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Ángel Franco/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The top two officials overseeing the military commissions court at the Guantánamo Bay wartime prison were fired last month because they were difficult to work with, not because of the officials’ legal actions, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the Pentagon’s general counsel have told a judge.
The court filing from top Pentagon officials was the first explanation for the abrupt ouster of the officials, Harvey Rishikof, who had been serving as the so-called convening authority over the tribunals system, and Gary Brown, his legal adviser. In a separate joint declaration to the judge, the two men said they were given no warning of any management problems and no explanation when they were suddenly fired.
The account from top Pentagon officials was an apparent response to accusations that the lawyers’ work prompted their dismissals. After the firings, lawyers representing detainees charged with aiding the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, voiced suspicion that they might have been ousted because of a policy disagreement over whether their actions affected detainee defendants. Attempts by superiors to influence the handling of a case are forbidden as unlawful command influence.
The military judge overseeing the Sept. 11 case, Col. James Pohl, ordered Mr. Mattis to explain himself. In papers submitted this week to the judge, Mr. Mattis signed a declaration saying that he fired Mr. Rishikof based on the recommendation of the acting general counsel of the Pentagon, William S. Castle — and that their motivation was only to make the administration of the tribunals system “more cohesive.”
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Tom Brenner/The New York Times
In deciding to fire Mr. Rishikof, Mr. Mattis insisted, he considered his “management/corporate decision-making, professional judgment, and temperament. I did not consider Mr. Rishikof’s performance of any judicial or quasi-judicial acts.”
Mr. Castle, who simultaneously fired Mr. Brown, submitted his own statement also portraying the pair as difficult to work with. He cited an instance in which they submitted a memo to the deputy secretary of defense without first showing it to the Office of the General Counsel. He also cited an instance when they had sought an aerial photograph of the Guantánamo court building in an “inappropriate” manner — first asking military officials for a flyover, and then, when turned down, asking the Coast Guard to do it instead without coordinating that request with military officials.
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