Comments on: The DHS Report on Maher Arar

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:09:29 +0000

LHP or someone with more experience on the DC front will have to chime in, but I think that whenever the AG is travelling the DAG becomes Acting because so much of what the AG needs to do is DC oriented and based. See, e.g., the fiasco that bmaz referenced with McNulty running out of the building, Clement not available, and everyone waiting on Gonzales to sign off (non-sequitor: on the application that may have lead to his resignation if it violated earlier rulings and if FISA got tough and was ready to bar him)

So even if Ashcroft wasn’t travelling out of the country (which seems to be incorrect) if he was travelling Thompson would have been “acting” for purposes of signing off on the paperwork. But it looks like Ashcroft went from speaking at a Voting Integrity Symposium on the 8th, (which was likely in DC) to appearing with Fitzgerald in Chicago on the 9th. So he could have been travelling in the afternoon of the 8th. As a matter of fact, an appearance in Chicago on the 9th would have been good cover for a hopover into Canada on the 8th - maybe to meet with some counterparts re: Arar.

Hard to say. Then there is the possiblity that Ashcroft was in DC and available on the 8th and that Thompson was acting for some other, yet to be disclosed, reason.

Arar’s complaint alleges that Thompson signed the order dated Oct 8 (a Tues I think).
The schedule WO links indicates that

By: MrWhy

MrWhy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:26:40 +0000

p.22 of 52

On Wednesday, October 2, 2002, an INS attorney was brought into the Arar case for the purpose of helping to conduct the CAT assessment. The INS attorney did not know when the Syrian country determination was made, but that it was likely made before Wednesday, October 2, 2002. By that date, it appeared to the attorney that the section 235(c) proceeding and Syrian removal decisions were finalized, which triggered the need for a CAT assessment.

By: WilliamOckham

WilliamOckham — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:02:12 +0000

I’m wondering if there is something really significant about this. A brief google by this non-lawyer leads me to believe that only the AG should have been able to make the determination not to send him to Canada. Ashcroft was in D.C. on Friday when the INS attorneys say the decision was made to send him to Syria. He was back in D.C. on October 8. It looks like they cheated on the paperwork in their rush to get him out of the country before his immigration attorney figured out what was going on and filed a habeas petition.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:28:21 +0000

Maybe he was hiding, like when there was curiously just nobody around to sign the application for the warrant that could have saved soldier’s lives.

By: emptywheel

emptywheel — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:54:40 +0000

That’s what I was wondering. I have a feeling Ashcroft is more central to this than he makes out to be.

By: masaccio

masaccio — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:52:31 +0000

And thanks for your kind words. And, no matter what bmaz says, I rarely sing in public when not in costume.

Ok, I lied, my kids wouldn’t go places with me for years without extracting a promise not to sing.

By: skdadl

skdadl — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:28:50 +0000

Thank you, masaccio.

By: masaccio

masaccio — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:08:38 +0000

I don’t see any references to Arar. The only reference to rendition is with respect to Begg, and it was only a threat.

By: WilliamOckham

WilliamOckham — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:47:55 +0000

There is a problem with this:

However, in a letter to the INS Eastern Regional Director, dated Monday, October 7, 2002, the Acting Attorney General disregarded Arar’s request to return to Canada because it would be “prejudicial to the interest of the United States.”15

15 The Deputy Attorney General signed this memorandum as the Acting Attorney General because the Attorney
General was out of the country at the time.

Ashcroft wasn’t ever out of the country during this time frame. On the Oct. 7, 2002, he gave a speech in Minneapolis, MN. On previous Friday, he was in D.C. giving a press conference and speech. Of course, maybe Thompson did the letter over the weekend and Ashcroft was out of the country then.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:26:15 +0000

24 - it may be that what happened on the 27th is just that the torture kids were back in town.

The reported torture crew were, from MSNBC’s http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15361462/page/2/ report:

Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now attorney general; David S. Addington, legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, now his chief of staff; Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel; William Haynes III, the Pentagon general counsel; Larry Thompson, then deputy attorney general; Christopher A. Wray, the principal associate deputy attorney general, now head of Criminal Division at the Justice Department; and John Yoo, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel,

and, via sailmaker citing Goldsmith’s book http://firedoglake.com/2008/04.....nt-1416223 :

Goldsmith, in his book ‘The Terror Presidency” says that Addington, Philbin, Rizzo, Haynes, Alice Fisher, Goldsmith, along with several Pentagon lawyers went to Guantanemo, to the military brig in Charleston (Padilla), and Norfolk (Hamdi), on September 26, 2002. pages 99-101

I’m not sure when Ashcroft left town, but it’s interesting that he and Thompson were both gone so close in time and that Thompson went in lieu of Ashcroft.