[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 12 (Monday, January 22, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ANOTHER PENTAGON SMEAR

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, January 22, 2007

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I am sometimes thankful 
for small things--for example, the fact that I am not in charge of 
judging what pronouncement from the Bush administration is the most 
outrageous. While I do not have to pick the winner, I do want to note 
an entry that would be a strong contender for that title: the 
extraordinarily wrong-headed and morally flawed attack by Deputy 
Assistant Secretary of Defense Cully Stimson on American lawyers who 
are defending people detained in Guantanamo. Not only does Mr. Stimson 
impugn people who have taken on an unpleasant job that is in the best 
traditions of the legal profession, and very much in the mainstream of 
American constitutional doctrine, he actually called on business 
leaders in this country to punish these lawyers economically for 
upholding these important American values.
  As the Boston Globe editorial from January 16th points out, ``the 
right to counsel is a pillar of the U.S. justice system'' and the Globe 
correctly asserts that ``Stimson's boss, Defense Secretary Robert 
Gates, should go beyond the Pentagon's pro forma disavowal of these 
remarks and ensure that Stimson watches this `play out' from someplace 
other than a job at the Defense Department.''
  It is intolerable for a high public official of the United States 
Government to try to inflict economic harm on lawyers for upholding 
American constitutional tradition. Cully Stimson's blatant unfitness 
for an important public position ought to be clear to even officials of 
the Bush administration. It is incumbent on the President, Mr. Speaker, 
to repudiate these outrageous sentiments and to take the only action 
that can reassure lawyers in America that they will not suffer from 
doing their duty--firing Mr. Stimson.

                 [From the Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 2007]

                         Another Pentagon Smear

       When the shameful history of the Guantanamo detention 
     center is finally written, one of the few reassuring chapters 
     will be the way lawyers from many U.S. law firms have given 
     pro-bono representation to prisoners who have been denied 
     their Geneva Convention rights. It is especially outrageous 
     that the Pentagon official responsible for detainees has 
     maligned these lawyers and encouraged corporations to take 
     their legal business away from their firms.
       In an interview last Thursday, deputy assistant secretary 
     of defense Cully Stimson said he found it ``shocking'' that 
     lawyers from prestigious firms were representing Guantanamo 
     detainees. ``I think, quite honestly,'' Stimson said, ``when 
     corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very 
     terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs 
     are going to make those law firms choose between representing 
     terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that 
     is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we 
     want to watch that play out.''
       Since the right to counsel is a pillar of the U.S. justice 
     system, Stimson's boss, defense secretary Robert Gates, 
     should go beyond the Pentagon's pro forma disavowal of these 
     remarks and ensure that Stimson watches this ``play out'' 
     from someplace other than a job at the Defense Department. 
     Gates might also set the record straight by pointing out that 
     the only inmates at Guantanamo suspected of links to the 
     Sept. 11 attacks were brought there just recently, after long 
     being held in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons 
     where they had no access to counsel whatsoever.
       Twice, the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo 
     detainees' rights are being denied by the Bush administration 
     in cases brought by the lawyers whom Stimson vilifies. In 
     another case on behalf of Guantanamo detainees in 2005, U.S. 
     District Judge Gladys Kessler said the petitioners' lawyers 
     are acting ``in the very finest tradition of the American 
     legal profession.'' It was a tradition established in part by 
     John Adams's representation of the British soldiers accused 
     in the Boston Massacre of 1770.
       Stimson's remarks came just as critics of U.S. detention 
     policies were noting the fifth anniversary of the use of 
     Guantanamo as a center for indefinite imprisonment of persons 
     captured during the war in Afghanistan, or other fronts in 
     the war on terrorism. The administration should close 
     Guantanamo and try any detainees that it believes responsible 
     for acts of terror or war crimes in U.S. courts.
       Congress's new Democratic majorities should repeal the law 
     passed last year that denies detainees their habeas corpus 
     right to challenge their continued detention. That, like the 
     right to counsel, is another mainstay of the American legal 
     system that must not be a victim of the war on terror.

                          ____________________