Now, nearly 600 Americans face an intense legal battle over their participation in the events of January 6, and these same firms are leaving them defenseless. Not one of the legal firms that assisted Gitmo terrorists have helped any of those charged with ties to January 6.
One notorious Gitmo recidivist, Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, became the Taliban’s operations commander in southern Afghanistan soon after his 2007 release from the prison. He was blamed for masterminding a surge in roadside attacks against American troops and organizing assaults on US aircraft in Afghanistan.
The law firm Wilmer and Hale told The New York Times in 2008 that establishing a proper defense for Gitmo detainees “was about as important as anything we could take on.”
According to the December 2020 declassified report by the Office of National Intelligence, a total of 229 of the 729 detainees released from Gitmo have reengaged in terrorist activities, including conducting and planning attacks and recruiting and funding terrorists. That’s a recidivism rate of 31%.
In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union went so far as to create an entire group of lawyers ready to defend Gitmo detainees under the John Adams Project, to show their dedication to ensuring all have a top-notch defense.
Civil liberties advocates say the treatment of January 6 defendants reveals an alarming threat to American jurisprudence. Some blame intimidation from well-funded leftist groups for the lack of a competent defense. Lawyers who do exert effort in providing such a defense have been harrassed.
In 2002, the United States government detained a Mauritanian man, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and sent him to Gitmo. As Slahi waited to be charged (he never was), he penned a 446-page memoir that detailed the many strategies he employed to endure his years of confinement.
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