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Jose Padilla, the onetime Chicago gang member, was convicted in Miami of terrorist conspiracy. No network had a correspondent on hand to cover the prosecution, but back in Washington, both NBC's Pete Williams and CBS' Bob Orr set the record straight about what had been widely alleged about Padilla--but was never proven in a court of law. CBS' Orr played the clip of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing "an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States" when Padilla was detained in 2002. The federal government asserted that he was an "enemy combatant" and held him without trial in a military brig for more than three years. NBC's Williams reminded us that the government changed its theory about Padilla's plot from a radioactive dirty bomb to blowing up New York City apartment buildings. In the end neither scheme made it to his rap sheet. The guilty verdict was for "providing support" for holy warriors in foreign countries.
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