Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said he made the decision to bring criminal charges against the alleged Christmas Day bomber and responded to escalating criticisms of the Obama administration’s handling of the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Eric Holder (file photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)
In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Holder defended the move, saying that “without a single exception” alleged terrorists apprehended in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, have been detained under federal criminal law. He emphasized that “no agency supported the use of law of war detention” in high-level meetings immediately after Abdulmutallab’s arrest.
“I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government,” Holder said in the letter.
The five-page letter (embedded below) was the Attorney General’s first public response to Republican critics who argue that the alleged bomber should have been transferred to military custody rather than charged criminally. He sent identical copies of the letter to 10 other Republican senators: Christopher Bond (Mo.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine), John Cornyn (Texas), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Charles Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.). According to the Justice Department all of those senators had written Holder requesting information on the matter.
The debate has been fierce, with Republican members of Congress charging that the Justice Department squandered an opportunity to gather intelligence — a strange argument, Democrats counter, given Republicans’ silence when alleged terrorists were given the same treatment during the Bush administration.
The Obama administration, for its part, pushed back Tuesday evening by leaking information that Abdulmutallab has been cooperating with the FBI since being read his Miranda rights.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that the political battle was interfering with intelligence work.
“The political dimension of what to me ought to be a national security issue has been quite high. I don’t think it has been very particularly good, I will tell you, from the inside, in terms of us trying to get the right job done to protect the United States,” Blair said, according to Politico.
McConnell and other Republican senators sent numerous letters to Attorney General condemning the decision to treat Abdulmutallab like a civilian, instead of an enemy combatant. Read our previous reports on three of the letters here, here and here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans announced shortly after the release of the Holder letter that they had sent a letter urging panel Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to call the Attorney General to testify before the committee. Leahy promptly issued his own letter rebuking Sessions, the ranking Republican on the panel, for sending the letter without discussing it with him. Leahy said that if Sessions had only asked, he would have learned that Leahy was already working on scheduling a hearing with Holder.
This report was updated 4:22 p.m.
Andrew Ramonas contributed to this report.
