Sen. Scott Brown thinks Vice President Joe Biden was “off base” when he suggested Sunday that the Massachusetts Republican get his facts straight on the legal procedures for military tribunals.
“It was insulting,” said Brown, who frequently jabbed the administration during his Senate campaign for giving suspected terrorists legal representation. On CBS's “Face the Nation” last weekend, Biden shot back that he doesn’t “know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer, too.”
"is currently the Guard's top defense attorney in New England."
Biden's comments came as part of the White House's effort to defend its move to try alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court, as well as the decision to read Miranda rights to the accused Christmas Day bomber.
Brown pushed back Monday on one of the White House's talking points about the handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: that the Bush administration handled Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, in the same way. “I’ve always felt that suspected terrorists should be tried in military tribunals and not civilian court, and as a matter of fact so do the majority of Americans,” Brown said.
“The big difference is are we going to pay $1,000 an hour for a private attorney and treat him as a civilian or ordinary criminal in a criminal court, or are we going give him a military attorney who’s going to be paid as a captain, major or lieutenant colonel, and obviously go through the military tribunal process?"
Perhaps he will be the last.
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