At the beginning of the year Cully Stimson gleefully announced on a government radio station the first attack against the Guantánamo attorneys that was in the works. Attorney Cully (who was the assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs until he began his unfounded attack on the lawyers) described a FOIA request from a "major news organization" (right-wing pundit, Monica Crowley) that was seeking the names of the "big firms" representing Guantánamo detainees without charging fees. Cully suggested, in what can only be described as a desperate plan, that once business executives learned of this pro bono work they would force the attorneys to choose between their corporate clients and representing Guantánamo inmates. At the same time, Cully insinuated that the firms were being paid for their work by terrorists. Cully, who apparently had the results of the FOIA response in his hot little hands, named some of the firms right in his radio interview (mine wasn't included) and talked about how much fun it would be when the corporate clients found out about the pro bono work their law firms were involved in and started questioning the attorneys. This of course backfired.
Cully was quickly followed by Moe. Colonel Moe Davis, the chief prosecutor of the military commissions (also an attorney) decided a few weeks before Australian detainee David Hicks was set to be the first big and bad terrorist to be tried in a military commission, that it was time to try to intimidate the military attorney who has been assigned to represent Hicks... Seems that Colonel Moe thought that the timing was just about right to suggest that Hicks' military attorney, Major Dan Mori, should be brought up on charges for his conduct in defending Hicks and for speaking out about the Bush military commissions. Fortunately for Hicks, Mori is a really good attorney and negotiated a plea bargain (behind Moe's back). Big, bad Hicks, the very "worst of the worst" received a sentence of nine months. Seemed the military's biggest concern was to keep Hicks quiet until after the Australian elections, so although Hicks was only sentenced to nine months he had to agree not to talk to the press for one year. Like Cully before him, poor Moe's tactics did not work.
With Moe and Cully accounted for it seemed only a matter of time until Larry entered the scene. Get ready for the next "big" attack on the Guantánamo attorneys. Seems now the DOJ (as in Gonzales' people) are preparing to release documents pursuant to another FOIA request.... I wonder if this one too came from Ms. Crowley? (... ya have to kinda feel sorry for her the last story blew up before she could even take pen to paper.) Anyway, several of us Guantánamo attorneys received emails yesterday from the DOJ saying that they were going to be releasing documents in a Freedom of Information request "seeking documents relating to alleged violations by habeas counsel of the protective order entered in many of the Guantanamo district court habeas cases." Hmmm, imagine that. This of course was the first I had heard that I had an alleged "violation of the protective order". .... And you know what else? If the government in fact thought I had violated the protective order, they would not have kept it a secret from me or the court. There are few things the government would like more than to catch me or one of the other Guantánamo attorneys breaching a court order. So despite the fact that I have never been accused of violating the protective order (I have complained often enough about the government's numerous violations of the Protective Order) the government must call me an "alleged violator." I wonder who the "alleger" is? Until we have a name, I will just call him Larry.