Who is really responsible for Greg Craig stepping down?
Today, Greg Craig, the White House’s top legal advisor, stepped down from the post he once described as his dream job. The speculation over the much-respected lawyer’s resignation has been swirling for months, reaching a fever pitch back in October, when the New York Times published a story on the controversy in the White House ...
Today, Greg Craig, the White House's top legal advisor, stepped down from the post he once described as his dream job. The speculation over the much-respected lawyer's resignation has been swirling for months, reaching a fever pitch back in October, when the New York Times published a story on the controversy in the White House office of legal counsel.
Today, Greg Craig, the White House’s top legal advisor, stepped down from the post he once described as his dream job. The speculation over the much-respected lawyer’s resignation has been swirling for months, reaching a fever pitch back in October, when the New York Times published a story on the controversy in the White House office of legal counsel.
Craig’s resignation comes on the day the administration announced it will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — among the tougher Guantanamo cases from a prosecutorial stance, given that he was tortured and that the government hopes to seek the death penalty — in federal court a few blocks from Ground Zero.
The most obvious reason (Craig gave none specifically in his resignation note) is that he was the person charged with closing the facility at Guantanamo Bay, determining how to relocate and try all of the detainees. When Obama came into office, he promised it would be done by Jan. 22, 2010. It will not, likely costing Craig his job. The October Times story explained:
When an administration stumbles, whispers begin and fingers point in search of someone to blame. At a certain point, assumptions can become self-fulfilling, and an official in the cross hairs finds it harder to do the job. In Mr. Craig’s case, friends said he was unfairly being made a scapegoat for decisions supported across the administration.
It is, of course, not a good thing that the administration has stumbled in its goal of closing Guantanamo. But it is worth considering that it isn’t really Craig’s fault at all.
Gitmo, ultimately, isn’t closed because Craig did not take any of the easy ways out. He could have moved all of the prisoners to Bagram or another overseas military facility. He could have tried all of them in military commissions, the legal process jerry-rigged by the Bush administration. Because, in part, of Craig’s insistence on taking each case separately and at least trying to conform to U.S. law, Guantanamo remains open.
It is a much lesser sin than what came before it. Craig is stepping down less due to his own failures than due to the extralegal maneuvering of the Bush administration. Lawyers like John Yoo and David Addington made a mockery of due process back then, and their sins are now being revisited upon members of the Obama administration. If anyone should have to answer for Greg Craig’s job, it is John Yoo.
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