"A deputy assistant secretary of defense says corporate leaders should pressure law firms to stop representing Guantanamo detainees."
That's the headline on a segment of NPR's "Morning Edition" today:
NPR: A Bush administration official at the Pentagon created a wave of criticism yesterday when he made the following suggestion. America's corporations should pressure the top law firms they hire not to represent terrorism suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay... NPR's Legal Affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, has the story.
Nina Totenberg: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainees, Cully Stimson, said in an interview on Federal News Radio that corporate America should make the nation's leading law firms choose between their lucrative paying clients and the detainees being represented on a pro bono basis.
Cully Stimson: You know what? It's shocking. The major law firms in this country are out there representing detainees and I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEO's see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEO's are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms.
Nina Totenberg: Legal ethics experts of all ideological stripes disagreed. NYU law professor, Stephen Gillers:
Stephen Gillers: He should be sent back to basic civics classes on the American adversary system and forced to take a quiz before he's allowed to resume his duties.
Nina Totenberg: George Mason University legal ethics professor, Ronald Rotunda, says Stimson, who's a lawyer, doesn't seem to understand that lawyers have an obligation to represent even the unpopular.
Ronald Rotunda: There's a fine tradition of the Bar. I think it's actually well within Pentagon policy. The trials are supposed to be -- and I think they will be -- valid trials, not show trials.
Nina Totenberg: Reaction in the legal community has ranged from seething outrage to quiet despair. Among the outspoken is Thomas Wilner whose Wall Street firm, Shearman and Sterling, is currently lead counsel in a major legal challenge on behalf of the detainees.
Thomas Wilner: They're really trying to make everyone who opposes them an enemy or an aider of the enemy. It's really incredible. They don't understand what America's about. All we fought for all this time is that people should have a fair hearing. And now they're trying to say that lawyers standing up for that -- standing up for the rule of law -- are enemies.
Nina Totenberg: But not every law firm is willing to be so outspoken, as Professor Gillers observes.
Stephen Gillers: They don't want to lose their corporate clients. And the corporate clients don't want to offend the government. So he's set in motion a series of disincentives which could undermine the right to representation.
Nina Totenberg: By yesterday afternoon, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, had written to President Bush asking him to disavow the remarks of the Defense Department's Mr. Stimson. And last night, a senior Defense Department official said "The Stimson comments did not represent the views of the Defense Department or its leadership."
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The New York Times also has the story:
Mr. Stimson made his remarks in an interview on Thursday with Federal News Radio, a local Washington-based station that is aimed at an audience of government employees.
The same point appeared Friday on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, where Robert L. Pollock, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, cited the list of law firms and quoted an unnamed “senior U.S. official” as saying, “Corporate C.E.O.’s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists.”
In his radio interview, Mr. Stimson said: “I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there?’ and you know what, it’s shocking.” The F.O.I.A. reference was to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Monica Crowley, a conservative syndicated talk show host, asking for the names of all the lawyers and law firms representing Guantánamo detainees in federal court cases.
Mr. Stimson, who is himself a lawyer, then went on to name more than a dozen of the firms listed on the 14-page report provided to Ms. Crowley, describing them as “the major law firms in this country.” He said, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”
Mister Stimson is one very determined little prick:
When asked in the radio interview who was paying for the legal representation, Mr. Stimson replied: “It’s not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving moneys from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.”
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