The other day, John Brennan, the Obama administration’s counterterrorism adviser, publicly corrected Republicans in Congress who have been attacking Obama and the FBI for handling the attempting Christmas Day bombing as a criminal justice rather than a military matter. In his letter, he pointed out that he specifically briefed Sen. Christopher Bond, Rep. John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Rep. Pete Hoekstra — on Christmas Day, after Abdulmutallab’s arrest — about the facts of Abdulmutallab’s arrest and interrogation; specifically, that he was being held and interrogated by the FBI — a civilian, not a military, agency which obviously mirandizes suspects as a matter of course. The Gang of Four offered no objections at that time.
Sen. Bond, upset that he and his colleagues had been outed like this, huffed to reporters that Brennan had never told him Abdulmutallab had been read, or was going to be read, his Miranda rights.
Well, he must have realized how foolish this made him look — to be admitting that he needed to be instructed on police procedures regarding treatment of criminal suspects — because now he is calling for Brennan to resign:
Brennan “needs to go,” Bond said in an interview with National Review Online, a stance that was confirmed later by a spokeswoman.
“A drastic change in policy is needed,” Bond said. “Our problem now is that we have to wonder whether we can trust [Brennan] after he has been a mouthpiece for the political arm that I thought only came out of the White House press office.”
Previous to this, Sen. Bond called for Eric Holder to resign, over the same horrific scandal of the Department of Justice continuing the Bush-era policy of handling terrorism cases as a law enforcement rather than a military matter. As Steve Benen wryly observes, “It must be a day that ends in “y” — a clownish far-right lawmaker is calling for another administration official to resign.”
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