US senator says no way to $200 million for 9/11 trial security
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins rarely raises her voice to emphasize a point but on Wednesday she spoke forcefully against spending some $200 million on security for the trials of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“It’s the safe assumption that Congress is not going to appropriate $200 million for the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City,” Collins told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during a hearing on the department’s fiscal 2011 budget.
“It is not going to happen,” she said, adding that some of the money would be better spent on other things, such as resources for the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had decided last November to hold the criminal trials of the five individuals in lower Manhattan but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed his support of doing so because he feared it would cause a virtual lockdown in that part of town, hurting business and possibly costing $200 million for security.
As a result, the Obama administration has been forced to reconsider where to hold the trials and even weigh whether it would be better to prosecute the five individuals in a special military commission trial rather than in a criminal court.
Napolitano said she had not been a part of those renewed discussions but said President Barack Obama expects trials of terrorism suspects in the United States. (Republicans have pressed to hold the trials at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)
“If the trials are moved from New York City, nonetheless there will be costs associated with those trials,” she said. Napolitano also said that no matter where the trials are held, a security assessment will be required which would dictate the costs.
Attorney General Holder escapes DC snow for Florida, defends decisions
After the federal government closed for four days following two major blizzards, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder escaped to the warmer climes of Tampa, Florida, where he defended decisions on terrorism-related cases that have come under fire.
Republicans have harshly criticized Holder for deciding to prosecute the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in traditional criminal courts rather than military tribunals.
He has also drawn bipartisan fire for planning to hold the trials blocks from the site where the World Trade Center twin towers stood amid new concerns about security and costs.
Additionally, the attorney general has been lambasted for how the Obama administration has dealt with the accused underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was arrested on Christmas Day for trying to explode a device aboard a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
The suspect was interviewed for about an hour before he underwent surgery for his injuries. He stopped cooperating and was read his legal rights and subsequently charged in a criminal court. That all drew harsh criticism from Senator Kit Bond, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, among others.
He and other Republicans have argued that Abdulmutallab should have been deemed an enemy combatant, charged in a military court and been interrogated by intelligence experts rather than the FBI. The lawmakers have questioned whether valuable intelligence was lost as a result.
“We at the Justice Department are under fire for some of the decisions I have made. I’m convinced that those decisions are the right ones,” Holder said in a speech to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Symposium in Tampa.
it’s very helpful to attorney peoples. thanks!!!!!!!!!
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Obama slams opposition to civilian trials for terrorism suspects
President Barack Obama didn’t mince words when he criticized Republican opposition to prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects in U.S. criminal courts rather than in military tribunals, calling it “rank politics.”
His administration was caught off guard last week when opposition mounted to trying the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in a lower Manhattan courthouse amid concerns about security and costs as well as potentially affording the suspects certain legal rights.
“One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped,” Obama said in an interview with YouTube.
“It’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics,” he said, referring to Republican opposition to the criminal trials. While much of the opposition has been by Republicans, a few Democrats have joined in the disapproval.
A group of senators, including Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, plan to offer legislation on Tuesday that would prevent any funding of the criminal trials, though it was not immediately clear whether there was sufficient support or how they would seek to pass the measure.
Obama’s budget for fiscal 2011, which starts Oct. 1, includes $73 million to transfer, incarcerate and prosecute the Sept. 11 suspects, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The proposed budget also included $237 million to buy, fortify and upgrade a state prison in Thomson, Illinois, to house foreign terrorism suspects now at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many Republicans have also opposed closing that facility, arguing it is the safest place to keep terrorism suspects.
Dash. You actually hit it right on the head.
No one wants the trials in their city. So, it makes the most sense to just try them in Guantanamo. It eliminates the problem of this taking place on our own soil.
Well, at least they are moving them out of NYC. What a slap in the face it was to try them there after over 3000 people lost their lives only to see the mastermind in court right down the street.
Why even waste money on a trial for someone who boasts of leading the plan to fly those planes into the WTC? Help him meet his 72 virgins sooner by saving money on a needless trial.
Holder huddles with New York team on 9/11 trials
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday flew to New York to huddle with his team that will be in charge of prosecuting and imprisoning the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The closed-door meeting at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan included the prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and Eastern District of Virginia as well as representatives of the FBI, Bureau of Prisons, the Marshals Service, and the New York Police Department, according to an administration official.
A spokeswoman for Holder declined to provide details about the meeting. NBC News reported on Tuesday that a grand jury was hearing evidence against the self-professed mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The five men are not expected to arrive in New York until early next year at the earliest because first the Obama administration must give Congress 45 days advance notice about how they will secure the prisoners and address any security issues.
Holder has come under blistering criticism from Republicans for deciding to try the accused 9/11 conspirators in U.S. criminal court instead of a military court, arguing that they should not be brought to American soil from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
One tangent concern has been whether the terrorism suspects from Guantanamo would be afforded any immigration status — and therefore some rights — when they are in the United States, an issue Republican Senator John Cornyn raised on Wednesday during an oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security.
“For a detainee who is brought here for purposes of prosecution, they are paroled — and that’s the technical term used — but they are paroled into the country only for purposes of prosecution,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “There are no immigration benefits that accrue to that.”
“…a grand jury was hearing evidence against the self-professed mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”
If he has already confessed to this horrendous act, then why waste the taxpayers dollars on a trial? It doesn’t make any sense. He is guilty! What part of “self-professed” don’t they understand?
He is an enemy combatant who doesn’t have a right to a civil trial. To make matters worse it is taking place in, of all places, NYC.
This is a travesty.
Family member of 9/11 victim presses Attorney General on trials
After the sharp exchanges of words between Attorney General Eric Holder and senators about trying the Sept. 11 suspects in criminal court fell quiet, a soft-spoken woman who lost her 31-year-old son that day approached.
Alice Hoagland’s son Mark Bingham died on hijacked United Flight 93 which crashed in rural Pennsylvania and she had come to Washington to attend the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing of the Justice Department where Holder’s decision about prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was the main subject.
“I take great exception to your decision to give short shrift to the military commissions and to put the five most heinous criminals and war criminals into court in New York City,” an emotional Hoagland told Holder. “It will give these ugly people, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh especially, very eloquent access to all the media sources in the United States.”
That is one of several complaints some family members of the Sept. 11 victims have made. Others have worried that it will make the trials and prisons targets for attack. But some families have welcomed the trials in New York and want the suspects prosecuted quickly.
Holder took exception to Hoagland’s points, gently but firmly telling her that he did fully consider the military commissions as a venue for the terrorism suspects and that Mohammed and the others had tried to use the military commission trials at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a platform for espousing their views.
“This was a tough decision,” he told Hoagland, adding that he is privy to evidence that has not been made public that he believes makes the government’s case to convict the five suspects.
“This is almost a trust me thing I suppose, there are reasons why bringing this case in an Article III (criminal) court when it comes to the admissibility of certain evidence is really the right way to go and really maximizes our chances of getting a successful outcome,” Holder said.
Both Holder and Obama have IQ of 3 year – definition of Idiot. They are blinded by their EGO which does not allow them to see realities beyond there own noise
The First Draft: NYC awaits day in court 8 years after 9/11
Today seems a day of numbers: 8, 11, 5, 3000, 13. Put another way, more than 8 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the brutally violated City of New York learns that 5 men accused in the deaths of the nearly 3,000 people will face an actual criminal trial — in New York.
Oh, yeah, and the news comes on Friday the 13th.
The lead defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, initially confessed to masterminding the 2001 attacks that set the United States on the road to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he later told a Pentagon war crimes court that the interrogators “were putting many words in my mouth.” He also said he wants to be put to death and become a martyr.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will formally announce later today that KSM and four other defendants will be sent to New York City to stand trial for the attacks.
It’s part of President Barack Obama’s plan to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has long been a target of human rights allegations against the United States.
The proceedings in New York will be an important test of how a U.S. civilian court might handle cases involving detainees who were subjected to U.S. interrogation techniques that some describe as torture.
Wow, let’s run through everyone’s posts thus far,
Anon: Why should we care what level of satisfaction he has in his death once he’s dead? Let’s save the american taxpayer some money and just run him through a trial and execute him.
Jeff: lol, that was good 
RLM: impeach Obama because you don’t think you’re going to like the eventual outcome of a trial that happens under him? Gosh you must have been screaming for every Republican in office to be impeached on 9/12/2009 right?
Arnoll: let’s not risk them recruiting more people to join their side, keep in mind people in prison most likely hate our gov’t also.
Dom: a suitcase nuke? Boy you’re doing the media and the gov’t a big favor in saving them from having to do the fearmongering themselves. They should just have you volunteer rather than having to pay their group of liars.
Dan: wishing reckoning on Israeli’s because of our government’s policy? That sounds demonic.
Nikos: good post, agree mostly, what was it you were a professor in?
