Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”
—Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, on Obama’s approach to the war on Islamic terrorism
The O’Bamster White House can’t back pedal from their stories fast enough.
White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan fought back against criticism that the Obama administration erred by allowing the FBI to read failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights. Brennan sought to portray Republican sniping as purely motivated by politics.
Which is hilarious, given the fact that Obama has politicized GITMO and the war on Islamic terrorism since he ran for office.
“On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress,” Brennan said on NBC, specifically identifying Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as the ranking Republicans on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.
“I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point,” Brennan said. “They knew that ‘in FBI custody’ means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point. They didn’t say, ‘Is he going into military custody?’ ‘Is he going to be Mirandized?'”
Uh, not when he didn’t bother to tell them that Abdulmutallab was being treated like a common criminal. Guess that slipped his mind.
Not surprisingly, the recipients of the brief, vague phone calls, have a different description.
“During a brief call from the White House, Sen. McConnell was given a heads up that Abdulmutallab was in custody, but little else,” said McConnell spokesman Don Stewart. “He wasn’t told of the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab.” Stewart said Brennan “is clearly trying to shift the focus away from the fact that their bad decisions gave terrorists in Yemen a weeks-long head start.”
In a statement, Bond said that “Brennan never told me any of plans to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber–if he had I would have told him the Administration was making a mistake.”
Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said that this “Administration, and this Administration alone, made the dangerous decision to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and treat him as a common criminal, not a terrorist, and it did so without even consulting our intelligence chiefs. Instead of attempting to dodge responsibility, John Brennan and this Administration should focus on fixing the near-catastrophic intelligence breakdown that failed to prevent this attack.”
And it doesn’t help when Eric Holder and Obama decide to keep their own security agencies in the dark.
Many of the Republican leaders referred to January 20 testimony at the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee when the ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Michael Leiter, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center; Admiral Dennis Blair (ret.), director of the National Intelligence; and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, if they had been consulted regarding the decision to file criminal charges against Abdulmutallab in a civilian court.
“I was not,” said Leiter.
“I was not,” said Napolitano.
“I was not consulted,” said Blair. “The decision was made on the scene.”
“Can anyone take seriously the White House’s assertion that it consulted with Republicans when President Obama didn’t even consult his own Director of National Intelligence, FBI Director or Homeland Security Secretary concerning Abdulmutallab?” asked Hoekstra in a statement.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/white-house-republicans-were-briefed-abdulmutallab-was-in-fbi-custody—-did-they-think-that-didnt-mean-he-was-mirandized.html
Brennan didn’t mention that Abdulmutallab had been Mirandized because he knew damned good and well there would be strong objections.
The Obama regime has a lot of fucking nerve accusing anyone of “politicizing” the handling of terrorists. These are the same assclowns who politicized the successful enhanced interrogations, because the truth is inconvenient.