Brennan: GOP was briefed on Xmas bomber arrest

Brennan: GOP was briefed on Xmas bomber arrest
By MIKE ALLEN & EAMON JAVERS
Copyright by Politico.com
Updated: 2/7/10 1:10 PM EST
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32632.html


White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan revealed Sunday that he briefed four Republican congressional leaders on Christmas night about the arrest and subsequent handling of the suspect in the attempted airplane bombing.

"None of those individuals raised any concerns with me, at that point," Brennan said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They didn't say, 'Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be Mirandized?' They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we'd keep them informed. And that's what we did."

The revelation could undermine Republican complaints about the reading of Miranda rights to the Nigerian suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

But Brennan’s comment provoked a sharp rebuke from two of the Republicans who received the briefings.

“This was like a three or four minute phone call,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told POLITICO on Sunday. Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “At no point did he ever talk to me about legal strategies.”

“For this guy to get out there and start saying things like this is irresponsible,” Hoekstra said.

Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, told David Gregory: "I explained to them that he was in FBI custody. That Mr. Abdulmutallab was in fact talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that 'in FBI custody' means that there's a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of the magistrate."

Brennan said that administration critics were trying to use national security as a “political football.”

"There's been quite a bit of an outcry after the fact," Brennan said. "I'm just very concerned, on behalf of counterterrorism professionals throughout our government, that politicians continue to make this a political football, and are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes. ... I think those counterterrorism professionals deserve the support of our Congress. And rather than second-guessing what they're doing on the ground, with a 500-mile screwdriver from Washington to Detroit, I think they have to have confidence in the knowledge and the experience of these counterterrorism professionals."

The Republicans briefed were Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.); House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio); Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee; and Hoekstra.

Bond said in a statement: "Brennan never told me any of plans to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber — if he had, I would have told him the Administration was making a mistake. The truth is that the Administration did not even consult our intelligence chiefs, as [Director of National Intelligence Dennis] Blair testified, so it's absurd to try to blame Congressional leaders for this dangerous decision that gave terrorists a five week head start to cover their tracks."

For his part, Hoekstra said that if he had been informed of the Miranda situation, he would have called legal experts on his staff to get an opinion about whether that was a good idea or not. And he said that he was surprised to hear that Brennan had made the comment. “My Blackberry started going crazy when he said it,” Hoekstra said.

On the program, Gregory asked Brennan: "To those that say you have not shared enough information about how you intended to handle him, you say what?"

Brennan replied: "I say that there are sensitive investigations and operations underway, and we're not going to compromise our ability to follow up on that information and to disrupt further terrorist attacks. And there have been instances when information has been shared with the Hill, when we see it in the media the next day. And we have to be very circumspect as far as what information's going to be shared. The premium that this president puts on the work of the intelligence and law enforcement community is to disrupt future attacks and to protect the American people."

The Sunday-show dispute comes after a week in which the White House has been much more aggressive in defending its handling of the Christmas Day suspect.

Attorney General Eric Holder fired off a five-page letter Wednesday to McConnell and ten other Republicans who questioned why Abdulmutallab was interrogated for only 50 minutes and why he was later read Miranda warnings.

“I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government,” Holder wrote.