Detainee Lawyer Must Leave Navy

Miami Herald says Lt. Cmdr. Swift got the boot

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration’s military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military’s “up or out” promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander. He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden’s driver.

“It was a pleasure to serve,” Swift told the newspaper. He added he would have defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career.

“All I ever wanted was to make a difference _ and in that sense I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams,” Swift said.

The Pentagon had no comment Sunday.

A guy takes a high-profile case to the Supreme Court, and beats a powerful legal adversary (the U.S. government), … isn’t he the kind of lawyer the Navy JAG corps needs? Not in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon.

Comments

  1. John deVille wrote:

    I’m flogging my tribute to Swift as hard as I can.

    Posted 10 Oct 2006 at 4:20 pm

  2. j.d. wrote:

    Could be why the Pentagon got beat.

    Posted 10 Oct 2006 at 9:25 pm

  3. Pigilito wrote:

    In this case the guy didn’t get his ticket punched by all the different billets everyone who seeks promotion past Lt. Cmdr. needs to have served in.

    He stayed in his his preferred area knowing that he was ******** his chances of promotion.

    This is one of those stories where there is no there, there.

    Posted 11 Oct 2006 at 12:30 pm

  4. John the Marine wrote:

    The poor lad will just have to go out into the civie world and chase ambulances. Oh, well. I find it hard to shed a tear for a lawyer. Any lawyer.

    Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 2:11 pm

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