Due to the classified status of the case, I have been limited in what I can report about the progress in the case of Dr. Ali Al-Timimi. However, today’s hearing was public and thus some additional information can be disclosed.
Today was a very positive day for the defense. We have been trying for two years (since a remand from the Fourth Circuit) to gain access to material that we believe was withheld by the government during the trial. This material includes interceptions and other forms of evidence conducted under national security programs. In November, Judge Leonie Brinkema threatened to order a new trial for Dr. Al-Timimi in light of the government’s refusal to give me, as lead counsel, access to ex parte material, click here.
Today, the government sought to end the case after completing its own review of material — without giving the defense (which includes Will Olson from Bryan Cave) access to any of the material. We filed papers seeking such access. Judge Brinkema refused and ruled with the defense that access must be given. She further threatened again that she is considering a new trial unless things change.
Notably, Judge Brinkema confirmed that the government had used classification to hide purely legal argument — an abuse of such rules. She noted that much of the ex parte filing is composed of legal argument without any possible claim that it is classified. That would be a flagrant abuse of ex parte rules and it is precisely what the defense has warned about: the use of these filings to avoid the adversarial process. She noted that I have a clearance and should be able to see the material. She ordered a conference with the government and the security officer to arrange for such a disclosure. She, however, declined our request that Will Olson be given access with me due to the government’s concerns over the sensitivity of the material and limiting those with access to the fewest possible individuals.
We are deeply grateful for Judge Brinkema’s continued demand for access in the case. We remain convinced that the government has material that should have been disclosed at trial. We remain committed to Dr. Al-Timimi’s efforts to receive a new and fair trial.
We will continue to update this blog as public information becomes available.
JT:
Judge Brinkema’s ruling coupled with Bush’s lame-duck status and the general mood of the Country may be the torch ending this dark era of due process violation. I hope the materials prove what you think and I am betting they do, since the disclosure was so vociferously opposed.
The limiting of government is not the weakening of it.
– Charles Howard McIlwain (Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern 2005)
“mood of the country”? LOL! Yes, the mood of America will change until we are attacked again and then the old “who failed to connect the dots” as well as “why weren’t we safer” complaints will pile up. Of course Americans at that point are going to be fed a story about how we took our eye off terrorism but it won’t hold water - Demcorats may show some strength in Novmeber of this year - but after that they better cross their fingers we don’t get attacked again because if we do - 2010 will be a cakewalk for the GOP to take the House & Senate back.
Somebody better tell the liberals, and it might as well be me, that the Democrats that are winning elections are blue dog conservatives, not liberals, and that the whole Democratic party is being pushed back to the right to win elections. Actually at this point, the Democrats that are winning resemble almost identically moderate Republicans and that is GREAT!
dunder:
I love that the unstated, though apparent, wish of most neo-cons is that we suffer another terrorist attack so that they might win something. Very satisfying, I am sure, to know that you are only wanted when the circumstances are extreme and your constituency is afraid. I think they may have a surprise coming even if they get their wish. We tend to learn from our mistakes, presidential and otherwise. Maybe if it does happen we will remember we did better under the steady leadership of FDR in time of crisis, than we did under W’s jingoistic adventurism.
On the blue dog Democrat argument, you might do well to remember that “the first duty of every politician is to get elected.”
Dunder
If the US is attacked anytime in the next four years it will be exclusively because of Bush. Bush blundered us into and out of Afghanistan and Iraq and has created more terrorists around the world and still has done virtually NOTHING to secure our borders, incoming shipping cargo, etc.
That said, you need to know something. Fear doesn’t work here anymore. It’s the ONLY tactic the right has and it has failed. The NeoCons have failed. The Conservative Movement and the Religious Right are all failed efforts. You have failed to propagate fear. That makes you a failure, too.
The rest of us in America will not live in the fear mode you live in. Go ahead and shake and quiver at the mere sound of an Arabic name if that’s you’re deal, but you can quit trying to recruit us into your paranoid little hole. We will not be afraid of a couple of hundred radicals hiding in a cave under the protection of your President’s great and trusted friends in Pakistan.
RCampbell: I only have one objection, for what it’s worth to what you wrote. (As for dunder - he only gets quips because her own words have invalidated her as being legitimate; her? - indeed - IT is fascinating)
Back to the point - He’s our president. He may not be elected in the true sense of our system - but as long as we didn’t run on the White House with sharp sticks - he remains our president. That being said, our Constitution permits us to discuss his treason, his inability to inspire a positive thought and to freely discuss his family’s appeasing business deals - laundering money for the supporters of Adolf Hitler. This man knows about appeasers and has essentially brought his family full circle.
So that being said - he’s ours - for all it’s worth.
Respectfully,
Binx101
JT After forcing the Government to admit to Area 51, you most likely will win this one.
Any thoughts on why even Keith Olbermann won’t bring up Prescott Bush in reference to Mr. Bush’s Knesset folly…
This is good news. It does seem that more judges are questioning “state secrets” and other ways the administration tries to keep us in the dark. That is heartening.
I trust Judge Leonie Brinkema is Fed-UP and will be no pawn in some ‘legal’ lame game of chess.
I find it so interesting that coincidental to this disclosure, the reporting of which did not occur until the 13th, freshly-approved, future AG Mukasey’s, now predictable Friday-afternoon-announcement
of the rush, 11/9/07, private, pre-weekend swearing-in ceremony was obviously already in the works, with Tues 11/13 being his first ‘official’ workday…
http://jonathanturley.org/2007/11/20/judge-brinkema-threatens-new-trial-for-dr-ali-al-timimi-demands-access-of-counsel-to-secret-material/
” On Nov. 9, the CIA for the first time revealed that it has three video and audio recordings of interrogations of senior al Qaida captives. The admission showed that the government misled Judge Brinkema and other federal judges about the evidence during the case against terrorist Moussaoui. The media has reported:
Prosecutors revealed the existence of the tapes in a letter to Chief Judge Karen Williams of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va ., and to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of Alexandria, Va ., the trial judge in the tumultuous, 4-year prosecution of Moussaoui. In it, they said that the CIA didn’t notify them until Sept. 13 that it had discovered a videotape and the transcript of an interrogation of an unidentified detainee. Prosecutors said they then asked the CIA to perform “an exhaustive review” for any other recordings of roughly a half dozen al Qaida captives whom Moussaoui had sought as defense witnesses, and a second videotape and a brief audio tape were discovered.Among the prisoners whose testimony Moussaoui sought were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , who allegedly admitted masterminding the 9/11 attacks after he was waterboarded; Ramzi Binalshibh, a senior al Qaida member who allegedly coordinated the attacks; and financier Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi . Summaries of statements from those three and several others were read at his trial.”The fact that audio/video recording of enemy combatant interrogations occurred, and that the United States was in possession of three of those recordings is, as noted, inconsistent with factual assertions in CIA declarations dated May 9, 2003 . . . and November 14, 2005 ,” the prosecutors wrote…”
Patty,
Thanks for this info. Hope you are well.
Jill
Binx
Point taken. Sometimes the likes of the Dunderhead and his/her ilk get my blood boiling beyond reason.