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The Khalid trial: Bombs and Circuses in New York
Investor's Business Daily
"Live from New York," the trials of the 9/11 conspirators will be a media freak show that paints a giant bull's-eye on the Big Apple. Worse, it will provide al-Qaida with national secrets. Why have the president and his attorney general decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a handful of other 9/11 schemers in a courthouse a short walk from Ground Zero? Don't joke that "if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere!" National Review's Andrew McCarthy, who led the prosecution against the 1993 World Trade Center terrorists, reminds us that Khalid and his co-terrorists could exploit the Constitution's Sixth Amendment right to self-representation.
America could then be faced with this choice: Let the terrorists serve as their own lawyers and be allowed reams of national security material — or deny them that right and risk the case being thrown out on Sixth Amendment grounds. McCarthy warns that Khalid and the others "can and will demand discovery of mountains of government intelligence. They will demand disclosures about investigative tactics; the methods and sources by which intelligence has been obtained; the witnesses from the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement who interrogated witnesses, conducted searches, secretly intercepted enemy communications, and employed other investigative techniques."
Without being represented by counsel sworn not to reveal national security secrets, these murderers will pass on all that information to al-Qaida, as happened in the 1993 Trade Center trial. Had the president simply allowed a military trial to proceed, on the other hand, McCarthy points out that "these war criminals would be well on their way to the execution of death sentences." Bringing Khalid to New York for trial will also make the city "the focus of mischief in the form of murder," former Attorney General Michael Mukasey warned last week.
Even someone as far to the left as New York Gov. David Paterson knows this, and he is understandably incensed. Paterson blasted the president this week, saying "this is not a decision that I would have made." He added that "having those terrorists so close to the attack is gonna be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers."
"Encumbrance" may end up being an understatement. As University of Missouri constitutional law professor Kris Kobach has pointed out, "During the trial, every building in Manhattan becomes a target for the jihadists."
That will still be the case if Governor's Island is chosen as the trial venue, as some suggest. Kobach also notes that, with defense-lawyer maneuvers that would be prohibited in a military tribunal, "the trial will take many years to complete. Indeed it may not even start for five years or more."
As the PowerLine blog's John Hinderaker has asked: Why are other terrorists like USS Cole bombing mastermind Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri being tried by military tribunals — while someone as infamous as Khalid gets use of, in effect, the Broadway stage and the fullness of the global media spotlight that comes with it? Why will we let the biggest terrorists in history get the finest in legal representation at taxpayer expense? It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Obama administration so wants to embarrass its immediate predecessor that it sees Khalid's trial as the chance to expose more details of enhanced interrogation.
Considering the secrets that Eric Holder's Justice Department has already revealed to the world this year about the tough techniques U.S. officials used on Khalid and others — for purposes of getting information that successfully foiled numerous terror plots — doesn't that make sense? Does the Holder Justice Department want to see George W. Bush convicted of war crimes by some foreign court? And is that more important to the Obama administration than the way such revelations would help al-Qaida and other terrorists around the world?
Congress has the power to stop all this.
It can prevent a New York City judicial circus with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as ringleader from taking place simply by refusing to fund trials for 9/11 terrorists on U.S. soil. Senators Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and James Webb, D-Va., have taken just such a position.
We support them. Eight-plus years after 9/11, it's time to give these terrorists justice, not a chance to orchestrate a media extravaganza.
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 23 November 2009