The Challenge: How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution--and Won

INCLUDES A NEW EPILOGUE BY THE AUTHORThe Challenge tells the inside story of an improbable act of patriotism. At its center are Navy lawyer Charles Swift and Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal two men who in the aftermath of 9/11 found themselves defending an accused Yemeni terrorist named Salim Hamdan in Americas first military tribunals since World War II. The entire system was stackd against them and Swifts superiors were pressing him to enter a guilty plea. Instead he and Katyal sued the Bush administration on their clients behalf arguing that his trial and treatment were illegal and unconstitutional. In the spring of 2006 the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld reached the Supreme Court. The resulting ruling changed the legal landscape of the War on Terror and it has been called the Courts most important decision ever on presidential power and the rule of law. Jonathan Mahlers gripping detailed chronicle follows the case from Yemen to Guantanamo to the courtrooms and the chambers of power in Washington delivering the definitive work on an epic Supreme Court case--and on the human beings behind the headlines (Jeffrey Toobin author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court).