Top White House adviser David Axelrod believes the U.S. government properly handled the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, despite the fact that Abdulmutallab stopped talking to interrogators after having had Miranda rights read to him. In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Axelrod was asked about the decision to read Abdulmutallab his rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation.  “We have not lost anything as a result of how this case has been handled,” Axelrod said.  It was an updated version of the claim that Robert Gibbs made last week, when he said that FBI interrogators had gotten “all they could get” from Abdulmutallab in their brief session.

If the White House political and spin teams believe this is true, the actions of the FBI officers themselves suggest that the claim is not true.  After a five-hour break following the first interrogation session, the FBI sent a second team to interrogate Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day — something that would have been unnecessary if the FBI had, in fact, gotten everything it could from him.  And on Friday the Washington Post reported that Justice Department officials are still trying to get more from Abdulmutallab.  The Post reported that U.S. government officials are now working on a plea bargain with Abdulmutallab’s lawyers —  a deal that would allow interrogators access once again to Abdulmutallab.  That wouldn’t be necessary if we had gotten everything we could have gotten from him.