GOP House Minority Leader’s Statement on Prosecuting 9/11 Mastermind in NYC

House minority leader John Boehner released the following statement after learning of the Attorney General’s decision to hold the trials of terrorist war criminals Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 others in a civilian court located blocks away for were the 9/11 WTC attacks accrued

Washington, Nov 13 - House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement on the Obama Administration’s decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several other Guantanamo Bay detainees in New York City before a civilian federal court:

“The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people. The possibility that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators could be found ‘not guilty’ due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause.

“These men are part of a global terrorist network dedicated to attacking America and civilization itself, and on that awful day nine years ago, they succeeded in killing nearly 3,000 innocent men, women, and children. These terrorists were already being tried by military commissions, which were specifically designed to prosecute such heinous acts.

“This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality – treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and hoping for the best. We need a real strategy for fighting and winning the war on America’s terrorist enemies that includes an effective, credible, and consistent plan for all terrorist detainees.”

NOTE: In May, House Republicans introduced H.R. 2294, the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, which would stop the transfer or release of terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison into the United States. The legislation unequivocally opposes releasing terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay facility and transferring them to the United States, makes clear that governors and state legislatures must pre-approve the transfer or release of any terrorist detainee into their respective states, and requires the Administration to meet strict criteria and certification standards before terrorists housed at the Guantanamo prison could be brought to the United States.

Bill Kristol, this morning, relaying the reaction of the sister of 9/11 victim Charles Burlingame, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77:

Today Attorney General Eric Holder will announce that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several of his fellow 9/11 co-conspirators will be brought to New York City and tried in federal court. No doubt the Attorney General will invoke the phrase, ‘Swift and certain justice.’ This is a sham. There will be nothing swift and nothing certain about it.

The trial will be a travesty. The prosecutors at the Southern and Eastern Districts fought over these career-making cases like vultures at a kill. But who will be the vulture? In open court, it will be Khalid Shiek Mohammed who will hold forth, mocking his victims, exulting in the suffering of their families, ridiculing the judge, his lawyers and the American justice system, and worst of all, rallying his jihadi brothers to kill more Americans as the men and women of the US military risk their lives in the mountains of Afghanistan and the sands of Iraq. All, just blocks from where 20,000 body parts were dug out of the rubble of the Twin Towers.

Remember KSM’s famous opening line when he was grabbed in Rawalpindi? ‘I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer.’ Thanks to the Obama admnistration, it looks like he’ll get his wish. And he’ll do his best-with the help of this top-drawer lawyers and much of the media-to make the real defendants at the trial the CIA interrogators-and the American government.

How will this help achieve what our president claims he wants to achieve-‘restoring respect for America’? Is that what he really wants?

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