Gibbs Pushes Back Against GOP’s ‘Soft On Terror’ Attacks

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on MSNBC this morning to push back against Republican attacks that the administration is soft on terror because the Christmas Day bomber was read his Miranda rights.

Gibbs argued that the FBI interrogators who questioned Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are “among the most experience interrogators” in the country.

“We have listened to politicians in Congress describe how they think is best to interrogate somebody who tried to blow up an airplane that landed in Detroit. I think what’s better, and what would make the American people feel safer, is if the people who are trained to interrogate, law enforcement professionals, people with decades of counter-terrorism experience are the ones who are doing this,” he said.

Some Republicans — notably Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Pete Hoekstra — have said the government lost critical intelligence when they Mirandized the suspected terrorist Abdulmutallab. Abdulmutallab reportedly spoke to authorities for less than an hour when first arrested, but opened up again five weeks later.

Gibbs dismissed the claim that the government lost intelligence by reading Abdulmutallab his rights.

“He didn’t just stop talking because he got Mirandized. He stopped talking because he was trained to stop talking,” Gibbs said. “If someone isn’t gonna talk it doesn’t matter if you’ve read them their Miranda rights.”

To make his case, he spoke about Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was held as an enemy combatant for three years, accused of building a “dirty bomb.” He was eventually convicted in civilian court on different terrorism-related charges.

“Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so we could get him to talk. And guess what happened: When we made him an enemy combatant, he didn’t talk,” Gibbs said. “He did talk when he was transferred back to a civilian court.”

Gibbs also dismissed a GOP claim that the FBI acted alone, without consulting the military or intelligence agencies.

“The Department of Defense, the intelligence community and the FBI all came to an agreement that the way he was being interrogated and what has now lead to his cooperation, was the path that we should go down,” he said.

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