Lawyers to be punished economically for defending Gitmo detainees.

[cool user name]

On Countdown right now. Jonathan Turley is commenting on it right now.

Good grief.

[tnlefty]

1. Can we at least call it authoritian retribution yet?

:shrug:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. The idjit stated that these lawyers are representing the people

who hit us on 911. He should consider that those people are dust, and that many of the people at Gitmo do not belong there. If they didn't hate us before they will forever more. If they weren't considering some sort of payback before their holiday in Cuba, they certainly will if they ever get out. Stupid is as stupid does, and that is the legacy history will give dubya.... seeing how concerned he is about how history will see his unprovoked war of aggression on Iraq.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. He's tried and convicted them without trial - calling them "terrorists"

He didn't say alleged terrorists, or terrorist suspects. He said that they ARE terrorists and that therefore no one should represent them, least of all these lawyers from high-powered firms who also received money for defending the likes of Scooter Libby.

[cool user name]

14. I noticed that too ...

... dispicable.

:mad:

[Guaranteed]

3. Not sure how much the clowns are talking about this, but I just

heard it from one guy during a radio interview. It was met with pretty swift denounciation from the ABA and many other groups. Even BushCo had to come out and say that this was not their policy.

[TahitiNut]

4. How nice of him to unring the bell.

:puke: Firing and disbarring would be, at a minimum, the sane response.

[Guaranteed]

5. Agreed. It shows a pretty basic misunderstanding of the core tenets

of our justice system.

But, then, just about everything about the neocons shows that...

[TahitiNut]

6. The banality of evil ... we've reached outrage overload.

:grr:

[Robbien]

9. There is always more outrage

How about the one where the Feds are firing the prosecutors of the Abramoff gang because the Feds said she shouldn't be going after high level corruption when there are so many druggies to prosecute.

[NV Whino]

7. How are they going to do that?

I thought the lawyers were pro-bono to start with. They gonna fine them or something. (P.S. I'm TV challenged so can't watch.)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Here are the comments...

Stimson's Attack on the Gitmo Lawyers
by Radio Left Review on Sun 14 Jan 2007 11:31 AM CST | Permanent Link | Cosmos



Email this article
Balkinization
No one ever accused Bush administration officials of lacking a heavy hand.

Now comes before you Mr. Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In an interview with conservative radio broadcasters on a local A.M. station, Mr. Stimson remarks that an interesting, breaking story is the list of blue-chip law firms representing Guantanamo detainees – a list that he says was unearthed by a FOIA request (although, as Stimson knows quite well, the information was never a secret). (The audio is here. Scroll down to Guantanamo Bay: Five Years Later.) Stimson finds it “shocking, really” that prominent law firms would do any such thing. As he rattles off the list of law firms, it becomes clear that he has it on paper in front of him: it’s too lengthy to come off the top of his head. Asked who is paying the law firms, Stimson magnanimously admits that some of these lawyers are working pro bono, but then he hints darkly that others may have nefarious, secret funding sources. Enemies within! More terrorist lawfare!

He adds, “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, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. It will be fun to watch that play out.”

A couple of days after Stimson’s interview, Robert Pollock, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, echoed the idea that corporate clients should be or would be pressuring their law firms to drop the Gitmo detainees.

More at: http://blog.radioleft.com/blog/_archives/2007/1/14/2648983.html

[walldude]

11. I did see yesterday where the Pentagon denounced

what this idiot said. It's actually a clever bit of PR. Have your guy go out slam the American Justice system, then denounce him so it looks like you actually give a shit about the constitution.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/13/pentagon.detainees.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

[Igel]

13. No fine. Nothing governmental.

I made no effort to remember the name of this one guy--Stinson, maybe?--but he released the names of some of the 150 or so law firms representing Gitmo guys; he said some conservative (blogger? writer? talk show host?) had requested the names under a FOIA request, so the names would soon be bandied about in any event. Fair enough.

Then he did the no-no: He said that people should take their business to lawyers other than those 150 some firms. He went on to imply that he considered them to be wrong in defending the Gitmo guys. This was maybe 3-4 days ago.

No compulsion, no wheedling, no threats. That was it; certainly over the top, but also not a threat on the part of government. His superiors promptly declared that opinion to be his and only his personal opinion, and that he shouldn't have said it in a situation where it could be construed to be policy.

Apparently--and the stuff I've read had no details or substantiation--many of the lawyers are doing it pro bono, but there are those getting fees. Not that it matters in the least.

[BlooInBloo]

12. "those lawyers" include the ones defending Scooter Libby! lolol!!!

[deadmessengers]

15. Would you hire a lawyer that...

represented for free someone who was accused of bombing an abortion clinic? Would you hire someone who you knew represented a corporation that broke a union and hired scabs? Would you hire a lawyer that defended George Bush, or Dick Cheney?

Like it or not, people have the right not to do business with people who's actions they find offensive. The public shaming they're getting on Countdown is well deserved, but these folks are WELL within their rights to do what they're doing. It's a freedom of association thing, and although I don't personally support them, I'll go down swinging defending their right to do so.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. I agree that those funding these lawyers have a right to stop funding them

But should the government get into the business of suggesting that certain people shouldn't have any legal representation and make an effort to publicly argue that funding of certain lawyers be withdrawn by private citizens? That's what I object to. The government should be neutral in this entire affair and shut their mouth. But the fact is, if the government can't win on the issues in these detention cases, they're trying to undermine the entire process by preventing quality, well-funded lawyers from being there in the first place to argue the issues.