Update: 11:57 A.M.: Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.) is pushing back on Obama counter-terror chief John Brennan’s claim that he briefed the House Intellgence Committee’s ranking Republican on the legal status of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Brennan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Hoekstra and other top Congressional Republicans were told on Christmas Day that the Detroit bomber was in FBI custody, and should have known that he would therefore be read his rights according to Miranda.

But Hoekstra tells National Review Online that it would have been unreasonable to infer any such thing from his phone call with Brennan, which was brief and carried over an unsecured line.

“He never brought this stuff up,” Hoekstra says, adding that the FBI was the natural choice to hold Abdulmutallab until a detainment and interrogation strategy could be settled. “No, I wouldn’t expect the military to be at Detroit Airport waiting to arrest somebody,” Hoekstra adds, but he thought the administration would carefully investigate alternatives and consult with national security principals before moving forward with Miranda rights and other criminal procedures.

Hoekstra, the leading voice of Congressional concerns about the administration’s lack of clear procedures for targeting American-born terrorists for assassination abroad, says Brennan’s comments showed him he would have to exhaustively document what Congress knew and when.

“After Brennan’s comments on Sunday, we will document very, very clearly that we haven’t been briefed,” on Obama’s rules for killing American terrorists abroad, he says. “We haven’t been told what the procedures are, and we don’t want Brennan saying, ‘We told the Republicans that there were bad people out there, well of course they should have known that we would target them.’”

“The guy has completely blown his credibility with Congress,” Hoekstra says of Brennan, who “for all intents and purposes is calling us liars.”

“With the advice that he’s given this administration, he has dug this administration into a hole on terrorism. I can understand why he’s fighting back, because they’ve made a series of missteps,” he continued, mentioning unpopular plans to close Guantanamo Bay prison and try 9/11 conspirators in downtown New York, as well as gaffes made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in hours after the Christmas Day attacks.

“They’re in trouble, and they know it. So they use the most effective strategy we know of: ‘let’s blame Republicans and call them partisan.’”

 

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Obama counter-terror chief John Brennan told NBC's “Meet the Press Sunday that he informed senior Congressional Republicans that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody on Christmas day, and that none registered any complaints.

“None of those individuals raised any concerns with me, at that point,” Brennan said on NBC's “Meet the Press.”

“They didn't say, ‘Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be Mirandized?’ They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we'd keep them informed. And that's what we did.”

Brennan said he was tired of seeing terrorism “used as a political football” by politicians, comparing Republican objections  to Abdulmutallab's processing as a civilian criminal with unfair criticism from Democrats under the Bush administration.

But the senior Republicans Brennan says he briefed — Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Sen. Kit Bond (Mo.), Rep. John Boehner (Ohio), and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) — say it was never made clear that Abdulmutallab was being mirandized.

“At no point did he ever talk to me about legal strategies,” Hoekstra told Politico. “For this guy to get out there and start saying things like this is irresponsible.”

“On an unclassified/non-secure call to Boehner’s cell phone that was very short, John Brennan informed Boehner that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in custody,” said Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith. “The call imparted no other substantive information and Brennan did not inform Boehner that the Administration had read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights. This courtesy call certainly does not qualify as a ‘briefing’ as Brennan stated this morning on ‘Meet the Press.’”

“During a brief call from the White House, Sen. McConnell was given a heads up that Abdulmutallab was in custody, but little else,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said in a statement. “He wasn’t told of the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab.”

“Brennan never told me any of plans to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber — if he had, I would have told him the administration was making a mistake,” Bond said in a statement.