Durbin: Recently Confirmed Judge "Misled" Senate on Detainee Policy
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter yesterday to Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit which accuses the recently confirmed appeals judge of misleading the Senate on his involvement in crafting Bush Administration detainee policy while he was a White House lawyer:
Dear Judge Kavanaugh:
Yesterday the Washington Post published a lengthy article about Vice President Cheney's role in the policymaking process of the Bush Administration. In this article, you are reported to have participated in a "heated" White House meeting in 2002 about whether U.S. citizens who had been declared enemy combatants should be given access to lawyers. The information in this article was confirmed today by a report on National Public Radio.
These reports appear to contradict sworn testimony you gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 9, 2006 at your nomination hearing. At that hearing, I asked you about the role you played, as one of the President's top White House lawyers, in the selection of William Haynes, a controversial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and proponent of permissive policies with regard to torture.
I asked: "What did you know about Mr. Haynes's role in crafting the Adminstration's detention and interrogation policies?"
You testified: "Senator, I did not – I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants – and so I do not have the involvement with that."
In light of the Washington Post and National Public Radio reports, your sworn testimony appears inaccurate and misleading. You participated in a critical meeting in which the Administration made a decision on whether to extend access to counsel to detainees, an issue that is clearly a "rule governing detention of combatants." By testifying under oath that you were not involved in this issue, it appears that you misled me, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the nation.
Therefore, I request that you provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with an explanation for this apparent contradiction.
In addition, I request that you disqualify yourself in all pending and subsequent cases involving detainees and enemy combatants. Your lack of candor at your nomination hearing suggests you cannot approach these cases with impartiality and an open mind.
Durbin added that he feels "perilously close to being lied to" in Judge Kavanaugh's testimony. Judge Kavanaugh's first case as a member of the D.C. Circuit was a case involving Guantanamo detainees.
Written By:C-SPAN watcher On June 27, 2007 12:45 PM Written By:Bob On June 27, 2007 6:45 PM
Re:C-SPAN watcher
To say that Dick Durbin is engaging in word-games and then you use a VERY silly word game to more or less condone perjury to Congress (not a Democrat or Republican rather an institution of the U.S.). You silly person, I'm guessing you are a lawyer!
Bob:
Did you even read what C-Span Watcher wrote? It is a very simple point, and in no way involves "word games," at least not on his part. And speaking of games, it is strange how you jump to the conclusion that "perjury" was committed, yet provide absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Not even a irresponsible loudmouth like Dick Durbin has made that claim.
Maybe if you kept an open mind, and resisted the impulse to attack people, you might learn a thing or two, and maybe even contribute something worthwhile to grown-up discussions.
Oh, and for other Bob-like commentators, why is it so hard for a grown man with a responsible job-- like US Senator Dick Durbin-- to make even simple distinctions? Like the difference between "engaging in a discussion" about a policy, and "making the rules" for a policy? Is it really that hard? Lots of us engage in heated discussions about all sorts of policy decisions and applications. And, hey, we also vote. So, I guess in Dick Durban's mind we are all "making" policy, everyday, right here on the Internet. I mean it is just silly. (Or, I mean, it would be silly if a man's reputation and career weren't at stake.)
And, of course, I love the way Dick, and dick-like people, always take on this tone of self-righteous indignation when they make their idiotic comments. For instance, his dingbat insistence that Judge Kavanaugh recuse himself from detainee cases because "...you cannot approach these cases with impartiality and an open mind." Completely out of the blue, and apropos nothing! Hey Dick, you care to explain your logic on that? Having a "heated discussion" in the past disqualifies a judge from EVER hearing a case on that subject? Huh?
And we wonder why good people flee public service.
Dick Durbin is engaging in word-games that verge on what we lawyers call "unethical". A "rule governing detention of combatants" -- in the context of the hearing -- would be a rule that determines whether you will or will not be detained. "Questions about" those rules would fairly suggest doubt about the legality of the detention: a first-order question. Durbin is twisting the meaning of "governing" to include ancillary matters so that governing does not mean "outcome-determinative as to" but rather means "is somehow associated with". If Dirk Durbin had asked if Kavanaugh had any conversations involving questions about rules "somehow associated with" detention of combatants, Kavanaugh probably would have said "Yes, but those conversations are wholly irrelevant to the last 5 questions that your staff wrote and you just read aloud in my direction."