Tag Archives: Peter King

How Long Was Abu Ghaith Detained in Jordan? Was He Tortured There?

By:  Friday March 8, 2013 9:18 am

Barack Obama and Eric Holder, in my opinion, have violated the Constitution and international laws on a large number of fronts in carrying out the Great War on Terror, but they are to be commended for their move to try Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, in federal court rather than in a military commission at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, in reading reports in this rapidly developing story, a couple of key questions stand out. We only learned yesterday, when New York Republican (or Democrat?) Peter King first broke the news that Abu Ghaith had been captured, that he was to appear today at an arraignment in New York. The exact date on which he was detained is not known and it appears that he spent at least some time in custody in Jordan. The involvement of Jordan in this case is highly problematic, because the Bush administration relied heavily on Jordan for torture of suspects who eventually were sent to Gitmo.

Lara Jakes of AP broke what seems to be the first report on Abu Ghaith’s capture:

Rep. Peter King, the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, credited the CIA and FBI with catching al-Qaida propagandist Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in Jordan within the last week. He said the capture was confirmed to him by U.S. law enforcement officials.

A Jordanian security official confirmed that al-Ghaith was handed over last week to U.S. law enforcement officials under both nations’ extradition treaty. He declined to disclose other details and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

But just how long was Abu Ghaith in Jordan? Here is NPR:

Sources familiar with the case tell NPR that bin Laden’s son-in-law left Iran last month to travel to Turkey. He entered the country under a false passport and Turkish authorities subsequently found him and arrested him in a luxury hotel in Ankara, the Turkish capital. They held him briefly but then decided that they couldn’t detain him because hadn’t committed a crime on Turkish soil.

Abu Ghaith is originally from Kuwait. He was stripped of his passport soon after 9-11, so he is essentially stateless. Nevertheless, the Turkish authorities decided to deport him back to Kuwait via Jordan.

It was during that transfer that U.S. officials picked him up, officials said. Some media outlets are reporting that the CIA was involved. Others say it was the Special Forces.

The U.S. government has not said how Abu Gaith came into its custody. But he was flown to New York after a big internal discussion within the U.S. government on the best venue in which to try him. And it appears the decision was to bring charges in a federal court.

Here is how the Justice Department described which US agencies were involved in the capture:

The charges and arrest of Abu Ghayth are the result of the close cooperative efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the Joint Terrorism Task Force – which principally consists of agents and detectives of the FBI and the New York City Police Department – the United States Marshals Service and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Department of State also provided assistance.

The question of whether Abu Ghaith was held by Jordan and for how long is important because of the torture Jordan carried out on behalf of the US during the Bush administration. From a Washington Post story in 2007: Continue reading →


Time to Fund Fat Al Gore Relief Like We Should Have Funded Iraq, Afghan Wars

By:  Wednesday January 2, 2013 11:34 am

Peter King, House Republican, called today for New Yorkers to stop funding House Republicans because they refused to pass a Sandy relief bill last night.

“These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they’re out raising millions of dollars,” King said on Fox News. “They’re in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers. I’m saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace.”

King also said he was ready to buck Republican leaders on every issue until the Sandy aid is approved.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m on my own,” King said. “They’re going to have to go a long way to get my vote on anything.”

There’s a lot of choice things to say about what this signals for the GOP and King.

But rather indulge myself in that, I’d like to draw a larger lesson from it.

It is time to start funding relief for climate change related disasters ahead of time–for all the  reasons we should have always funded the Afghan and Iraq Wars through the budget rather than supplemental funding.

We need to start setting aside realistic relief funds–say $100 billion a year–to deal with these disasters, because if we don’t, these supplementals will become yet more hostage situations for the GOP. After all, while it was probably a fracking-related disaster rather than a climate change one, Eric Cantor held his own constituents hostage when they needed funds after the earthquake in his district. If Cantor will hold them hostage (and they’ll continue to reelect him), then they’ll hold anyone hostage. And if a city as big and vital as NYC can get held hostage, then the towns that extreme weather are wiping off the map in Arkansas and Alabama will surely be hostages, too.

We can’t let increasingly frequent not-quite-so-natural disasters be serial opportunities for Republicans to gut government.

Furthermore, until we start budgeting climate change relief as such, we’ll never start accounting for how much we’re already paying because of climate change. We’ll never adequately balance whatever benefits come from–say–Shell drilling in the Arctic or KXL pipeline transit of the US if, as we did with the Iraq War, we simply don’t treat relief for climate victims as a real cost, one we’re going to have to pay year after year in increasing amounts.

Democrats are very happy to harp on Bush’s wars, which were treated as but never really were free. But the government’s commitment to drilling over better approaches to energy in the face of climate change–along with a failure to fund the obvious outcome of that drilling–is no less foolish.


Silent Talking Points: Don’t Tell the Terrorists We Know They Exist

By:  Monday November 19, 2012 4:23 am

Between the extensive leaking from the so-called closed hearings on Thursday and Friday (Spencer’s got a good wrap-up here) and the Sunday shows (LAT has a good wrap-up here), we’ve got a little better understanding of the Administration’s current understanding of the Benghazi attack.

That said, I’ve got a different set of questions about what those show than most of the pundits commenting on it.

How strongly did Petraeus initially blame al Qaeda-related attackers?

My first question pertains to an apparent discrepancy, not about the testimony last week, but about Petraeus’ initial testimony shortly after the attack.

We know that in his testimony Friday, Petraeus said he knew fairly quickly that Ansar al-Sharia was behind the attack.

He knew “almost immediately” that Ansar al-Sharia, a loosely connected radical Islamist group, was responsible for the attack, as suggested by multiple sources and video from the scene, said the source. At the same time, a stream of intelligence — including about 20 distinct reports — also emerged indicating that a brewing furor over the anti-Islamic video preceded the attack.

The CIA eventually disproved the reports that film-related protests had anything to do with the attack. But this didn’t happen until after Petraeus’ initial briefings to lawmakers, in which he discussed all the possibilities, the source said.

Petraeus blamed some other unnamed intelligence agency for taking out the reference to Ansar al-Sharia (though the talking points came from CIA).

Petraeus testified that the CIA draft written in response to the raid referred to militant groups Ansar al-Shariah and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb but those names were replaced with the word “extremist” in the final draft, according to a congressional staffer. The staffer said Petraeus testified that he allowed other agencies to alter the talking points as they saw fit without asking for final review, to get them out quickly.

But different lawmakers have differing recollections about what Petraeus originally testified, just days after the attack. Peter King suggested that Petraeus hid the role of terrorists in his September 14 briefing to the House Intelligence Committee.

King said Petraeus had briefed the House committee on Sept. 14 and he does not recall Petraeus being so positive at that time that it was a terrorist attack. “He thought all along that he made it clear there was terrorist involvement,” King said. “That was not my recollection.”

That’s not how Dianne Feinstein (who elsewhere expressed concern about the “suffering” related to the sexy time scandal) remembers a briefing on September 12.

Feinstein, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said that the now-former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, had “very clearly said that it was a terrorist attack” in a meeting with lawmakers the day after the attack in Benghazi.

Mind you, those were different briefings–it’s possible just the Gang of Four got briefed on September 12. If that’s the case (and if King is telling the truth), it would mean Petraeus was less forthcoming about terrorist involvement with the full House Committee than with a more select group of lawmakers.

And note this seems to be the reverse of the politics you’d expect. While both DiFi and King vow to get to the bottom of how the talking points were made, King seems to attribute some deceit to Petraeus whereas DiFi seems to believe the suffering Petraeus was forthright–and clear-headed–from the start.

Were we really afraid to let Ansar al-Sharia know we were onto them?

Now consider the excuse Petraeus gave for taking mention of Ansar al-Sharia and AQIM out of the unclassified talking points: we didn’t want the terrorists to know we knew about them.

Testifying out of sight, ex-CIA Director David Petraeus told Congress Friday that classified intelligence showed the deadly raid on the U.S. Consulate in Libya was a terrorist attack but the administration withheld the suspected role of al-Qaida affiliates to avoid tipping them off.

I wonder if that’s the entire story.

I’m not saying the Administration deliberately used inaccurate talking points; if they had, then why did Obama name terrorism even before Susan Rice appeared on the Sunday shows? It’d be a colossal fuckup of a cover-up.

And there are certainly reasons to believe that’s why they withheld this detail. It is true that the conclusions about Ansar al-Sharia and AQIM rely in significant part on–presumably–NSA intercepts of voice communications. Continue reading →


Racial Profiling Is Wrong, Sometimes

By:  Sunday August 12, 2012 10:13 am

The NYT has a long article revealing that TSA officers in Boston were profiling people of color as part of its behavior detection program.

In interviews and internal complaints, officers from the Transportation Security Administration’s “behavior detection” program at Logan International Airport in Boston asserted that passengers who fit certain profiles — Hispanics traveling to Miami, for instance, or blacks wearing baseball caps backward — are much more likely to be stopped, searched and questioned for “suspicious” behavior.

“They just pull aside anyone who they don’t like the way they look — if they are black and have expensive clothes or jewelry, or if they are Hispanic,” said one white officer, who along with four others spoke with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity.

It’s an important article that deserves attention, particularly given the White House’s practice of refusing to let citizens use the White House’s own accountability mechanisms to complain about the TSA, as happened Friday when it took down its petition process just before the petition attained the signatures that would have elicited a White House response.

But the article dissolves into hilarity around about paragraphs 35 and 36, when the article quotes a noted civil libertarian assailing racial profiling.

Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who has pushed for more aggressive counterterrorism measures, said he was troubled by the reports of profiling in Boston.

“If it is going on, it is wrong and can’t be defended,” Mr. King said.

Peter King?!?! The NYT quotes Peter King worrying about racial profiling without noting that with King’s rabid support the NYPD has turned the Gray Lady’s own city in to the poster child for illegal racial profiling? Without noting that King has turned the House Homeland Security Committee into an instrument of racial profiling? C’mon, NYT, you can’t be unaware that these comments, from King, are not credible!

Or maybe they are. After all, since Wade Page’s attack on a Sikh temple brought increased focus on the threat represented by white supremacists, King has faced calls to hold hearings on the radicalization of white people, just like he held a never-ending series of hearings on the radicalization of Muslims. Maybe King has thought about how inappropriate it would be to suggest all white people–or even all white supremacists–might be terrorists. Maybe King has developed a new found hatred of racial profiling now that there’s good reason white people might be targeted.

But you’d think the NYT would want to explain why a local Congressman’s statements conflict so dramatically with his past actions.


Peter King Rejoins the Leak Witch Hunt

By:  Friday August 3, 2012 4:46 pm

Yesterday I suggested that it was quite possible that the story that Obama signed a Finding authorizing support for Syrian may have come from Congressional, not Executive Branch, sources.

First, this story is based on the leak of a covert Finding–precisely the kind of leak that Congress has gone on the warpath against. Hosenball attributes his reporting to US sources–an attribution that can (though doesn’t necessarily) refer to Congressional sources.

U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.

[snip]

A U.S. government source acknowledged

And while he notes–and names–the Senators who have been pressuring Obama to do precisely what he has been doing for months, Hosenball doesn’t name the members of Congress who are opposed to such an action.

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government should become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents.

Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups.

In short, chances are not insignificant that a Congressional source leaked the contents of a Finding authorizing covert operations.

And yet … crickets!

I spoke prematurely. Peter King is on the case with a letter asking Robert Mueller to investigate that leak. He notes both the Finding and the location of the control center (close to our own airbase) are secret.

If my suspicion that this leak came from Congress is correct, it’ll be interesting to see what happens as Congress begins to eat its own.


GOP Targets John Brennan and Leon Panetta with Leak Witchhunts

By:  Monday May 21, 2012 1:23 pm

Meanwhile, speaking of leak investigations, the GOP has gone leak investigation happy.

First, Peter King wrote Robert Mueller formally requesting an investigation into the leak about the UndieBomber. He appears to have cleaned up his single-minded focus on reporters who were mean to Ray Kelly, focusing now on the “penetration of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” rather than the initial reporting on the “plot” itself.

I am writing to formally request (a) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation conduct a full inquiry of the widely reported leaks earlier this month of highly classified information regarding penetration of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and (b) that this investigation include the Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, federal law enforcement and the White House, including the National Security staff.

Among the severely disturbing implications of these leaks are that (a) the lives of a unique intelligence source and others may have been jeopardized, (b) the operation had to be aborted before its potential was maximized and (c) critical intelligence relationships have been damaged.

The information regarding this intelligence matter was handled in the most restricted manner possible by the Intelligence Community and the White House which means the leak would have to have emanated from a small universe. That makes this leak all the more distressing and is why I so strongly believe that an investigation of a security breach of this magnitude must encompass everyone who had access to this vital information. [my empahsis]

But he seems to ignore the likelihood that foreign sources were the people–in addition to John Brennan–who revealed the plot involved a Saudi-managed infiltrator.

Nevertheless, it appears clear that Brennan might be included among the targets here.

Meanwhile, Representative Tom Price included an amendment in the 2013 NDAA that mandates an investigation into leaks preventing Israel’s efforts to drag us into an attack on Iran.

A stream of highly sensitive information continues to be leaked to the press–information that includes U.S. and Israeli military and intelligence operational capabilities, as well as classified negotiations between Israel and other countries.

On March 20, The New York Times, citing senior administration officials, reported the conclusions of a classified war simulation conducted by the United States that analyzed an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

On March 28, Foreign Policy magazine, quoting four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers, referred to a report that Israel would be granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan as part of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a move clearly designed to undercut cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel.

Further degrading Israel’s ability to defend itself, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius on February 3 reported that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes there’s a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May, or June, which reportedly sent Iran’s air defenses on high alert.

The release of this classified information not only puts at risk fragile negotiations between countries but also the very lives of the men and women called upon to carry out this mission. I recently traveled to the Middle East, where we met with senior Israeli officials. Their number one concern was that for the first time in our long relationship, United States was releasing classified operational information and capabilities, willfully putting at risk the lives of Israeli people. [links added to the stories named by Price]

Now, I’d say this amendment wouldn’t make it through the Senate given that it attempts to criminalize leaks supporting US interests, except that it passed by an overwhelming margin in the House and AIPAC has as much sway among the Democrats who set the schedule in the Senate as it does in the House.

But it’s worth noting that it names Panetta explicitly for his blabbing to David Ignatius.

I’ve noted that both Brennan and Panetta might catch some heat for these leaks. But it almost certainly won’t be legal trouble. The latter, at least, certainly served Administration efforts to stave off an Israeli attack. And Obama seems to have protected all the other leaking Brennan as done.

Still, these leak investigations, if they happen, do offer the GOP a way to pressure the Administration during the election season.

I’m frankly opposed to anything that helps Mitt and his wingnut advisors get closer to the White House. Still, I admit a bit of schadenfreude that the Administration will soon be the focus of the kind of witchhunts it has launched against others.


Peter King Makes It More Clear He’s Targeting the AP, Not Leakers

By:  Thursday May 10, 2012 8:29 am

A real member of Congress might worry that the government is using double agents to expand wars in other countries without briefing the Gang of Eight, as required by law.

Not Peter King. He wants to investigate the AP’s sources–but not, apparently, ABC’s–to find out how the press learned something that had not been briefed properly.

Also: Peter King doesn’t believe in scaring the American people. Just ginning up fear about one religion or ethnic group.


Peter King Uses Tax Evasion Case as Proof of Hezbollah Involvement in US

By:  Wednesday March 21, 2012 11:51 am

Peter King is having another of his fear-mongering hearings on the Islamic threat in the US–this one focused on “Iran, Hezbollah, and the Threat to the Homeland.” As part of that, they’ve released a whopping 2-page report on that threat, including such claims such as this one:

After 9/11, many in law enforcement and intelligence assumed Hezbollah would only strike inside our borders if Israel or the U.S. attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran’s unprovoked plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington has changed that thinking. [emphasis original]

Apparently, Peter King hasn’t read Holder’s legal defense of assassination in response to perceived threats.

More interesting still is the list of “US cases involving Hezbollah,” a list of 19 federal cases. One of the cases is the Scary Car Broker plot, in which the US-based business owners are not alleged to have known of any tie to Hezbollah (if, in fact, one exists).

Even worse, it includes US v. Chahine, the case against Nada Prouty’s brother-in-law Talal Chahine.

The government never accused Chahine of any ties to Hezbollah–not in any legal forum where they’d have to prove their case. Rather, they accused him (and got a guilty plea from Prouty’s sister) of tax evasion. While the tax evasion case was valid, the entire case derived from Prouty’s brother Fadi’s efforts to dig up a crime that would justify his service as an informant, which he was doing to beat his own weapons charges. That is, as so often happens, this was an instance of FBI trading one criminal charge for the hope of netting a terrorist. Along the way, Fadi convinced Chahine not to go clean on his tax evasion, presumably at the direction of the FBI. Ultimately, the only tie between Chahine and Hezbollah consisted of a radical cleric’s presence at a charity event benefiting orphans to which Chahine had donated And, as Prouty lays out, a 4-year investigation into Chahine never showed any ties to terrorism.

In fact, government records would later show that even after a second raid of Talal’s residence in September 2005, no actual evidence of terrorism was obtained, nor was incriminating evidence of terrorism ties ever found in the nearly four years of tapped phones, intercepted faxes, and closely monitored bank activities.

As Prouty also notes, the government let Chahine skip the country (Fadi had warned him he’d be indicted), which she suggests they wouldn’t have done if he were a legitimate terrorist threat.

So apparently, according to Peter King, any time a Lebanese immigrant commits tax evasion, it counts as a Hezbollah case.

As someone who has himself funded a terrorist group, King ought to know it takes more to fund terrorists than that.


The King/Schumer Christie/Booker Smackdown

By:  Saturday March 3, 2012 12:55 pm

I confess I’m enjoying the spat developing between New York and New Jersey’s top politicians over the NYPD’s spying on New Jersey Muslims. First Christie dared to call Kelly arrogant.

“He’s Ray Kelly, so what’re you gonna do? I mean, he’s all-knowing, all-seeing,” Christie said.

“And I don’t know all the details yet, but my concern is, you know, why can’t you be, you know, communicating with the people here in New Jersey, with law enforcement here in New Jersey. Are we somehow not trustworthy?” said Christie.

[snip]

“This is New York Police Department. I know they think their jurisdiction is the world. Their jurisdiction is New York City. So if they’re going to leave their jurisdiction and go to investigate a case in another jurisdiction, it could be dangerous,” Christie said. “This is the way law enforcement people get hurt or killed, is when they’re not cooperating with each other, not communicating with each other.”

“I’m not saying they don’t belong in New Jersey, but tell us! Share it with the appropriate law enforcement agency,” Christie said. “My concern is this kind of obsession that the NYPD seems to have that they’re the masters of the universe.”

Then there’s the spectacle of King defending Ray Kelly as if the latter is a shrinking violet, with neither access to the press nor taste for a fight himself.

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Gov. Chris Christie crossed a line when he mocked Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as “all-knowing, all-seeing” and said the NYPD’s intelligence operation in Newark may have been “born out of arrogance.”

[snip]

“I just found it a real disappointment the way he was conducting himself, the way he was taking cheap shots at Ray Kelly,” King said.

Sure, aside from Booker, who seems genuinely concerned either with his actual constituents or appearing that way, this is a giant pissing contest between men defending their turf.

Part of me wonders why most of these men have reacted so strongly. Christie, after all, must have close ties to Newark’s FBI officers from his time as US Attorney. That seems to be what this dig is about:

“His main objection seems to be that he wasn’t … brought in. But the fact is that he wasn’t governor. He was U.S. attorney. And I’m not aware of any major terror plots that he ever uncovered while he was U.S. attorney in New Jersey.”

(King forgets, of course, that the NYPD didn’t find any of the major terrorist attacks since 9/11–street vendors and the FBI did.)

Part of me wonders whether Kelly, channeling J. Edgar Hoover as he increasingly seems to be doing, has some dirt on King and Schumer to make cow them like this.

But the real sick part of my personality can’t help but visualize this ending in a giant wrestling match pitting King and Schumer against Christie and Booker. In fact, I’m even thinking of taking bets.

Sorry about the abundance of brain bleach posts this morning folks–it must be the weather.


Ray Kelly: Please Call My Spying “Enhanced Police Investigation”

By:  Monday February 27, 2012 12:19 pm

In the city in which the NYT news page insists on calling torture “harsh” or “enhanced interrogation” when America does it, I’m not surprised that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly objects to news outlets calling his spying spying.

“I just wish the media would show some responsibility and use the words ‘surveillance’ or ‘police investigation’ rather than ‘spying.’ To use that term, to be accusing you of ‘spying,’ is, to me, really offensive,” Mr. [Peter] King said, asking Mr. Kelly what he thought of the issue.

“It’s a pejorative term, it sells well,” Mr. Kelly responded. “They forget we’ve the subject of 14 plots since 9/11 … We’ve been lucky. We just have been lucky.”

Mr. King also discussed the political implications of the debate. He said the “spying” rhetoric “puts a cloud over what you’re trying to do. That’s why I worry about the campaign and whoever the next mayor happens to be, if it’s against the back drop of ‘spying’ charges.”

I can see why Peter King worries about the political implications of spying. He heartily approved of the NYPD spying on 28 businesses in his own district. He even applauded the NYPD spying on kosher businesses–after having mocked such an idea as ridiculous–after CBS stole my reporting on the topic and confronted him with the fact that NYPD was, indeed, spying on Iranian Jews as well as Muslims.

So King, who faces voters in November, celebrates NYPD’s baseless spying on his constituents and, even when confronted with the stupidity of the NYPD’s spying choices, ultimately supports them unquestioningly. But he’s beginning to worry about the political implications of such brainless boosterism.

And Kelly just thinks (unsurprisingly given the treatment he’s usually accorded) the press should supinely heed his demand that they use euphemisms to dress up his spying program (while not objecting to the accuracy of the term, I might add).

While we’re discussing supine treatment, what is the word Kelly would prefer we use to describe the decision to have a booster like Peter King, guest hosting a radio show, invite Ray Kelly in to attack his critics and defend the department’s spying?

“Enhanced fellatio”?

I always seem to get this particular euphemism wrong.