Keystone Kops

Your government at work in the Hamdan trial.

Special Agent Robert McFadden testified that during interrogation, Hamdan had admitted swearing an oath of loyalty to Bin Laden.

Of 10 federal agents called to testify about their interrogations of the accused, McFadden was the only one who said Hamdan had made such an admission.

McFadden, an agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, also told the court that Hamdan had described feelings of “uncontrolled passion or zeal” upon learning of Al Qaeda’s most devastating terrorist strikes.

But defense lawyers pointed out that in four appearances before the court since December, McFadden had used three different Arabic words when recounting Hamdan’s statement. The agent’s Arabic proficiency also came into question when he was asked to read from documents in that language, one of which he failed to point out had been presented to him upside down.

The interrogator and supposed interpreter changes his testimony about which arabic words Hamdan said 3 times, then pretends to be reading arabic from an upside down document?

Just surreal.