Susan Collins Didn’t Complain About Handling Of Bomb Suspect When Briefed On Christmas Day, Source Says
Senator Susan Collins, who’s emerged as a leading critic of the decision to Mirandize the bomb plot suspect, raised no concerns about his handling while being briefed on Christmas Day about his capture on a private call with a top Homeland Security official, a source familiar with the conversation tells me.
The call was confirmed to me by Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Bobby Whithorne, who declined to confirm details.
The claim about Collins’ silence comes after Obama counterterror chief John Brennan made big news yesterday by claiming that four other top GOP Congressional officials were similiarly told that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was being held in “FBI custody,” prompting no objections from the Republican leaders.
But the claim that Collins, too, didn’t air any concerns about his handling is particularly interesting, because she’s emerged as a leading GOP voice criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the case.
When Collins delivered the GOP weekly address in late January, she devoted the entire thing to criticizing the decision to Mirandize the suspect. “How did the Obama administration decide to treat a foreign terrorist who had tried to murder hundreds of people as if he were a common criminal?” she asked, adding that the Obama administration had “advised him that he could remain silent and offered him an attorney at our expense.”
“This administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day,” she continued. “Foreign terrorists are enemy combatants and they must be treated as such.”
But on Christmas Day, Collins was briefed by a top Homeland Security official about the circumstances surrounding the capture and arrest of the suspect, a source familiar with the call says, and she had no objections.
“During a briefing on Christmas Day about the attempted bomb plot, Senator Collins did not raise any concerns about the possibility of him being Mirandized or about the suspect’s handing,” the source says.
Contacted for comment, DHS spokesman Whithorne confirmed that the call had taken place and that Collins was briefed on the situation surrounding the suspect, but declined further comment.
Yesterday, Obama counter-terror chief Brennan charged that he had told Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Kit Bond, and Pete Hoekstra on Christmas night that the suspect was in FBI custody, prompting no objections. Those GOP leaders have disputed this account, claiming that they weren’t told specifically that the suspect had been Mirandized.
With Collins, that makes five GOP officials allegedly briefed — with no complaints. I’ve asked Collins’ office for comment and will update you when I hear back.
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Update: Collins’ office responds.
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Tena:
What harm did it cause?
I don’t kow. Possibly none in the case at hand.
Liam:
How many people did Tim McVeigh slaughter including many children. He was read his Miranda rights.
McVeigh was a US citizen engagin in a criminal act, perhaps even an act of sedition, but he was not a foreign national engaging in an act of war.
rukidding:
They don’t want to read Miranda rights..they want to TORTURE them.
I don’t want to do either.
The Republicans’ 2010 Rallying Cry:
AMERICA MUST TORTURE.
And here comes sbj to make something out of nuttin.
There is nothing here but by god, the ratwing is going to keep spinning that straw and hoping for gold.
This is just dumb.
Not sure if people saw it b/c a bunch of posts at once, but John Murtha has passed away…
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/08/john.murtha.obit/index.html
“McVeigh was a US citizen engagin in a criminal act, perhaps even an act of sedition, but he was not a foreign national engaging in an act of war.”
Neither is Absulmutallab. If he was he would be a POW and he’s not.
And even if it was unnecessary to read him Miranda rights – please pay attention, godfrakkingdammit, law enforcement follows those rules as SOP to keep judges happy.
Cause judges are the final arbiters of the work law enforcement does and it doesn’t matter what Hoekstra thinks or the Prez may have said – if a judge thinks otherwise and he has the case (or she) that’s how it will go and to fix that it will have to go through the entire appeal system all the way up.
So most of the time law enforcement will follow rules that may not be necessary; they don’t want to take that chance and Mirandizing anyone on earth does very little to keep evidence from coming out. If it did, death rows wouldn’t be full of people who confessed.
So tell me Scott, it was the undie bomber’s noncitizenship that was important? Does that same rule apply to all noncitizens no matter their alleged crime? None of them should be mirandized?
OMG, I just realized something:
Republicans are banking on half the country not know what “Mirandize” means. Sounds French, right? Or maybe Mexican? We surely don’t want any of that going on.
This is likely to play out similarly as to when Democrats complain about Republican filibusters — i.e., without understanding that as far as most people’s grasp of that terminology goes, they might as well be speaking Martian.
It is a huge victory for Al Qaeda. They have induced one of the country’s two major political parties to wholly abandon America’s traditions in favor of tribalism of a sort Al Qaeda would itself recognize as familiar.
And Republicans can’t even recognize this reality.
It’s very sad.
Greg, when Sen. Collins gets back to you with an answer, would you please follow up with a question asking her to justify her lack of criticism when the Bush administration Mirandized the shoe bomber (who attempted to commit the same crime, and at a more perilous time, much closer to 9/11)?
All, Collins’ office has responded:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/terrorism/collins-spox-confirms-she-was-briefed-on-suspects-handling-but-slams-white-house/
(After all, it’s not like the MSM is going to hold her accountable for anything!)
‘i.e., without understanding that as far as most people’s grasp of that terminology goes, they might as well be speaking Martian.”
About Miranda? They’d have to BE Martians to not have heard of Miranda or at least to have never gone to the movies or seen a TV for the last 40 years.
@pragmatic: Was Abu Zubaydah read his Miranda rights? Because he was “questioned” by CIA and FBI while in custody…
I’ve heard kids in other countries recite Miranda.
Anyone who has access to a TV and American cop shows can pretty much recite the damn thing.
“So tell me Scott, it was the undie bomber’s noncitizenship that was important?”
A non-citizen…engaged in an act of war.
“Does that same rule apply to all noncitizens no matter their alleged crime?”
No – the whole being at war thing sort of applies here.
pragmatic:
Isn’t it Hoekstra’s job to know this Scott?
To know whether the HIG is operational? I’m not sure…maybe it is.
Shouldn’t he have asked the question before criticizing the Commander in Chief during war time?
Asked what question…whether the HIG was operational?
I know, the rules are all different now. Nancy Pelosi was supposed to apologize for saying the CIA misled her but it’s OK for McConnell to compare the FBI interrogators to Larry King.
I’m not at all sure in what way accusing the CIA of engaging in a potentially criminal act and suggesting that an FBI interrogation was incompetent would be subject to the same “rules”. But I will say that McConnell’s claim was uncalled for and he ought to apologize to the FBI for it. There is no reason that I know of for him to think that simply because the FBI is limited in their ability to question someone means that they are doing so incompetently.
pragmatic:
So tell me Scott, it was the undie bomber’s noncitizenship that was important? Does that same rule apply to all noncitizens no matter their alleged crime? None of them should be mirandized?
sbj answered this one for me. Thanks sbj.
Tena:
Neither is Absulmutallab.
We disagree on this. Clearly he is a foreign national…I assume you do not dispute this. So the question is whether he was engaged in an act of war against us. Given that Al Qaeda has declared war against the US, and he was acting as an agent for Al Qaeda, I don’t see how this could be in dispute. But I am all ears.