Radical Chic in the DOJ

After this video got some traction, Fox news went out and, through court documents, discovered who the seven unknown lawyers were.


Was it right to expose the seven Obama Justice Department lawyers that worked pro bono for Gitmo detainees before they moved into justice?


Thoughts pro, here, here, here, here. Thoughts con here, here.

Kenneth Starr is against:

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I'm not exactly sure on this one. I don't think every defense lawyer that handles a case pro bono necessarily approves of what their client did. And then, criminal defendant's have a right to counsel, and you can believe a criminal defendant is entitled to a defense--even a good defense--regardless of what he did.

The problem with defending terrorists is that it is not clear they do or should have a right to counsel or habeas corpus--that is a right to challenge their detention in federal court. Of course, judges eventually decided that they do have some limited rights to challenge their detention so it wasn't that crazy of these lawyer to think they do. But then the same people who are criticizing these lawyers have also criticized the Supreme Court for micromanaging the war effort by creating rights for non-American enemy combatants held at Gitmo, so at least they are consistent.

Part of what really bothers me is what Kenneth Anderson identifies as radical chic. It seems like some Che tee-shirt wearers think it's kind of cool to defend terrorists. But I guess I don't know that all these lawyer were motivated by radical chic.

So these lawyers defended the indefensible, for good reasons or bad, and now they want anonymity. Maybe the criticisms are misplaced, and maybe the lawyers will subject to undue harassment, but it seems to me like Americans should at least know who these people are and where they are serving so American's can check up on them and hold political leaders accountable for the people they hire and trust with policy decisions. These lawyers are not beyond criticism, even if the criticism is misplaced, right?

UPDATE: Here is another post that I think is, more or less, where I'm at.