Attorney General John Ashcroft has done it again. At a news conference Thursday, Ashcroft commented on the credibility and value of a government witness in the ongoing Detroit terrorism trial, in which the Government has accused four men of being in a sleeper cell.

A federal judge said Friday he was "distressed" by Attorney General John Ashcroft's public praise of a key government witness at the trial of four men accused of acting as a "sleeper" terrorist cell....

"I was distressed to see the attorney general commenting in the middle of a trial about the credibility of a witness who had just gotten off the stand," Rosen said. Later, Rosen added, "The attorney general is subject to the orders of this court. ... The attorney general has specifically been put on notice about the scope of its gag order."

...At a news conference Thursday in Washington, Ashcroft called witness Youssef Hmimssa's cooperation "a critical tool" in efforts to combat terrorism. He said it should put potential terrorists on notice that there are informants among them. "His testimony has been of value, substantial value," Ashcroft said.

This is improper on a few levels. First, there is a gag order imposed on the parties in the case. Second, ethical rules prohibit prosecutors from giving their opinion on the quality of evidence in an ongoing case (see, for example, rules 3.6 and 3.8 of the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct ). The credibility of the Governement witness is a huge issue in the case.

Defense lawyers say Hmimssa is a liar who is trying to save himself from harsher punishment. Hmimssa, who arrived illegally in the United States in 1994, has admitted using aliases, engaging in document fraud and leading a credit card scheme that netted more than $180,000.

The Attorney General of the United States knows better than to comment on trial evidence at a press conference. It's the second time he has violated the gag order in the case, according to defense counsel. The Judge may make Ashcroft explain himself after the trial. That hardly helps the defendants overcome the prejudice caused by his comments if one of the jurors saw the conference or had his comments repeated to him or her. Jurors weigh the credibility of witnesses and strength of evidence, not proseuctors.

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) shines today in his MSNBC column about terror cases involving Americans at home. Bottom Line: We can't trust the Justice Department when they cloak their work in secrecy.

Reynolds notes that the Buffalo Six (Lackawanna) pleas may be tainted by their lawyers' comments that the pleas came about only after the Government threatened to move them out of federal court and have them held as enemy combatants.

Reynolds talks about the case of U.S. citizen Mike Hawash, a married, father of two, computer tech guy being held on a material witness warrant in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Oregon, although he has not been charged with a crime. Reynolds says, "It’s not right to hold American citizens without charges."

James Ujaama's mother tells why she stuck by him and how his guilty plea vindicates him.

The Government springs another theory about what Zacarias Moussaoui was up to with Al Qaeda before September 11th. First, he was the "20th hijacker." Even Dick Cheney said so. Then he was to be a last resort in case something went wrong. Then he was supposed to be on a different mission, perhaps involving crop dusting planes.

Now, according to documents just unsealed, the Government has a new theory that Moussaoui was to pilot a 5th plane and crash it into the White House.

We think the Government is grasping at straws. Or playing us, the public, like a focus group--floating propositions of guilt and trying to see which one seems to catch on.

If there is one thing Moussaoui doesn't strike us as, it's a suicide bomber. He is fighting more to save his life than any other terrorism defendant we can think of. He speaks for himself, writes his own pleadings, attacks the Government and his own lawyers, and he won't cooperate or back down. He's a fighter. To the end. Are we really expected to believe that this man would fly an airplane on a suicide mission? No dice.

The Government said in court papers Monday it would keep Moussaoui's case in federal court. Today, the Fourth Circuit told the parties to work out a compromise on Moussaoui's judicially authorized interview of Ramzi Binalshibh. And now we learn the Government is considering switching theories for at least the third time.

Could it be the Government cannot figure out what Moussaoui's role was? Or is it tailoring the facts and its theory to fit within the charged conspiracy so it can get a conviction and death verdict against Moussaoui?

In a pleading filed with the Court Monday, the Government indicated that it will not be moving the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui to a military tribunal after all. You can read the pleading here.

James Ujaama, arrested in Denver as a material witness, transported to Virginia, and then charged in Seattle with providing material aid to terrorists, has reached a plea bargain with the Government.

Ujaama pleaded guilty Monday to providing cash, computers and fighters to the Taliban. In exchange, he has agreed to cooperate against radical London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. He will receive a two year jail sentence. With credit for the time he has has spent in jail since July 22, he will serve about one more year after being sentenced.

Ujaama did not plead guilty to a terrorist offense. The Government can hardly call this a win. Ujaama was scheduled for trial in June. Even if convicted, the earliest he would have been sentenced would have been September or October--by which time he would have spent over a year in jail. All charges but one were dismissed against Ujaama--including the charge that he intended to set up a terrorist training camp near Bly, Ore. in 1999.

Ashcroft's reaction:

"An important part of our war against terrorism is to obtain the cooperation of insiders who have direct knowledge of the activities of dangerous terrorists," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "We are pleased that Mr. Ujaama has agreed to plead guilty, accept responsibility for his criminal conduct, and cooperate fully regarding others engaged in criminal and terrorist activity both here and abroad," he said. "We expect his cooperation to lead to the arrest of additional terrorists and the disruption of future terrorist activity."

For our prior coverage on Ujaama, go here.

Update: The Seattle Times provides details of Ujaama's plea and cooperation, and says Ashcroft has given the "go ahead" to indict Abu Hamza al-Masri. Here's what Ujaama agreed he did:

The defense laced into the credibility of the Government's star witness at the Detroit terrorism trial today. First, they attacked his history of credit card scams and other misdeeds. Then,

The lawyers tried to paint Hmimssa, an illegal immigrant from Morocco, as trying to get a shorter sentence on fraud charges he pleaded guilty to last week in exchange for his cooperation. They said he was concocting stories about the men, three of whom were once his roommates.

You have lived a life of lies since you got here, haven't you," Leroy T. Soles, Koubriti's attorney, asked Hmimssa.

"I didn't lie," he responded. "I scammed for money."

Soles repeatedly asked him why he did not tell federal authorities about the alleged terrorism until six months after he was arrested in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Nov. 28, 2001.

....Defense attorneys have portrayed the four defendants as scapegoats in a national effort to show Americans that law enforcement is doing something to protect the nation from future terror attacks.

We'll stay tuned.

Update: The New York Times says the witness' testimony has moved from chilling to confusing.

Instapundit nails it on the Buffalo Six cases:

The FBI last fall arrested six Lackawanna, N.Y., men of Yemeni origin and charged them with conspiracy and aiding a terrorist organization. All six had been to Afghanistan in early 2001 for training by Al Qaeda. But prosecutors used dubious tactics to force the men into a plea-bargain admitting guilt to lesser charges. According to The Wall Street Journal, they threatened the defendants with "enemy combatant" status - meaning they could have been turned over to the military, deprived of counsel, and held incommunicado indefinitely. If I recall correctly, at least some of these guys are American.

Instapundit also links to this article in the Christian Science Monitor:

In other words, the government said, convict yourself or we will strip you of your rights and you can rot in jail. That doesn't sound like respect for due process and trial by jury.

Prosecutors also threatened to bring treason charges that carry the death penalty. That's hardball, but within bounds, since the defendants would have a lawyer and a jury trial.

The case is disturbing because it appears the evidence is weak. A former FBI official said surveillance showed no sign the men had hostile intent. The US attorney in Buffalo confirmed he has no evidence they were involved in a violent plot. Several of the men had quit the training, reportedly disillusioned with Al Qaeda.

In passing sentence, the judge should consider the coercive pressure brought on the men to plead guilty and mitigate their sentences.

We still have our doubts that, legally speaking, attending a training camp and listening to or meeting with a terrorist leader or even providing oneself as a soldier (as opposed to providing the services of others) constitutes providing "material support" under the statute. We don't think you can overlook the word "material." As we reported here, even the prosecutorial guidelines contained in the U.S. Attorney's Manual (9-91.100 , scroll down to Personnel and Training) seems to acknowlege this.

The 9th Circuit has declared portions of the law unconsitutionally vague. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will get the case soon and decide the issue--before Bush packs the Court with his right-wing ideologues.

Our full coverage of the case can be accessed here.

Sami al-Arian, the Palestinian professor from Tampa who is charged with raising money for the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was assigned two court-appointed attorneys Monday. A ruling on his request for bond is pending.

If the Judge orders bond, will the Government accept it? No way. Here's their plan:

The government has said if al-Arian is granted bond, they will move him to an immigration detention center and try to deport him for visa violations.

Why bother having a bail statute and federal judges if Ashcroft and his minions at the Justice Department can ignore them?

The New York Times has an article Sunday, replete with examples, of how the 1996 law making it a crime to provide material support to terrorist groups has become the J ustice Department's new darling in the nursery--its "statute of choice."

In several dozen cases both high profile and little noticed, the law has become the Justice Department's main weapon in pursuing people it contends are linked to terrorists. Part of the appeal for prosecutors is that they do not have to prove that the defendants actually supported terrorist attacks, only that they helped a group tied to terrorism. Civil libertarians and defense lawyers, however, are increasing their criticism of the law and the department's aggressive use of it, saying the prosecutions smack of a McCarthylike notion of guilt by association. Critics say the law is so overly broad that people with no intention of helping terrorists are being prosecuted. Moreover, they accuse authorities of using strong-arm tactics to force pleas.

A Judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has held parts of the law are unconstitutionally broad. It is an issue that likely will reach the Supreme Court.

David Cole, a Georgetown law professor who represents a group challenging the law, argued in a brief in the appeal that the law made it a crime for a Quaker to send a book by Gandhi to a terrorist to persuade him to forgo violence, or for a person to write an op-ed article advocating on behalf of a "banned" group. "This smacks of the cold war era and Communist lists," Mr. Cole said in an interview. "And there's been an extremely broad chilling effect."

The law has been used to obtain convictions against the Buffalo Six and in a North Carolina case. Charges of violating the law are pending against the six defendants in the Portland, Oregon case, attorney Lynne Stewart in New York, and a professor in Tampa, and several others. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told a group of international lawyers the other day that the Court is preparing to hear terrorism cases that will require it to decide whether the Government has gone too far in its war against terror. While the first cases likely will involve the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, closed immigration hearings and the tracking of foreigners, cases involving the material support statute may be next.

We know that terrorism is a problem. We also know we live in a country that wants to protect basic civil liberties," Breyer told the American Society of International Law in Washington. He said courts, including his own, "are fully aware of mistakes that have been made in American history." Among those, he cited the holding of 100,000 Japanese Americans in camps during World War II -- which the Supreme Court upheld in 1944 -- and the punishment of critics of World War I.

We hope the High Court lives up to its responsibility when the time comes to judge these new cases. Articles like these also remind us of how important it is that the Democrats not allow Bush to pack the federal courts with ultra-conservative ideologues and judicial activists.

The trial judge in the case against Zacarias Moussaoui Friday questioned whether the government could proceed with the public trial of accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui because prosecutors are operating in a "shroud of secrecy." From her Order which you can read in full here:

The United States has apparently taken inconsistent positions regarding the classification status of its theory of the case as evidenced by the complete redaction of all references to the same prosecution theory about which the defendant complains from the transcript of the January 30, 2003 hearing provided to Mr. Moussaoui.

The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, captured in Pakistan last month, has told U.S interrogators that Moussaoui was supposed to prepare for a second wave of attacks that were to follow Sept. 11.

The Government also is relying on the word of a captured Malaysian chemist named Yazid Sufaat who they believe "hosted the hijackers and Moussaoui in Malaysia at different times in 2000 and provided Moussaoui with fake papers to make his way to the United States."

Remember all the Government's descriptions of Moussaoui as the 20th hijacker? FBI Director Robert Mueller now concedes they are wrong. The theory now is that Moussaoui "mirrored" the actions of the hijackers in preparation of a different attack that was "intended to kill thousands."

Moussaoui's case is on hold as the feds contest the trial judge's order to make Ramzi Binalshibh available to Moussaoui for an interview. An adverse ruling likely will result in the dismissal of Moussaoui's case in federal court and the institution of a military tribunal proceeding.

We have long argued that the evidence disclosed to date does not support Moussaoui's involvement in the 9/11 attacks and that most likely, he was being saved for a future attack. However, the AP article above, while it sets forth several links between Moussaoui, Binalshibh and Malaysia, doesn't amount to much more than connect-the-dots speculation.

Moussaoui is still a puzzle. He isn't talking. He won't talk. This is why America deserves to have his case heard in an open court. The public has a right to hear the evidence against him--particularly since the Government is seeking to execute Moussaoui. Pressure should be brought to bear on the Administration not to move Moussaoui to a secret military tribunal proceeding, even if the Appeals court rules against them.

If the Government truly believes that Moussaoui was part of a broader conspiracy than the one limited to the 9/11 attacks alleged in the Indictment, it can supersede with a new Indictment charging Moussaoui with the grander conspiracy. At least that would keep the case in federal court.

Our coverage of Moussaoui's case since its inception and the various Government theories about him is here.