Two White House lawyers represented terror suspects

Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been relentless in trying to determine which lawyers at the Department of Justice previously defended, advocated for or worked on issues pertaining to Guantanamo Bay detainees and other alleged terrorists. While he’s at it, he may want to expand his inquiry — to the halls of the White House itself.

At least two attorneys hired to serve in the White House counsel’s office — part of President Obama’s in-house team of legal advisers — represented Guantanamo detainees in their previous legal careers.

While an associate at the Washington office of the prestigious law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, Michael Gottlieb — tapped for a White House associate counsel position — was part of the team that successfully argued on behalf of alleged terrorist Lakhdar Boumediene (of Boumediene v. Bush fame).

And while a student at Yale Law School, one of Gottlieb’s fellow associate counsels, Jonathan Kravis, volunteered his time as part of the team that ultimately secured legal victory for alleged Yemeni terrorist Salim Hamdan in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

Both Hamdan and Boumediene were landmark Supreme Court cases involving the legal rights of enemy combatants and the constitutionality of the procedures used to detain and try them.