Military Commissions

9/11, Abdulmutallab, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Flight 253, Gitmo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Military Commissions

AG Eric Holder ‘not scared’ what KSM might say yet dodges reporter’s questions on 9/11 trial (Update: Bloomberg sings)

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Attorney General Eric Holder dodged a reporter’s questions yesterday about the 9/11 trials by sending security to block a clearly marked Fox News crew from approaching him. While Mr. Holder testified on November 18, 2009 that he was, “not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed might say at trial,” he has noticeably avoided tough questions since that day.

One might ask Mr. Holder if he is considering moving the 9/11 trial out of New York City and back to a Military Commissions. Many want to know who at the DOJ sent in the clean team with instructions to read Miranda warnings to Abdulmuttalab on Christmas Day, whereupon the Flight 253 bomber went silent and the gathering of intelligence ended. In addition, is there a Plan B for closing Gitmo if Congress does not lift the restrictions on moving those there to the United States for detention purposes?

On a related note, the advisory community board that encompasses the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan where the 9/11 trials would take place voted last night to ask the Obama administration to consider moving them elsewhere. [Added note: The New York Post reports that the board’s vote was unanimous, 42 to 0.] One resident had a pointed question that the Attorney General should also answer:

“In what communities in the United States of America are children required to walk by military conveys and snipers on a daily basis on their way to school?”

You can run, Mr. Holder, but you can not hide from the American people forever your views and plans on national security.

Update: New York City Mayor Bloomberg joins the chorus asking the trials to be moved. (Most are suggesting they be held on a military installation. Great idea! How about at Gitmo, using the military commissions Congress modified last year and President Obama signed into law?)

9/11, al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Gitmo, Ground Zero, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Military Commissions

Hold war criminals accountable now; a year is too long to spend at a crime scene with people shooting at you

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Attorney General Eric Holder made an “unannounced” visit with Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Manhattan yesterday about the planned prosecution there of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four additional 9/11 conspirators. Also yesterday, NBC New York spot polling indicated that 82% became furious when word leaked “a federal grand jury in New York is [secretly] now hearing evidence and testimony” as prosecutors seek a federal indictment of the five. Perhaps coincidentally, one 9/11 family member’s commentary appeared and offered, “In four years, America can hold Obama accountable.”

In total, federal prosecutions during the 1990s convicted two dozen for the first bombing of the World Trade Center, Landmark plot, and the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. Yet no U.S. official was held accountable for not preventing those attacks or the bombing of the Kobar Towers and the U.S.S. Cole. Instead, valuable intelligence reached Osama bin Laden about al Qaeda’s membership and organization and those trials inspired thousands off to the jihad in Afghanistan. Former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White has said it will take at least three years just to prepare a federal trial for the five 9/11 conspirators because prosecutors must review 538,000 pieces of evidence and more than a million documents.

This is far more than just about the fate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.