[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 30, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E212-E213]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          ``DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR THE INDEFENSIBLE''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 30, 2007

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, earlier this session I 
inserted into the Record a cogent editorial from the Boston Globe 
calling for the dismissal of Deputy Assistant Secretary Charles 
Stimson, who outrageously urged corporations in America to boycott 
attorneys who performed their duty as lawyers in defending people 
accused of violating the law who were incarcerated in Guantanamo. While 
Mr. Stimson has since been forced to apologize, the apology was an 
entirely unconvincing one, in which he claimed not to have meant what 
he clearly said. A recent article in The Washington Post by the very 
able writer Richard Cohen correctly questions the apology, makes clear 
once again how wildly outrageous Mr. Stimson's comments were, and 
concludes correctly that ``his words show that he is unfit for 
government service. . .'' I ask that Mr. Cohen's thoughtful column be 
printed here because it is our responsibility as elected officials to 
continue to protest Mr. Stimson's presence in our Government, 
particularly in a position where he should be advocating policies 
exactly the opposite of his call for the boycott of conscientious and 
courageous attorneys.

            Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible

                           (By Richard Cohen)

       ``On the cold moonlit evening of March 5, 1770,'' writes 
     David McCullough in his magisterial ``John Adams,'' ``the 
     streets of Boston were covered by nearly a foot of snow.'' A 
     crowd set upon a lone British sentry at Boston's Province 
     House, taunting him. Quickly, reinforcements arrived, and so 
     did a larger crowd. Soon the crowd hurled snowballs, chunks 
     of ice, oyster shells and stones. The soldiers, now nine, 
     opened fire, killing five Bostonians--``bloody butchery,'' 
     Samuel Adams called it. Only one lawyer would defend the 
     British soldiers. He was a different Adams--John Adams, a 
     good man on the path to being great.
       I resurrect this tale about Adams because it is sorely 
     needed. Just this month, an official in the Bush 
     administration, a deputy assistant secretary of defense named 
     Charles D. Stimson, suggested that lawyers who defend 
     terrorism suspects being held at Guantanamo not only should 
     not do so but that their firms ought to be blackballed as a 
     result.
       ``I think, quite honestly, 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,'' he said in a radio interview. 
     You may want to read that again.
       It's hard to know where to begin. Shall it be with the 
     notion that the Sept. 11 terrorists did not so much murder 
     about 3,000 people as hit the ``bottom line'' of American 
     corporations? This is a stunningly original take on that 
     awful day, an auditor's reading of history that Stimson, in 
     the spare time he deserves to have in abundance, might want 
     to apply to the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the burning of 
     Atlanta. I doubt that any CEO look at Sept. 11 as a bad day 
     at the office.
       More to the point, what sort of lawyer--and Stimson is 
     one--not only thinks that a terrorism suspect does not 
     deserve counsel but that the counsel ought to be punished as 
     a result? It's hard to fathom a lawyer saying such a thing--
     even hard to fathom it from a mere citizen.
       It would be just a waste of my time, I suppose, to point 
     out that the Guantanamo suspects are just suspects, convicted 
     so far of nothing. In fact, some of them have been released 
     and others, arrested and held elsewhere, turned out to not be 
     the mass murderers and master criminals the government, in a 
     fit of hype, originally accused them of being. Anyone who 
     thinks all prosecutors speak nothing but the truth need only 
     familiarize themselves with the case of the lacrosse players 
     at Duke. There's a sad lesson in American jurisprudence for 
     you.
       Naturally enough, Stimson's repudiation of everything John 
     Adams stood for produced some protest, condemnation and 
     outrage. Following the well-established Washington rule, 
     Stimson apologized, doing so in a letter to The Post. He 
     said his remarks did not reflect his ``core beliefs.'' He 
     did not blame his utterance on drugs, booze, Twinkies or a 
     deep depression; he merely said that his words had left 
     the wrong ``impression.'' With that, he has returned to 
     the obscurity from whence he came, his job presumably 
     secure.
       I, for one, do not accept Stimson's apology. I think it is 
     insincerely offered and beside the point. What matters most 
     is that he retains his job, which means he retains the 
     confidence of his superiors in the government. How anyone can 
     have confidence in such a man is beyond me. There are only 
     two explanations, one inexcusable, the other chilling. The 
     first is that his bosses don't care. The second is that they 
     agree with him.
       I would guess that Stimson strongly felt it was No. 2--
     agreement. From the get-go, the Bush administration has taken 
     the position that anyone it detained on terrorism charges

[[Page E213]]

     was guilty. Throw away the key. No need for lawyers. No need 
     for judges. No need for anything except, of course, the word 
     of the authorities. In recent months, a more assertive 
     Congress and the courts have unaccountably challenged this 
     view, and the Bush administration has beaten a tactical 
     retreat on unchecked eavesdropping and the legality of trying 
     alleged terrorists before military commissions. Still, we all 
     know where its heart is on these matters. Justice is what the 
     administration says it is.
       By now, any other administration would have fired Stimson, 
     apology or not. His words show that he is unfit for 
     government service, not to mention membership in the bar. 
     Fortunately for him, if and when someone does drop the ax, 
     some misguided lawyer, infused with the spirit of John Adams, 
     will defend him. I hope Stimson will forgive him.

                          ____________________