Editing Jesselyn Radack (section)

===U.S. government statements on Lindh's legal rights===
On January 15, 2002, five weeks after the interrogation, [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[John Ashcroft]] announced that a criminal complaint was being filed against Lindh. "The subject here is entitled to choose his own lawyer", Ashcroft said, "and to our knowledge, has not chosen a lawyer at this time".<ref name=Mayer/> On February 5, 2002, Ashcroft announced Lindh's indictment, saying that his rights "have been carefully, scrupulously honored".<ref name="CNN">{{cite news|url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/05/ip.00.html |title=Transcript of John Ashcroft – February 5, 2002 |publisher=Transcripts.cnn.com |date=February 5, 2002 |access-date=March 22, 2010}}</ref>

In June 2002, ''Newsweek'' published internal emails between Radack and a counterterrorism attorney in which Radack and her supervisor concluded that the FBI plans to interrogate Lindh without counsel would violate ethics guidelines and were not authorized by law.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Isikoff |first1=Jesselyn |title=The Lindh Case E-Mails |url=https://www.newsweek.com/lindh-case-e-mails-146037 |access-date=17 November 2024 |work=Newsweek |date=23 June 2002}}</ref> In late 2003, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] confirmed Radack's position that U.S. citizens designated as "enemy combatants" have a right to counsel in the case ''[[Hamdi v. Rumsfeld]]''.

In early 2005 Radack recalled her reaction to a different Ashcroft statement—that Lindh's rights had been "carefully, scrupulously guarded"—more starkly : "I knew that wasn't true".<ref>Jesselyn Radack [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-feb-04-oe-radack4-story.html "A Whistle-Blower's Inside View of the Homeland Security Nominee"], ''Los Angeles Times'', February 4, 2005.</ref>