White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan, apparently a little tired of Republican grandstanding over the fact that the Christmas bomber was taken into custody by the FBI, told Meet the Press yesterday that he had personally briefed the GOP leadership about this the day after Christmas and nobody had complained about it. Spencer Ackerman reports their response:
Sure enough, Sen. Chris Bond (R-Mo.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees, insisted that Brennan never specifically told them the FBI would Mirandize Abdulmutallab. “If he had I would [have] told him the Administration was making a mistake,” Bond said. The entire Republican leadership, including fact-averse Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) echoed Bond’s claims in one form or another. Apparently these men, who claim leadership on national security, know less about FBI procedure than the average movie-goer. Obviously the FBI Mirandizes suspects in their custody.
I suppose facts don’t really matter in this case, since Republicans have decided that yammering about Obama being soft on airplane bombers is a winning strategy and they don’t plan to stop no matter what. Still, just for the record, it would be nice if the FBI could tell us if it Mirandized all the terrorist suspects it held during the Bush administration. I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, and I’m pretty sure no Republicans ever complained about it then.