GOP Lawmaker: Members Of ISIS Are Being Treating Better Than Donald Trump
Darren.Woon
In a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Rep. Greg Steube claimed that President Donald Trump was being treated more unfairly than Iraqi terrorism suspects, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“Even terrorists in Iraq were afforded more due process than you and the Democratic majority have afforded the president,” said Rep. Steube, addressing Democratic committee leaders Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff. “I know, because I served in Iraq, and I’ve prosecuted terrorists in Iraq, and we provided terrorists in Iraq more rights and due process in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq than you and Chairman Schiff have afforded the president of the United States.”
Steube ignored that Trump would receive due process to defend himself in the Senate, and that it is not the House’s role to do so.
Furthermore, in Steube’s comparison, there are several errors.
Human Rights Watch concluded in 2008 that the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) failed to meet due process standards, stating that confessions were likely coerced and some defendants were held with no hearings for nearly two years.
Vanderbilt Professor Mike Newton, an expert on international law and Army veteran, said the court system in Iraq is different than the American judicial system, as the judge holds the entire dossier of evidence in Iraq.
“Impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives can’t be compared to a criminal trial,” said Stanford law professor David Alan Sklansky.
“An impeachment is just a formal charge; the trial is then held in the Senate. So what happens in the House of Representatives is like what happens during the charging stage of a criminal case. In the United States, decisions at the charging stage are made either inside the prosecutor’s office or in the grand jury. Either way, the proceedings are held behind closed doors, and defendants have few if any rights,” Sklansky explained.
