Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) sharply criticized the Obama Administration's decision to read Boston terror suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev his Miranda Rights Monday on "The Kudlow Report."
Ayotte noted the enemy combatant designation would allow authorities the opportunity to collect intelligence without the hinderance of criminal defense attorneys while still permitting an eventual prosecution in federal court:
LARRY KUDLOW: You are postponing all of that to get the information you just described. Then he goes right back into the federal court system. I just want to ask, does President Obama understand that this is not just an ordinary crime, that this is a jihad against the United States? That's really at stake here. The thinking, the thought process, do they get that Senator Ayotte?
KELLY AYOTTE: Here's the problem, I don't think they want to acknowledge we are at war. And here's another example Larry - we recently captured Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law. They also brought him - he's a foreign terrorist who was captured overseas - brought him into New York City, he was advised of his Miranda Rights and brought through our federal court system instead of being brought to Guantanamo Bay. We are not talking about that here, but it's an example of how this administration is viewing this. What happened was an act obviously of war to have a terrorist attack like how Boston was locked down and what happened. And so we need to make sure that we can prevent future attacks on our country. But if you mirandize them, we're turning this over to defense lawyers. Defense lawyers aren't bad people, but we don't want to turn our intelligence gathering over to them right now and this terrorist. And that's where we are.