February 8, 2010

FBI Procedure 101

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White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan, apparently a little tired of Republican grandstanding over the fact that the Christmas bomber was taken into custody by the FBI, told Meet the Press yesterday that he had personally briefed the GOP leadership about this the day after Christmas and nobody had complained about it. Spencer Ackerman reports their response:

Sure enough, Sen. Chris Bond (R-Mo.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees, insisted that Brennan never specifically told them the FBI would Mirandize Abdulmutallab. “If he had I would [have] told him the Administration was making a mistake,” Bond said. The entire Republican leadership, including fact-averse Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) echoed Bond’s claims in one form or another. Apparently these men, who claim leadership on national security, know less about FBI procedure than the average movie-goer. Obviously the FBI Mirandizes suspects in their custody.

I suppose facts don’t really matter in this case, since Republicans have decided that yammering about Obama being soft on airplane bombers is a winning strategy and they don’t plan to stop no matter what. Still, just for the record, it would be nice if the FBI could tell us if it Mirandized all the terrorist suspects it held during the Bush administration. I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, and I’m pretty sure no Republicans ever complained about it then.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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