Matt Waxman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs | |
| In office 2004–2005 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Matthew Curtis Waxman 1971or1972(age 52–53) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Education | Yale University (BA, JD) |
Matthew Curtis Waxman (born 1971/1972) [1] is an American law professor at Columbia University and author who held several positions during the George W. Bush administration. [2] [3] He is also currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. [3]
Waxman is a graduate of Yale College [3] summa cum laude , [1] where he studied political science and international studies, [2] and Yale Law School. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court justice David H. Souter and U.S. Court of Appeals judge Joel M. Flaum and is a member and international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. [3] He was a Fulbright Scholar at King's College London, where he studied military history. [1]
Waxman was described as working within the Bush administration, unsuccessfully, to have U.S. captives treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. [4] [5] Waxman served under Condoleezza Rice in the National Security Council in 2001-2003. [3] He served as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs in 2004 and 2005. Waxman moved from the Department of Defense to the Department of State in December 2005, serving there under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until 2007.
Waxman accepted a position as a Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in 2007. [6] Waxman currently serves as the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law [7] and faculty chair of the Roger Hertog Program on Law and National Security. [8]
On August 28, 2010, Waxman was quoted by Charlie Savage on the front page of the New York Times criticizing the Barack Obama Presidency for choosing to prosecute Canadian Omar Khadr who was only 15 years old when he was captured. [9] [10]
In early 2012, as the Obama administration prepared to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Waxman said on NPR it would "be a big year for military commissions. ... [T]he Obama administration [is] taking ownership of military commissions .... They are basically saying: We've corrected the problems of the Bush administration, and we're now going to use this as a tool in combating terrorism .... There are a lot of doubters out there who see military justice and the military commission system as tainted or illegitimate .... The Obama administration wants to turn around that perception." [11]
In 2020, Waxman, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term, and "To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him." [12]
Waxman is a son of Merle Waxman and Dr. Stephen G. Waxman. His parents were both employed at Yale Medical School, his mother as an administrator and his father as a neurologist. Waxman married Wendy Katz, a graduate of Columbia and Bank Street College who had worked for Hillary Clinton and Andrew M. Cuomo, in 2009. She is a daughter of the late Rosalie Katz and the late Daniel P. Katz. Her mother was with Downtown Realty Management in Great Neck, New York and her father was a senior executive with Kinney System. [1]
Matthew Waxman.
Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi is a Sudanese militant and paymaster for al-Qaeda. Qosi was held from January 2002 in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 54.
Omar Ahmed Said Khadr is a Canadian who, at the age of 15, was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for ten years, during which he pleaded guilty to the murder of U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer and other charges. He later appealed his conviction, claiming that he falsely pleaded guilty so that he could return to Canada where he remained in custody for three additional years. Khadr sued the Canadian government for infringing his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; this lawsuit was settled in 2017 with a CA$10.5 million payment and an apology by the federal government.
Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan is a Yemeni man, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to November 2008. He admits to being Osama bin Laden's personal driver and said he needed the money.
Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Odah is a Kuwaiti citizen formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. He had been detained without charge in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He was a plaintiff in the ongoing case, Al Odah v. United States, which challenged his detention, along with that of fellow detainees. The case was widely acknowledged to be one of the most significant to be heard by the Supreme Court in the current term. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born in 1977, in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Jabran Said Bin Wazir al-Qahtani is a Saudi who was held in extrajudicial detention for almost fifteen years in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts estimate he was born in 1977, in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
John Bellinger Bellinger III is an American lawyer who served as the Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. He is now a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Peter E. Brownback III is a retired military officer and lawyer. He was appointed in 2004 by general John D. Altenburg as a Presiding Officer on the Guantanamo military commissions. The Washington Post reported: "...that Brownback and Altenburg have known each other since 1977, that Brownback's wife worked for Altenburg, and that Altenburg hosted Brownback's retirement party in 1999."
Morris Durham "Moe" Davis is an American retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, educator, politician, and former administrative law judge.
Abdul Zahir is a citizen of Afghanistan, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was the tenth captive, and the first Afghan, to face charges before the first Presidentially authorized Guantanamo military commissions. After the US Supreme Court ruled that the President lacked the constitutional authority to set up military commissions, the United States Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. He was not charged under that system.
Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane is an Algerian citizen, and former resident of Canada, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
Charles D. Swift is an American attorney and former career Navy officer, who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay; Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court. In 2005 and June 2006, the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) had stopped reporting Guantanamo suicide attempts in 2002. In mid-2002 the DoD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, and enumerated them under other acts of "self-injurious behavior".
William "Bill" C. Kuebler was an American lawyer and a Commander in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, assigned to the U.S. Navy Office of the Judge Advocate General, International and Operational Law Division. Kuebler was previously assigned to the Office of Military Commissions. Prior to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, to overturn the then current version of the Guantanamo military commissions on constitutional grounds, Kuebler was detailed to defend Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi. Al Sharbi had insisted on representing himself and Kuebler refused superior orders to act as his lawyer.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has coordinated efforts by American lawyers to handle the habeas corpus, and other legal appeals, of several hundred of the Guantanamo detainees.
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. The case underscored the essential role of habeas corpus as a safeguard against government overreach, ensuring that individuals cannot be detained indefinitely without the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
The library made available to detainees held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba, is notable for the controversy it has stirred.
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs (DASD-DA) is a political appointment created by United States President George W. Bush. The appointee has responsibility for captives apprehended during the "war on terror". The New York Times described one appointee as: "a primary adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on detainee matters and his point man for dealing with foreign governments and international organizations on the issue."
Joshua R. Claus is a former member of the United States Army, whose unit was present at both Iraq's Abu Ghraib and at the Bagram Theater Detention Facility in Afghanistan, and was the first interrogator of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr. In 2005, he was found guilty of maltreatment and assault against an Afghanistan detainee who later died.
The Military Commissions Act of 2009, which amended the Military Commissions Act of 2006, was passed to address concerns by the United States Supreme Court. In Boumediene v. Bush (2008) the court had ruled that section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was unconstitutional in suspending the right of detainees to habeas corpus. The court ruled that detainees had the right to access US federal courts to challenge their detentions.
Sufyian Ibn Muhammad Barhoumi is an Algerian man who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on July 28, 1973, in Algiers, Algeria.
Optically, this has been a terrible case to begin the commissions with…There is a great deal of international skepticism and hostility toward military commissions, and this is a very tough case with which to push back against that skepticism and hostility.
Mr.Waxman, it turns out, was the Pentagon's top official responsible for detainee affairs in the George W. Bush administration.
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