CIA operatives are supposed to be anonymous. Remember the outrage in the media when Valerie Plame was deliberately “outed” by members of the Bush administration in order to get back at her husband? Turns out that wasn’t quite true; her covert status has been questioned and the person who actually disclosed her name to columnist Robert Novak, Richard Armitage, was merely passing along a gossipy tidbit, not trying to ruin her career on behalf of the Bush administration. (The information came too late to save Lewis “Scooter” Libby from being convicted of perjury.)

However, a real scandal has erupted as an investigation reveals that lawyers who once represented Gitmo detainees took part in a campaign that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing those photos to their Gitmo clients:

The investigation has been under way for many months, but was given new urgency after the discovery last month of additional photographs of interrogators at Guantanamo showing CIA officers and contractors who have carried out interrogations of detainees, according to three officials familiar with the investigation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Findings of the investigation to date produced some signs that the senior al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo gained intelligence on CIA interrogators through their lawyers that could be used in future legal proceedings.

CIA counterintelligence officials have “serious concerns” that the information will leak out and lead to the terrorists targeting the officers and their families, if the identities are disseminated to terrorists or sympathizers still at large, said one official.

“They have put the lives of CIA officers and their families in danger,” said a senior U.S. official about the detainees’ lawyers.

Well…duh.

Unfortunately, as Andy McCarthy notes, “the Justice Department – which, as we’ve been noting, is rife with lawyers who volunteered their services to the detainees during the Bush years – insisted that the security breach was no big deal.”

Tell that to the agents and their families.

Debra Burlingame reveals information from a Freedom of Information Act query that shows the scandal goes well beyond photos:

Other incidents listed in the FOIA material included: a lawyer who was caught in the act of making a hand-drawn map of a detention camp’s layout, including guard towers; a lawyer who sent a letter to his detainee client telling him that “we cannot depend on the military to do the right thing” and conveying his message of support to other detainees who were not his clients; lawyers who posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet; lawyers who provided news outlets with “interviews” of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organization; and a lawyer who gave his client a list of all the detainees.

More:

But why would American lawyers, after 9/11 and the brutal slaughter of 3,000 fellow citizens, hand members of al Qaeda information about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? The records indicate that attorneys were printing news off the Internet and passing it to detainees at the same time that U.S. forces in Iraq were sustaining devastating casualties from IED attacks.

All of this is disturbing in and of itself. However, considering that Attorney General Eric Holder has hired a number of attorneys who defended Gitmo detainees, the public has the right to be concerned – even alarmed. Burlingame elaborates:

The public has a right to know, for instance, that one of Mr. Holder’s early political hires in the department’s national security division was Jennifer Daskal, a former attorney for Human Rights Watch. Her work there centered on efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, shut down military commissions-which she calls “kangaroo courts”-and set detainees who cannot be tried in civilian courts free. She has written that freeing dangerous terrorists is an “assumption of risk” that we must take in order to cleanse the nation of Guantanamo’s moral stain. This suggests that Ms. Daskal, who serves on the Justice Department’s Detainee Policy Task Force, is entirely in sync with Mr. Holder and a White House whose chief counterterrorism official (John Brennan) considers a 20% detainee recidivism rate “not that bad.”

It is entirely legitimate to ask who else among Mr. Holder’s hires from the Gitmo bar is shaping or influencing national security policy decisions. Meanwhile, the public can decide whether the lawyers at Paul, Weiss who are volunteering at Guantanamo are an example of the legal profession’s noblest traditions.

Cue the inevitable Lynne Stewart comparison.

The American people are demanding answers. The DOJ owes us that much – at the very least.

 

Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.

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