Boehner Demands Action on Lybya - Rep Weiner resigns - Terrorist Trials in U.S. Verses Cuba

Today in Washington, D.C. - June 16, 2011
On Tuesday, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) sent a letter to President Barack Obama warning that the commander in chief may be in violation of the law if he refuses to ask Congress for that authorization. In his letter, Boehner noted that the President is just days away from violating the War Powers Resolution, which maintains that, without congressional authorization, the President can deploy U.S. military forces for 90 days but without notification forces must be removed within the 90 days. In his letter, Boehner demanded that Obama provide legal justification for the operation in Libya by tomorrow - Friday. 

Rep. Anthony Weiner Announcing Resignation at 2 p.m. Enough said!

Senate resumed consideration of S. 782, the bill reauthorizing the Economic Development Act. At 2 PM, the Senate will vote on an amendment from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to repeal an ethanol tax credit and on an amendment from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to prohibit federal funds for ethanol blender pumps and ethanol storage facilities. Both amendments will require 60 votes to pass.

The AP reported Tuesday, “The top-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate wants two Iraqis facing terrorism-related charges in Kentucky sent to the prison at Guantanamo Bay rather than allow them to face trial in a civilian court. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday morning and called 30-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan and 23-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi ‘foreign fighters’ who should be subject to the same system as combatants caught on a battlefield. McConnell said sending the men to the facility on the southeastern tip of Cuba is the best way to ensure that there will be no disruptions that could come with a civilian trial. ‘Send them to Guantanamo where they belong. Get these terrorists out of the civilian system — and out of our backyards,’ McConnell said. ‘And give them the justice they deserve.’”

The AP also offers some background on the suspects: “Alwan and Hammadi are charged in a 23-count indictment with conspiring to send weapons and money to Al-Qaida in Iraq. Alwan is also charged with attacking American soldiers in Iraq. A grand jury in Bowling Green charged the men last month. . . . Alwan is charged with conspiracy to kill a United States national, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Hammadi is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and knowingly transferring, possessing or exporting a device designed or intended to launch or guide a rocket or missile. Authorities say the weapons and money from Alwan and Hammadi didn't make it to Iraq because of a tightly controlled undercover investigation. The FBI said in an affidavit that Alwan spoke of setting roadside bombs near Bayji, Iraq from 2003 through 2006. The FBI said investigators found his fingerprints on an unexploded bomb, but didn't match the prints to Alwan until January. . . . Alwan and Hammadi were admitted into the United States with refugee status in 2009. Homeland Security officials have said the men slipped through cracks in the system that have since been fixed.”

Unfortunately, the Justice Department has decided to process Alwan and Hammadi through the federal civilian court system in Kentucky, instead of putting them into the military commission system designed to try foreign terror suspects.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell explained the problems with this approach to John King on CNN last night: “You can put foreigners in U.S. Article III courts but the question is, should you? The answer is: you should not for a whole variety of reasons. Number one, you bring the war on terror to Bowling Green, Kentucky. You have security problems with regard to the judge, the prosecutor, the jurors. You have security problems that the local government ends up having to pick up - related to the transferring of prisoners back and forth between the jail, if you will, or the prison and the court system. . . . There’s no reason for American communities to be subjected to this. You remember the administration thought about doing it with KSM, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the master mind behind 9/11, he’s at Guantanamo. They were going to take him to New York and be tried there. You saw the reaction of New York to the possibility of this foreign terrorist being tried in New York. You’re going to have the same reaction in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This is not a place for these characters.These men don’t belong in a courtroom in Kentucky. They belong at the secure detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, far away from U.S. civilians.”

On Fox News earlier in the day, Leader McConnell elaborated, “[T]he Justice Department made the decision, incorrectly in my view, to treat this as a U.S. law enforcement matter rather than a foreign terrorist issue. Yeah, they were captured in the United States. It was terrific work done by the justice department and the law enforcement agencies. All of that evidence that’s been gathered would be useful in the military commission. The problem is, we’ve got them in a U.S. court. . . . They claim they’ve never captured a foreign terrorist in the U.S. and tried them in a military court. But they can, there’s no prohibition. Foreigners are not entitled to the protections of the Bill of Rights, they are not entitled to be in a U.S. court. We set up military commissions a few years ago specifically for this purpose. Why not send them to Guantanamo, interrogate them, try to find out what they know – all the information they know – and then at the appropriate time if a trial is deemed appropriate do it in a military commission that was set up specifically for the purpose of trying foreign terrorists.”

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