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On the Manning Art. 32, Court Secrecy & Nat. Sec. Cases

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I somehow stumbled into an article for The Nation by Rainey Reitman entitled Access Blocked to Bradley Manning’s Hearing. To make a long story short, in a Twitter exchange today with Ms. Reitman and Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake (who has done yeoman’s work covering the Manning hearing), I questioned some of the statements and inferences made in Ms. Reitman’s report. She challenged me to write on the subject, so here I am.

First, Ms. Reitman glibly offered to let me use her work as “foundation” to work off of. Quite frankly, not only was my point not originally to particularly go further; my point, in fact, was that her foundation was deeply and materially flawed.

Reitman starts off with this statement:

The WikiLeaks saga is centered on issues of government transparency and accountability, but the public is being strategically denied access to the Manning hearing, one of the most important court cases in our lifetime.

While the “WikiLeaks saga” is indeed centered on transparency and accountability for many of us, that simply is not the case in regard to the US Military prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning. The second you make that statement about the UCMJ criminal prosecution of Manning, you have stepped off the tracks of reality and credibility in court reportage and analysis. The scope of Manning’s Article 32 hearing was/is were the crimes detailed in the charging document committed and is there reason to believe Manning committed them. Additionally, in an Article 32 hearing, distinct from a civilian preliminary hearing, there is limited opportunity for personal mitigating information to be adduced in order to argue for the Investigating Officer to recommend non-judicial punishment as opposed to court martial trial. That is it. There is no concern or consideration of “transparency and accountability”, within the ambit suggested by Ms. Reitman, in the least.

Calling the Manning Article 32 hearing “one of the most important court cases in our lifetime” is far beyond hyperbole. First off, it is, for all the breathless hype, a relatively straight forward probable cause determination legally and, to the particular military court jurisdiction it is proceeding under, it is nothing more than that. The burden of proof is light, and the issues narrow and confined to that which is described above. The grand hopes, dreams and principles of the Manning and WikiLeaks acolytes simply do not fit into this equation no matter how much they may want them to. Frankly, it would be a great thing to get those issues aired in this country; but this military UCMJ proceeding is not, and will not be, the forum where that happens.

Moving on, Reitman raises the specter of “the death penalty” for Manning. While the death penalty remains a technical possibility under one of the charges, the prosecution has repeatedly stated it will not be sought and, after all the statements on the record in that regard, there is simply no reason to embellish otherwise. Reitman next states:

This case will show much about the United States’s tolerance for whistleblowers who show the country in an unflattering light.

No, it most certainly will not. In fact, the Manning criminal military prosecution has nothing whatsoever to do with “whistleblowers”. Despite the loose and wild eyed use of the term “whistleblower” in popular culture, not to mention by supporters of Bradley Manning, the concept Read more →

Greg Craig Won’t Tell You How Obama Disappeared the Whistleblowers

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Charlie Savage has an article chronicling Chuck Grassley’s objection to something I objected to last week–Obama’s signing statement undermining whistleblowers.

But that’s not the really creepy part of the article. The creepy part is the way some Obama Administration official, who happens to have the same legal credential and sophist argumentative technique as Greg Craig, provided input for the article.

The White House press office referred questions to an administration official, imposing the condition that he not be identified by name or title.

The official, a lawyer, said Mr. Obama was “committed to whistle-blower protections.” He declined to define every kind of instance in which the president’s power to keep a matter confidential would trump a whistle-blower protection statute, but he did say the administration had no intention of going further than did Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in signing statements concerning similar provisions.

“I don’t think President Obama’s signing statement injects a new level of uncertainty into the law,” he said.

[snip]

The administration official pointed to a memorandum Mr. Obama issued on March 9 laying out a signing statements policy. The document, which does not mention legislative intent, says he will employ only “legitimate” interpretations of statutes. Mr. Obama’s challenge in this case, the official said, is consistent with that principle.

So, let’s review here: They’ve got Charlie Savage talking to a mysterious lawyer on the condition that the lawyer not be named. Said lawyer refuses to explain what the signing statement means for whistleblowers, but claims this doesn’t create any new uncertainty. And then said lawyer asserts that the signing statement from last week was–by definition–a "legitimate" interpretation of statute, legislative intent be damned.

Yup. This is the way we bring transparency to the White House alright.

Chuck Grassley’s ire at Obama’s childish games with whistleblowers will remain a story, so I’m happy Savage covered it. But at some point, Obama’s just as ridiculous approach to discussing legal issues with the press needs to become the story. I realize Greg Craig just recently came fromWilliam & Connolly, where the off-the-record manipulation of the press may be second nature, but he’s working for the American people now, and these things he’s talking about are actually supposed to be laws. It’d be really nice if Greg Craig had the decency to tell us what the laws in this country are.

Obama’s Signing Statement Disappears Whistleblowers

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When I suggested the other day that Obama’s memo on signing statements was actually very troublesome–in that there’s no transparency for which of Bush’s signing statements Obama plans to keep and in that we never learn which of those Bush relied on to break the law–a few people suggested I was being cynical. Really, the most common interpretation of the memo went, the memo was a sign of change we can believe in, a new willingness to be bound by law.

As it turns out, the memo appears to have been released (almost two months into Obama’s term, after all) to lay the groundwork for Obama’s first signing statement.

Charlie Savage (who wrote the book on this stuff) lays out the contents–mostly statements saying Obama refuses to spend money with the oversight from Congress they’ve demanded.  

One of the budget bill’s provisions that Mr. Obama said he could circumvent concerns United Nations peacekeeping missions. It says money may not be spent on any such mission if it entails putting United States troops under a foreign commander, unless Mr. Obama’s military advisers so recommend.

“This provision,” Mr. Obama wrote, “raises constitutional concerns by constraining my choice of particular persons to perform specific command functions in military missions, by conditioning the exercise of my authority as commander in chief on the recommendations of subordinates within the military chain of command, and by constraining my diplomatic negotiating authority.”

[snip]

But a majority of the challenged provisions are those allowing money to be reallocated to a different program only with the approval of a Congressional committee. Mr. Obama called the provisions “impermissible forms of legislative aggrandizement” and declared that while executive-branch officials would notify lawmakers of any reallocation, “spending decisions shall not be treated as dependent on the approval of Congressional committees.”

So much for power of the purse.

The provision I’m most worried about, however, is one on whistleblowers. You see, the President who has promised transparency, apparently doesn’t want transparency to Congress when an executive agency fucks up.

He also raised concerns about a section that establishes whistle-blower protections for federal employees who give information to Congress.

“I do not interpret this provision,” he wrote, “to detract from my authority to direct the heads of executive departments to supervise, control and correct employees’ communications with the Congress in cases where such communications would be unlawful or would reveal information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential.”

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