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Ashcroft in Conference
'Let's Not Let Them Get Johnnie Cochran on the Phone'
June 27th, 2003 12:30 PM

In the hours and days immediately following [the September 11] attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft . . . directed that FBI and INS agents question anyone they could find with a Muslim-sounding name . . . in some areas . . . they simply looked for names in the phone book. . . . . Anyone who could be held, even on a minor violation of law or immigration rules, was held under a three-pronged strategy, fashioned by Ashcroft and a close circle of Justice Department deputies including criminal division chief Michael Chertoff, that was intended to exert maximum pressure on these detainees . . . —From a summary of Ashcroft strategy sessions contained, in further detail, in Steven Brill's After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era (Simon & Schuster) ...