Ashcroft Is Watching Us But Who’s
Watching Ashcroft
Newsweek
Nov. 23 2001
John Ashcroft acts first, and asks questions later.
His
supporters love him. They think he’s the kind of law
enforcement official
the country needs in a crisis. His critics think he’s
scary, an American
Ayatollah. But few lawmakers are willing to voice
their concerns. This is
a special time, they say, you’ve got to cut the
attorney general some
slack. The leading Democrats on Capitol Hill, Tom
Daschle and Dick
Gephardt, are silent. They’ve got enough battles to
fight on the economic
front. Let the ACLU worry about whether the
administration has gone too
far in curbing constitutional rights and civil
liberties.
WHEN THE COUNTRY is at war, lost causes lose their
appeal. Objecting to
some of the measures Ashcroft has put into place
takes a strong
constitution, personally and institutionally.
Ashcroft knows that, which
is why he was coy about when exactly he might deign
to appear for
questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Chairman Patrick Leahy
and ranking member Orrin Hatch originally suggested
November 28 would be a
good day, but Ashcroft claimed he had a conflict.
December 6 is now the
date that has been agreed upon, although the
attorney general wants to
limit his testimony, saying he can’t afford more
than a few hours. Issues
on the docket include the Justice Department’s
secretive detention of more
than 1,200 people; new rules that undermine the
sacrosanct right of
attorney-client privilege; and the use of military
tribunals to try
foreign nationals connected to the terror network.
Ashcroft can’t duck his former colleagues forever,
much as he might
like to. Leahy would be derelict in his duty if he
ignored these major
leaps in legal power that have made Ashcroft the
most powerful attorney
general in memory. To be sure, a return visit to
Capitol Hill is not on
Ashcroft’s top 100 list of ways he’d like to spend
his time. Hard feelings
remain on both sides from his confirmation hearings.
Ashcroft’s allies
accused Leahy and other Democrats of ‘religious
profiling,’ charging they
gave Ashcroft a harder time because of his
fundamentalist Christian
beliefs. The usually genial Leahy became incensed at
the idea that he
would practice that sort of discrimination. He
pointed out that he is a
Catholic; Senator Hatch, who chaired the committee
at the time, is a
Mormon. Bob Jones University, a favorite forum for
conservative
politicians, refers to both of their respective
religions as cults.
‘Neither of us would ever ascribe that to John Ashcroft’s
religion,’ Leahy
said heatedly.
The conflict took on a personal edge, something
unusual in the
Senate, where collegiality is the highest virtue.
But Leahy insists he has
put the controversy behind him. At President Bush’s
inauguration, when a
photographer snapped a picture of Leahy and Ashcroft
smiling and shaking
hands, Leahy told a dubious Republican colleague,
‘He’s the attorney
general. I’m not going to hold a grudge.’
If the upcoming hearings are cast as a contest
between the
attorney general and Leahy, one of the most liberal
members of the Senate,
the odds-makers would give Ashcroft the edge. Since
assuming office, he
has consolidated considerable power around him and
polished his public
performance. Frightened citizens are loath to question
anybody in
authority when the country is fighting a war, and
the Bush administration
has fed the fear of terrorism despite pleas to
Americans to resume their
normal lives. The latest is the canceling of White
House tours during the
Christmas season, which keeps ordinary citizens from
viewing the holiday
decorations. Yet questioning any decision made for
security reasons seems
churlish and unpatriotic. What if something
happened?
Ashcroft was a driving force behind the issuing of
two
vaguely-worded FBI public alerts that terrorist acts
may be imminent and
Americans should be on guard. These alerts were
controversial within the
intelligence community, and some career officials
argued against them.
There was little Americans could do since they had
no specific knowledge
of what threats existed, and neither did the FBI.
Why did Ashcroft insist
on issuing the alerts? ‘It was strictly CYA [cover
your a-],’ a top
official said. ‘He is petrified something will be
pinned on him.’
The attorney general seems more concerned about the
image aspects
of his job than the nuts-and-bolts of policies and
their legal
implications. In an effort to control negative
information, the Justice
Department has stopped providing a running tally to
the press of how many
immigrants are being detained. Most of these people
are without lawyers,
and are allowed only one legal phone call a week,
not enough opportunity
to find a lawyer even if they have the means to pay
for one.
Rules written by Ashcroft allow the government to
eavesdrop on the
conversations detainees have with their lawyers, a
breach that in normal
times would send the ACLU scurrying to court with a
challenge. Now the
civil-liberties group has to pick its battles, and
that may not be the
best one given the mood in the country, and in the
courts.
The military tribunals embraced as a tool of the
administration
have their roots in 1942, when President Roosevelt
used them to convict
and execute eight German spies who came ashore in
New York. Ashcroft and
company evidently fear that the evidence they gather
won’t meet the
standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ to get the
death penalty for
captured terrorists. So Bush signed an executive
order that allows the
administration to treat terrorists not as combatants
in war but as spies,
which gives the president broad latitude to do what
he wants. Bush could
decide to have trials at sea and throw the bodies
overboard if he chose.
What this administration has done under the cloak of
war has
rehabilitated Ashcroft from a failed politician (he
lost to a dead man,
remember) into one of the more popular figures in
Washington. He’s even
been lampooned on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It’s fun to
laugh at his
pomposity, but it’s not his personality that’s a
problem-it’s his
policies.
