Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment for the reasons stated, but beyond that this is particularly badly done. This says that anyone who engages or is engaged in a terrorist attack in the United States is subject to a military commission. Well, anyone arrested in the United States for anything is subject to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution guarantees an Article 3 trial. Even if someone is accused of terrorism, if this amendment were adopted, you would have to have a trial in an Article 3 court to determine that he was guilty of a terrorist attack before you could then transfer him to the jurisdiction of a military tribunal to try him for that, because until a court convicts him of the act of terrorism, he's simply another criminal defendant and, even under the terms of this amendment, entitled to all the protections that the Constitution gives him. Either the amendment is read, as it seems to say, that you first have to have an Article 3 trial to determine whether he engaged in conduct constituting a terrorist attack so you could then hand him over to the military tribunal, or it doesn't say that, in which case it's clearly unconstitutional.…”