Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainee

January 13, 2007
Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainee

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected
of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the
nation's top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms'
corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee
affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar
association officials, who said Friday that his comments were repellent and displayed an ignorance
of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.