Andy McCarthy was invited to join a roundtable meeting put on by The Presidents Task Force on Detention Policy. He declined and explains why in a public letter to AG Holder:
The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants–or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear–most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany–that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers–like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy–may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government…
Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.
For what it may be worth, I will say this much.
Read all of it. It’s an important lesson in actions and consequences, something Obama simply doesn’t seem to understand based upon some of the decisions he has made.
Update: One of our liberal trolls pipes in about Mr. McCarthy. He doesn’t know of what he speaks, obviously:
Please. LOL. McCarthy is a rabbit in the neocon zoo at National Review. One of those whom Ann Coulter referred to as “girly men”. He doesn’t have enough pedigree (such as neocon Bill Kristol at Weekly Standard) to risk *disappointing* his sponsors or of *striking off* on his own by meeting with Hu-mans of Earth-planet.
In fact, I believe McCarthy’s sponsors are afraid “his” vaunted policy and legal positions might be found untenable by real people in real life and possibly leaked to “his” chagrin and public inconvenience, i.e. McCarthy is an empty suit for being afraid of other supposed empty suits. Bad, bad PR from das Dumkopfs an NR.
bryanD, Andy McCarthy was the lead prosecutor who tried and convicted Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik) as well as others for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. That is the reason why AG Holder asked him to participate in the round table. Naturally, Andy would have had a lot of substantive information to offer. You can read all about his experiences in his book Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad
