republicans are claiming that the policies pursued by Bush and Cheney regarding criminal trials for terrorists aren't enough. We have to be kept even safer! But if we agree to be terrorized by the thought of using our institutions to protect us from terror, well, haven't the terrorists won? I'm confused.

The administration's decision to put money in next year's budget to fund closing Guantánamo is likewise producing some hilarious moments of hypocrisy. One of the biggest hypocrites is John McCain, who called for the closing of Guantánamo on the campaign trail, in March 2008. That was the McCain of integrity; the former prisoner of war and torture victim who could see that Guantánamo had become a symbol of an America gone wrong, a symbol that was hurting us on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and among Muslims generally.

Back then McCain wanted to transfer the Guantánamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, but a funny thing happened: Both the state's GOP senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, said no. Now the plan is to house them in the near-empty Thomson Correctional Facility, 150 miles outside of Chicago. Local leaders are on board, Ill. Sen. Dick Durbin backs the plan -- but it's become controversial, because Obama's behind it.

So now, his Leavenworth plan scotched by members of his own party, McCain is blasting Obama's Thomson plan. "I have always stated that we need a comprehensive plan to close Guantánamo safely and legally," he said in a statement last month. "The Administration still has not crafted such a plan, and I do not think we should transfer any detainees into the United States until such a plan is presented to the American people and approved by the Congress." Of course, part of developing "such a plan" would involve selecting a site for the detainees and getting it ready, which Obama is doing in his budget. He's not shuttling detainees to Illinois this weekend on Air Force One (stopping maybe at the Super Bowl in New Orleans on the way. "Who dat?" indeed).

And while I'm all for the president conferring with Congress, it should be noted that Bush didn't ask Congress for permission to begin to house captured prisoners, with no charges, at Guantánamo. There are two different sets of rules for Democratic and Republican presidents, and of course the media play along. (Glenn captures my MSNBC friends Chuck Todd, Savannah Guthrie and Mark Whitaker chortling and tsk-tsking over Obama's "self-inflicted wound" in doing with Muhammed what Bush did with Moussaoui. They each know better.)

McCain has changed course on two military issues of late, Guantánamo and "don't ask, don't tell." I'm sure it has nothing to do with having a crazy birther challenger from the right, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. I'm sure he's just being all mavericky again.

On MSNBC's "The Ed Show" Tuesday, I got to respond to Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who was kvetching about Miranda rights for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a New York trial for Muhammed and moving Guantánamo detainees to the U.S. Most of it was standard GOP talking points, but he took a nasty swing at Obama, echoing Dick Cheney's vicious claim that Obama is making the country less safe.

I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm always surprised when these people level what is perhaps the worst charge you can against Obama -- that he's making us less safe -- with absolutely zero evidence. Obama called it "rank politics," but it's worst than usual, because it really is playing politics with American security. Ed Schultz said Barrasso's position "floored" him; I replied we shouldn't be floored by anything anymore, because even formerly sane Republicans will do anything to undermine this president.