Posted by
Defend America on Monday, February 08, 2010 11:48:21 AM
Marc Thiessen shatters John Brennan's claim that Republicans knew that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody, therefore they should have known that he would be mirandized:
Brennan's Lie on Meet the Press [Marc Thiessen]
Yesterday on Meet the Press,
Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan lashed out at Republicans
for daring to criticize the Obama administration’s bungling of the
interrogation of Abdulmutallab, the Christmas bomber — and said
Republicans should have known he would automatically be Mirandized once
the FBI began questioning him.
Brennan claimed that he spoke
with four Republicans on Christmas night — Mitch McConnell, John
Boehner, Kit Bond, and Pete Hoekstra — and told them that Mr.
Abdulmutallab “was in F.B.I. custody” and that they should have
understood that “F.B.I. custody” meant reading Miranda rights in a civilian process. “None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point,” Brennan said.
The problem with Brennan’s claim?
As I point out in Courting Disaster,
just a few months earlier, the Obama administration announced that its
new FBI-led “High-Value Interrogation Group” (HIG) would not
necessarily Mirandize suspects it was questioning.
In its story on the announcement, the Washington Post reported:
Interrogators will not necessarily read
detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision
on a case-by-case basis, officials said. . . . "It’s not going to,
certainly, be automatic in any regard that they are going to be
Mirandized," one official said, referring to the practice of reading
defendants their rights. "Nor will it be automatic that they are not
Mirandized."
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjUzMzViMTZkMGUyNzUxYjIwZjk4MjE2YTMzMDYwMzI=
Four Republicans in question respond:
GOP fires back: White House did not tell us about reading Abdulmutallab his rights
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
02/07/10 2:24 PM EST
Republican lawmakers are denying a charge
made by top White House counterterrorism official John Brennan that
they were briefed about -- and did not object to -- the decision to
offer full American constitutional rights to accused Detroit bomber
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
On "Meet the Press," Brennan said that on Christmas night, just
hours after Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest Airlines flight
253, Brennan called GOP Senators Mitch McConnell and Christopher Bond,
as well as Republican Representatives John Boehner and Peter Hoekstra,
and told them that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody. "None of those
individuals raised any concerns with me at that point," Brennan said.
"They didn't say, Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be
Mirandized?"
Each of the lawmakers strongly denies Brennan's account. A spokesman
for McConnell says, "During a brief call from the White House, Sen.
McConnell was given a heads up that Abdulmutallab was in custody, but
little else. He wasn’t told of the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/GOP-fires-back-White-House-did-not-tell-us-about-reading-Abdulmutallab-his-rights-83760942.html