We learn more of the sordid details of the plea agreement of Australian David Hicks, whose five-year detention by the U.S., mostly at Guantanamo Bay among the purportedly most dangerous of the dangerous, ended in a nine-month prison sentence.
The plea agreement, which includes a one-year gag order on Hicks, was not negotiated by the military tribunal’s prosecutors but by the official overseeing the tribunals, reports the Post this morning. In fact, the agreement was reached without the knowledge of the prosecutors, who favored a much stiffer penalty.
Australians have long suspected that the political fortunes of Prime Minister John Howard, who is up for re-election this year, would have some bearing on Hicks’ fate. The circumstances of the plea agreement further cement that notion:
Marine Maj. Michael “Dan” Mori, representing Hicks, took his plea negotiations to Susan J. Crawford, the top military commission official, rather than dealing with prosecutors who were seeking a lengthy penalty, according to both sides in the case. In what became a highly politicized situation involving the Australian government, Crawford allowed Hicks a short sentence in exchange for a year-long gag order, a guarantee that he will not allege illegal treatment at the hands of his U.S. captors, and a waiver of any right to appeal or sue.
Though Australian officials have said they were not directly involved in plea negotiations, Mori declined to answer questions about what, if any, influence they had. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, up for reelection this year, has been under public pressure to bring Hicks home. He turned to Vice President Cheney to implore that the case be resolved. Crawford was the Defense Department’s inspector general from 1989 to 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary.
“What an amazing coincidence that, with an election in Australia by the end of the year, he gets nine months and he is gagged for 12 months from talking about it,” said Australian lawyer Lex Lasry, who was in Cuba to monitor the case over the past week.
Could the outcome of the Hicks case be any less legitimate?
On the one hand, you have Hicks being held for five years without trial amidst allegations of torture and other mistreatment, fighting simply to get a fair hearing. His case has become an internationally known example of the Bush Administration’s blatant disregard for basic human rights.
On the other hand, you have the outcome of the case determined not by conventional Anglo-American standards of due process, including evidence presented to an impartial fact-finder, but by the political considerations of the Bush Administration and its ally Howard. Or as a spokesperson for the military commissions candidly told the Post, “Like it or not, the detainees at Guantanamo are from different countries, and that sometimes is a factor.”
It’s another example of politics trumping the War on Terror when it suits the Bush Administration. While you might feel some relief that there is an end in sight to Hicks’ Kafkaesque detention, you can’t help but be left with niggling doubts. Was Hicks a true danger? Perhaps not. But prosecutors thought Hicks would have received a decades-long sentence if the case went to trial. Has Hicks been vindicated? Not at all. The able representation of Hicks by Maj. Dan Mori took advantage of the political situation in Australia to win his client’s eventual release. Mori knew the game that was being played, and played it.
It is a deeply unsatisfying outcome.
Late update: Here’s the Hicks plea agreement. [Thanks to TPM Reader JG for the link.]
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (via Atrios): âIf Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidateâs personal life and personal conduct in office doesnât matter, then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.â
Glenn Greenwald hits another one out of the park:
Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. — including those arrested not on the “battlefield,” but on American soil.
What kind of American isn’t just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is — literally — the exact opposite of what this country is?
Worth reading the whole thing.
Some precious background information on Monica “buzz saw” Goodling, the Justice Department official who’s pleading the Fifth.
TPM Reader RM …
I was a bit surprised (and disappointed) that Tim Russert and Sen. Leahy let Sen. Hatch’s false “there isn’t a shred of evidence” of impropriety canard on MTP go unchallenged, when discussing purge-gate. A Republican former U.S. attorney testified to Congress (under oath, if I recall correctly) that two Republican congressmen called him in an attempt to influence his prosecutorial discretion to benefit one of those congressmen. That’s definitely at least a “shred” and more.
I didn’t see this myself. But Sen. Hatch (R-UT) has shown pretty clearly that he doesn’t have enough respect for the proper administration of the Justice Department to even be on the Judiciary committee. None of his Republican colleagues on the committee have been so exclusively focused on carrying the White House’s water on this one at the expense of the rule of law.
NBC’s Tom Aspell has a kick-butt report tonight on John McCain’s trip to Baghdad.
McCain declared earlier this week on CNN that the media was distorting the conditions on the ground in Iraq and that in fact you could stroll through many Baghdad neighborhoods, a rose-colored account that drew a quick rebuke from CNN’s Michael Ware.
Aspell reports that McCain’s “stroll” today through a Baghdad market was guarded by 100 American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships.
In his Dukakis-in-a-tank moment, McCain himself wore a bulletproof vest on his stroll.
The leakers sure have been quiet this weekend. Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, spent almost six hours Friday being interrogated by the staffs of the House and Senate judiciary committees about the U.S. Attorney purge. Per the terms of the agreement for the interview of Elston, staff was not permitted to disclose what transpired behind closed doors. Still, it is remarkable that nothing about the Elston interview has leaked yet, so far as I can tell. I can’t help but contrast it with the GOP Congress of the Clinton years, which leaked like a sieve.
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): “The Democrats’ honeymoon is fixing to end. It’s going to explode like an IED.”
Maybe he can go try that one out on some of the kids over at Walter Reed.
Today’s Must Read: the administration wonders if we can please get this U.S. attorney purge scandal over with now.
This just in from The Washington Post: Democratic victories bad for the Dems, good for the GOP.
Update: It gets worse. WaPo even ignored its own poll demonstrating the absurdity of its thesis.