Colonel Moe Davis can’t stand terrorists and hypocrites. Colonel Davis has assisted Indiana Congressman Brad Ellsworth, a candidate for Evan Bayh’s senate seat, repudiate an attack ad made by his Republican opponent, former Senator and DC lobbyist Dan Coats. Remember Coats from the bad old days?
It seems that Dan Coats is quite the hypocrite on a few things. He needs to be careful who his friends are. He released an attack ad stating that Ellsworth voted to close Gitmo and bring prisoners to the United States. Ellsworth denies the charge.
Here’s Colonel Moe Davis:
Coates has been out of office since 1999. According to the South Bend Tribune:
SOUTH BEND — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth is fighting back against a campaign advertisement his Republican opponent, Dan Coats, released last week.
Ellsworth held news conferences in Indianapolis, Crown Point and South Bend on Thursday to counter Coats’ ad, which says Ellsworth voted to close the federal detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer suspected terrorists to prisons in the United States.
“The claim in the ad is blatantly false. I never voted to close Gitmo,” the Evansville congressman said in an interview at the St. Joseph County Democratic Party Headquarters. “I said I will look at the plan when it comes in and make a determination then if that’s something I think makes Americans secure.”
Coats’ campaign stands by the content of its ad, which cites two votes Ellsworth cast against Republican amendments that would have barred the use of federal funds for closing Guantanamo and transferring detainees to the U.S. for trial. Ellsworth said Congress already has the power to approve or deny federal funding if the president presents a plan for transferring detainees to U.S. soil.
Ellsworth added members of both parties are “pretty notorious” for using such procedural votes to create campaign fodder.
“Those are very common Washington, D.C., tactics — what we refer to as ‘gotcha votes’ for things just like this, where you can refer to them and infer something happened that didn’t,” he said.
Nice job, Colonel Davis, nice job! Moe was the chief prosecutor at Gitmo from 2005-2007. He can call it as he sees it because unlike Dan Coats, he was there and on the right side–fighting terrorism. He knows first hand what Coats did and did not do.
Coats’ attack ad is linked above the video. (and the link has been fixed)
I have a question for Mo on one point. It is not uncommon for lobbying firms to take on foreign nations as clients. The fact that the firm for which Coats worked took on the Republic of Yemen as a client does not seem to me to be a valid point of criticism. Yemen is not on the list of nations designated by the U.S. as engaging in state-sponsored terrorism. Yes, the country has a difficult terrorist problem involving both a fairly autonomous branch of al-Qaeda and an internal tribal rebellion in one of its regions. However, the most recent State Department report in 2009 cited Yemen as much improving its level of counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S. and our allies, although it is felt that the Yemeni government may be focusing too much on the tribal rebellion when we would like to see more action against al-Qaeda. The operational environment is admittedly difficult in Yemen, not unexpectedly so in view of demographics, politics, religious cross-currents,and economic under-development. However, the lobbying firm in question is not representing the terrorists. It is representing a Yemeni government, which is, for all intents and purposes, cooperating with us against the terrorist enemy, even though the efficacy of that cooperation is always open to question.. So, why is this a point of criticism against the lobbying firm which employed Coats?
How about misrepresenting Brad Ellsworth’s record?
Does Coats get a pass on that one?
If Yemen was designated a state sponsor of terrorism then it would be a criminal offense (providing material support for terrorism as the Supreme Court said in June in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1498.pdf) to advocate on their behalf. It’s not a question of whether someone COULD be their advocate, it’s a question of whether someone SHOULD be there advocate, particularly when that person later claims he’s the All-American candidate who’s tough on terrorists. Given our sustained military presence in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region that was the main operating area for al Qaeda, they have, as they done before, migrated to areas controlled by largely failed governments where they face little opposition. That’s Yemen and Somalia. The Yemeni government voted against the UN resolution that authorized the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait back in 1990. The USS Cole was bombed in Aden harbor in 2000 killing 17 U.S. service members. The government of Yemen refuses to extradite those responsible and they’ve done next to nothing to hold anyone accountable. They’ve refused to extradite American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Yemen serves as the headquarters for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group that, among other, things trained and equipped the Christmas Day underwear bomber captured at the Detroit airport. If Yemen is our friend then we don’t need enemies.
You can go to a website called Open Secrets (http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php) and find information on lobbyists, including who they’ve identified as their clients. Dan Coats first firm was Verner – Liipfert and his second firm (he left the firm earlier this year when he decided to run for the Senate) was King & Spalding. If you look at the list of clients and what they paid the lobbying firms where Dan Coats worked you’ll see those firms made millions (and paid Dan Coats millions) representing foreign governments that aren’t friendly to the U.S., foreign companies that have taken away American jobs and increased our trade deficit (including companies connected to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez), liquor companies, a pro-abortion group, and provided free legal service to 6 Yemenis suspected of being terrorists that are confined at Gitmo. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with representing any of those interests, but it is hypocritical in the extreme to say Dan Coats is the James Dobson endorsed, All-American, tough on terrorist, family values, pro-life candidate when all the things he now says he’s against helped make him a very wealthy man. As I said in a press conference the other day, it’s like Colonel Sanders coming out and saying all these years he’s been a vegetarian who hates chicken when he’s made a fortune peddling the opposite view.
Contrast that with Brad Ellsworth who spent a career in law enforcement before running for the Congress. The highest paying job he held was as a County Sheriff. If everyone agrees government is corrupt and it needs to change I just don’t see how giving a multi-million dollar lobbyist a seat in the Senate helps.
Moe,
You have demonstrated why people running for office need to be careful of those “stones” they throw when their OWN house is “made of glass”.
Thank you for making us aware of the controversy surrounding the campaign for U.S. Senate in Indiana. However, your shrill tone and condescending attitude made me skeptical of your “facts”, so I did a little checking myself.
Dan Coats served as special counsel at the Verner-Liipfert firm. According to The Hill ( http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/80009-coats-lobbied-for-india-firm-lobbied-for-yemen ), Coats’ personal lobbying for a foreign country was limited to India for the purpose of getting the Indian prime minister invited to a joint session of Congress. Although his firm lobbied for Yemen and others, he apparently was not involved.
As for Guantanamo, I oppose treating detainees as anything other than prisoners of war. However, the government decided that detainees should be treated as criminals with the right to a trial. Given that decision, I find nothing wrong with a U.S. law firm representing the detainees to ensure a proper defense and fair trial.
Although he was roundly criticized at the time, no one questions that patriotism and loyalty of John Adams who defended the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre and later became the nation’s second president. So I do not find it hypocritical at all for Coats to claim that he is tough on terrorism after having defended the six detainees.
I also think that it is a fair question to ask why Ellesworth voted against amendments that would have denied federal funding for closing Guantanamo. By voting against this amendment, he tacitly approved the closing of Guantanamo. Perhaps there is a perfectly good explanation for voting against the amendment, but it is not unfair to bring it up as an issue.
It sounds like Coats swiftboated to me. Back to those glass houses.
Shrill is never a word I would associate with Colonel Davis…or were you speaking of me? Now that is conceivable.
Where Rep. Ellsworth stands is a fair question and I hope voters will look for the truth and not just fall for sound bites. Sections 1032-1034 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2011 prohibits the SECDEF from using any appropriated funds to transfer a Gitmo detainee into the U.S. or to construct any facility in the U.S. that would be used to house detainees. Here’s the link to the text of the bill and you can scroll down and read those sections for yourself: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c1117LDmJ4:e672771. The bill was HR 5186 and it passed the House on May 28 and is now awaiting action in the Senate. The bill with the language about Gitmo passed by a vote of 229-186 and Rep. Ellsworth voted for the bill, and that includes the Gitmo spending prohibition. Here’s a link to the vote and you can scroll down and find his name: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll336.xml As Rep. Ellsworth has explained, he voted against two procedural votes the Republicans put forward that were political grandstanding and unnecessary given what was already in the legislation.
All of the money a lobbying firm earns from all sources goes into the till and is distributed to its partners. Dan Coats may have lobbied for India at Verner – Liipfert, but the firm also lobbied for Yemen, and the money from the Indian government and the money from the Yemini government went into the same pot along with the money from all of the other interests the firm represented and enabled the senior members of the firm to live high on the hog. Some people have declined to work for certain firms because they have moral objections to some of the interests the firms represent, and even though I may not agree with their views I can respect the integrity it takes to do that. I am not aware of Dan Coats ever refusing a dime that came from Yemen or Venezuela or a foreign company or the liquor industry or Planned Parenthood. I’m not arguing that there is anything wrong with any of the interests Verner – Liipfert or King & Spalding represented … and that includes their pro bono representation of the detainees (and I agree with the John Adams analogy) … but I do believe it is hypocritical for Dan Coats to get filthy rich as a lobbyist off of money that came in part from interests he now disavows when he’s running for office. When he had a chance to put his money where his mouth is he didn’t, he took the money. I’m concerned about the impact of lobbyists on the Senate, I surely don’t want one in the Senate.
Moe is anything but shrill. The point about Guantanamo is not the right to representation, Moe, I doubt, would argue that, he believes in a fair trail, in fact, he sacraficed much in the name of fairness and law regarding Guantanamo. His point is that Coats is talking about his opponent as though he doesn’t care about the safety of this country because of guantanamo , Moe is simply pointing out the hypocrisy.
Thank you for clarification, Moe.
Sorry, Mo, but working the counterterrorist gambit in a “failed state” or in a state which is showing many of the signs of going in that direction is not a cut-and dried, black-and white issue. I have done just that kind of work in such states and directed operations involving many another. It is not a world where logic and moralism prevail. It is, rather, a situation, in which logic often seems to be reversed and in which you have to play some strange and discomforting games which are not found in circumstances to which we are accustomed at home. Such states by definition do not function well, even in the security field. As someone involved in the training of many foreign counterterrorist police officers, I can tell you that often not even the training takes once they get back into the fray. Very frustrating. Moreover, the political cross-currents are often confounding and disheartening. Add to that an intense religious context, and you have a daily conundrum which can cause you to tear your hair out. You cannot function at all in such a milieu until you come to understand that this is something which you cannot change very easily and that the best you can do very often is to try to thread the needle while standing in the middle of an earthquake tremor. You have good days. You have bad days. Sometimes you have very bad days.
Two things stand out in any situation comparable to that in Yemen. The first is fear. It is the giant monster lurking everywhere in everything you try to do. When a terrorist organization as ruthless as al-Qaeda is operating on the home ground in this type of state, you will find that fear is a primary factor in failing to achieve success. I have seen witnesses intimidated and klled. I have seen counterterrorist officers, prosecuting attorneys, and even high court judges quake in fear, realizing that the security forces are not good enough to protect then and their families from terrorist revenge. I have seen terrorists walk free because of that. And one of the most forceful weapons in the al-Qaeda arsenal in a place like Yemen is fear. I would hazard that fear is a very big part of what an outsider might take in Yemen to be a deliberate failure to deal adequately with the terrorist target. If anyone doubts this, then you volunteer for a career in the Clandestine Service and ask for an assignment to Yemen. You also will get a taste of that fear.
A second factor is loyalty. Many of these states have little efficacy in the fields of counterintelligence and counterespionage. Modern terrorists have become very proficient at penetrating the security services and the armed forces, thereby having a constant leg up on the planning undertaken either unilaterally or jointly by the counterterrorist police. Believe you me. That is a mighty frustrating thing to face. And I faced it up front and personal. It left my own people vulnerable to assassination. It’s probably one of those reasons why I don’t have all that much hair left on the top of my head. Recall, if you will, how those six intelligence officers died in Afghanistan some months ago.
The upshot in cases like that of Yemen is that you either have to work with what you’ve got or give up and quit the field all together. Given the worldwide reach of al-Qaeda in its various semiautonomous branches, the second option is not viable in my opinion. What you say about Yemen in previous years carries much truth, but that country is slowly being dragged into the fight. Had we not stuck it out there under some very difficult circumstances, that whole place might have become an al-Qaeda stronghold without significant on-the-ground opposition. Anything we have done or can do to turn that tide is a positive in my book, even if the process of trying to achieve something significant causes you to grind your teeth to nubbins. What you do not do is just declare that this guy is an enemy rather than a friend and then walk away from the fray. This is the Third World. It can be a strange place. It malfunctions often. But you have to find a way to work in it. You do not isolate it.
Thank you Wolverine , for bringing your personal experience in Yemen to the table. It is difficult for us non-military folks to even imagine what must be going on out there in the world.
I still don’t see where Dan Coats is off the hook for attacking Ellsworth unfairly. Regardless of how uncut and dry things are in those countries, we still have to operate under US laws. I think perhaps it is best for Coats to leave things alone when his own track record is questionable. He had a track record for extremely aggressive politics 20 years ago. I see nothing has changed.
I would be curious to know if he has responded to questions about Planned Parenthood money. He used to have a grade of 100% from National Right to Life for his voting record. Will he still have it after having shared funds from Planned Parenthood? Like Moe, I don’t criticize PP. I think they are a decent organization. However, I am aware that many others do not share my sentiments.
Sorry to have possibly misled, Moon. Yemen itself was never my personal beat. Several countries were, however, where conditions mirrored many of those in Yemen, and some of those countries were not all that far away. I really do not have a problem with that lobbying firm having had Yemen as a client. I found in my own work that the more varied lines of contact into such a country by ourselves and our allies, the more chance we have to exercise some influence over events. Sometimes it can look like a dirty business, but you do not get anywhere when you choose to isolate, even when conditions are very unfavorable and the resultant media coverage does not look good to outsiders. And I will give Mo this: Yemen is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma and a very hard nut to crack.
I am glad you didn’t have to go there, Wolverine. It sounds like a hell hole if you are an American or anyone who isn’t filthy rich. Filthy rich non Americans might be sitting pretty.
I simply do not understand middle east thinking and I won’t ever.
Here’s the question: what does a person have to do to get sent to Yemen? arrgghhhh.
In the event this has gotten lost in the mix let me be clear that I do not fault lobbying firms or law firms for representing anyone or any interest. I believe in the Constitution and free speech and free association and all that. What I find hypocritical is for Dan Coats to a make a ton of money as a lobbyist — selling the influence he acquired by virtue of having held elected office — as a senior member of firms that shill for foreign governments that don’t like us, foreign companies that siphon off American jobs and increase our trade deficit, Wall Street firms that brought the economy to its knees, alcohol and abortion, and Gitmo detainees and then go out an campaign like he’s just a regular Joe and on a platform that suggests many of things that made him filthy rich as a lobbyist are bad. And to be as above-board as possible, I believe Dan Coats made a public statement voicing his opposition to his firm representing Planned Parenthood some years ago, so I give him credit for speaking up for what he believed, but I would note that I saw no indication that he declined a percentage of his compensation equal to the percentage of what Planned Parenthood contributed to the firm’s bottom line. I think that goes back to putting your money where your mouth is … he mouthed the right words and then pocketed the money.
I don’t disagree with what Wolverine said about the complexities of the world we live in. I would note, however, that we have not been all that good in picking who we choose to sidle up to. Noriega was our guy when we were concerned about communism taking root in Central America. Later, we invaded his country and captured him. Saddam was our guy when Iraq was at war with Iran, but later we invaded his country, captured him and saw him executed. Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen were our guys in Afghanistan when they were giving the Russians fits, but now they’ve morphed into al Qaeda and the Taliban and we’re at war with them. I have a very, very hard time seeing anything good for us coming out of Yemen or Somalia and if I had to guess I suspect they will become like the border region of Pakistan where we can’t rely on the frail governments to do anything so we do it ourselves. I also don’t see where Dan Coats’ firm palling around and taking money from a failed state has helped us one iota. Good for them that they made some bucks off the Yeminis that they can spend on limos and thick steaks at Bobby Van’s, but I suspect the American taxpayers are going to spend a great deal more in that cesspool of a country in the years ahead.
It sounds to me like Wolverine studied under Rumsfeld and Cheney–he certainly seems to take their line and drink their Koolaid. He obviously has considerable experience in that part of the world, but, for him to let Coats off the hood is as hypociritical as Coats. Sorry Wolverine, your vast experience doesn’t work in this case–particularly since you have never been to Yemen and it sounds like you know nothing about Coats or Ellsworth. The fact that you see nothing wrong with Coats and his employer having Yemen–despite all the terrible things that have happened there to OUR people speaks volumes. Others may consider you credible, but you have lost much face in my view. I would stand Moe Davis up against you any day–at least he is willing to use his name to stand by his comments–you feel it necessary to hide. Oh, I know–can’t expose yourself because of your past. Right? I say Horse Hockey!
I think I will tip-toe on our of here and let you military men folks discuss this. I am clearly out of my league at this point. I don’t know Jack.
Forbes, which I think we can all agree is a conservative publication, published a ranking last February of all 180 countries based on their levels of corruption. Not surprisingly, at the bottom of the list at #180 was Somalia. Afghainistan was next to last at #179. Yemen tied for #154. We came in #19 right behind the U.K. and Japan who tied for #17. #1 was New Zealand and #2 was Denmark.
George — Speak not of that about which you know nothing. Rumsfeld and Cheney indeed! My last boss was named Clinton. For your edification, terrorism against Americans did not start on 9/11/2001. As for Coats, I took no stand for or against on his personal involvement in lobbying. That’s between him and the people of Indiana. If you would take the time to read with care you would see that I was merely discussing approaches to malfunctioning Third World countries which have serious terrorism problems. You by contrast sound like someone who would look for the nearest hidey hole instead of going hard against a tough counterterrorism problem. If you bothered to do any research at all, you would find that the current administration is ramping it up their efforts in Yemen, something which matches my own views and for which I commend them. They themselves believe they are making progress. And getting me to commend the Obama group on anything is highly unusual.
Quite frankly George, I gave up long ago caring one wit about any lost face in the Harris household. And whether or not I choose my true identity in discussing subjects such as terrorism and my personal involvement in the battle against it is, quite frankly, none of your damned business.
@Morris Davis
Based on your suggestion, I took the time to read Section 1032 of HR 5136 (Version 5 on http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.5136: ). The Section is called ‘PROHIBITION ON THE USE OF FUNDS FOR THE TRANSFER OR RELEASE OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT UNITED STATES NAVAL STATION, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA.’ Here is what it says:
” … The SecDef may not use any of the amounts authorized to be appropriated in this Act or otherwise available to the Department of Defense to transfer any individual described in subsection (d) to the United States, its territories, or possessions, until 120 days after the President has submitted to the congressional defense committees the plan described in section 1041(c) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law 111-84; 123 Stat. 2454).”
No wonder Ellsworth is so defensive over this. The Act allows the President to transfer detainees to the United States without Congressional approval. Under this Act, all the President has to do is submit a plan and then wait 120 days.
Dan Coats is quite right to call out Ellsworth over this. House Democrats need to be called out for referring to Section 1032 as a prohibition when in fact it prohibits nothing. It allows the President to transfer detainees to the United States if he so chooses.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Gerry Connolly voted for this also.
MH: I submitted a comment (twice) on the text of HR 5136, which is apparently in moderation. Would you please post the second one and delete the first one? Not sure why either one would be caught up in moderation — it contains only a single link. Thanks.
Done Kelly. You weren’t in moderation. You got caught in spam. I don’t know what is making that happen. In fact, nearly everyone who has gotten hung up this week has been in spam. I don’t know why the spam filter has been so overly aggressive this week.
Sorry.
Just out of curiosity, what would have happened to detainees had Prez. Bush not made it policy to hold prisoners at Gitmo?
I don’t ever recall prisoners being brought there prior to the recent wars. Perhaps I just didn’t know about it.
During WWII many POWs were held in the United States.
Thanks for taking care of it, MH.
As for the disposition of detainees if Gitmo were not established, my guess is that they would have been kept at facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq.
During WWII, many POWs were indeed held in the U.S. But these were honorable soldiers who for the most part abided by the laws of war. POWs are supposed to try to escape. However, there was no great concern that a POW who managed to escape would immediately try to kill great numbers of civilians (and himself). The same cannot be said of the detainees in GITMO.
Moon, in previous times, terrorist detainees were usually handed over to the justice system of the country of origin or involvement. In most of those countries, extradition was nearly impossible to achieve for political reasons and because of the death penalty in the U.S. Then you sat back and crossed your fingers. You felt a bit more confident when those terrorists had been involved in killing citizens of their own country as well as Americans. This judicial modus operandi was not always the case but mostly anyway. This always presented problems, especially in countries where there were human rights issues under the focus of such groups as Amnesty International. You can always debate the legitimacy of Gitmo. I personally was no longer in the battle when Gitmo was created; but, had I been, I would have felt a lot more comfortable handing detainees over to someone like Mo Davis for prosecution.
kelly3406 — You cited language from the version of HR 5136 as it was introduced in the House in April. Pasted below is the verbatem wording of HR 5136, Section 1032, as it passed the House on May 28 and was then sent to the Senate where it remains. Maybe Coats did the same thing you did and failed to read the real bill as it exists today.
SEC. 1032. PROHIBITION ON THE USE OF FUNDS FOR THE TRANSFER OR RELEASE OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT UNITED STATES NAVAL STATION, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA.
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act may be used to transfer, release, or assist in the transfer or release to or within the United States, its territories, or possessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other detainee who–
(1) is not a United States citizen or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States; and
(2) is or was held on or after January 20, 2009, at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the Department of Defense.
Colonel, you could well turn out to be correct in your prognistications vis-a-vis the ultimate outcome in Yemen. As you well know, life in this business always has elements of a crap shoot. My own philosophy is that you give it a try. Maybe it will work and maybe not. In this particular case I am pulling for the current administration to succeed, all other politics aside. The next time a Christmas Day bomber eludes border security, the bomb he carries may have been perfected. I prefer to try to get them at the source rather than wait like I often had to in the old days when my inbox contained the crime scene reports, the initial investigative reports, the autopsy reports, and the God-awful photos of what was left of the victims.
I would be remiss in not thanking you for the job you were willing to undertake in 2005-2007 at Gitmo. Although I and my colleagues was precluded for security reasons from taking part in actual prosecutions, I knew full well how it was to be hounded by prosecutors always bugging me about coming up not only with the villain but also the untainted physical evidence to convict him. But, bugged as I was, I never lost sight of the fact that the prosecutor was a vital part of the team and an ally who was often more on my side than some others with whom I had to work. Anyway, I do appreciate your penchant for staying on top of the terrorism issue, and I certainy do regret that your skill and dedication are no longer in the actual process somewhere.
Having said that, there are still some questions. I viewed more than a few times the first part of your video. It sure looked to me like you were taking Coats morally to task for not having objected to his firm’s taking on Yemen as a client at all. So, which is your true sentiment? The first part of the video or the first two sentences in your #14 post? I have no objection to your taking Coats to task for current statements and their relation to his past lobbying activities. All these guys are fair game all the time. But my reading of the first part of your video is what launched me into the essays in #1 and #10. Maybe you can clarify. Iran, Syria, and some others I can buy in this regard, morally and apart from the legal restrictions you have cited. But there are many places where reality is sadly and confoundedly mixed, and I always hesitated to kiss off any opportunity to make inroads against this target, no matter how hard that was.
Secondly, I concede that you know Gitmo and I do not. But I must admit that a part of your video seemed to be taking Coats’ second firm to task for participating so vigorously in the defense of some of those detainees at Gitmo. Am I misreading that? It just doesn’t seem to jibe with your previous counterattack against cetain prominent Republican politicians who were trying to take DOJ lawyers Neal Katyal and Jennifer Dashal to the proverbial woodshed for their vigorous defense of some of the Gitmo defendants. If I may quote you from the Spencer Ackerman article in the Washington Independent of 3/2/10: “If you zealously represent a client, there’s nothing shameful about that. That’s the American way.” My friend, I was one of those applauding you loudly on general principles with regard to the Katyal-Dashal dustup. The accusations put me off as well, and I thought your defense of two of your court opponents was a thoroughly honorable thing. So, can you parse this for me? How do the defense efforts by the Coats firm differ in legal principle from those by Katyal and Dashal. Is it the principle of the thing? Is it the difference in “sponsors”? Or is it just what Coats is saying now in the campaign?
@Morris Davis
Mea culpa. I am happy to find out that the original language did not survive. The fact that the House put forth such irresponsible language in the first place is still quite amazing. I will pay much closer attention to the Coats-Ellsworth race in the coming weeks.
I would be interested in knowing whether Ellsworth actually read the final version of HR 5136 or not. His statement above that “Congress already has the power to approve or deny federal funding if the president presents a plan for transferring detainees to U.S. soil” sounds like he was referring to the earlier version of the bil.
With so many versions, it is easy to see how debate on this bill could get confused.