Reports from New York Daily News, the New York Times, the New York Post and CNN (so far), show that Obama is ordering the DOJ to locate alternative sites for the trial.
President Obama said through a spokesman that he still believed a civilian criminal trial for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has admitted planning the attacks, and four accomplices could be conducted “successfully and securely in the United States.” He did not mention New York specifically.
Mr. Obama left the decision on possible alternate sites to the Justice Department, which was scrambling to assess the options, administration officials said.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a terrorist and should be tried by military tribunal and not brought back unto American soil.
Republican politicians will move forward with their plans to block any funding to bring Mohammed on to U.S. soil.
Republicans in the Senate and House said they would try to block financing for civilian criminal trials for the alleged terrorists, seeking to force the administration to place them on trial before a military commission in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or on a military base elsewhere.
Opponents of civilian trials said they hoped new doubts about a New York trial and increased fears of terrorism since the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day would win more Democratic support for such measures.
More from NYT:
Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, introduced legislation on Wednesday that would block financing for civilian trials for those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he would introduce a parallel bill in the Senate next week.
Mr. Graham, an experienced military prosecutor who has long argued that foreign terrorists should be treated as enemy combatants, proposed a similar amendment in November but it failed to pass the Senate by 54 to 45. He said he believed the same measure could pass today.
Commentary Magazine's Jennifer Rubin points out what should be obvious to the Obama administration by now:
This would be a monumental admission of error by Obama and, more importantly, by his attorney general, who assured us all that this would be a slam dunk, a safe and pain free proceeding. Now that Obama has lost his mystical powers to silence his own party, the truth is seeping out: this is an expensive, dangerous, and entirely unnecessary deviation from historical practice. Obama is colliding with reality.
On Guantanamo, the KSM trial, and the Mirandizing of the Christmas Day bomber the public and a bipartisan consensus is taking the lead. The Obami’s leftward lark on national security, I suspect, is about to end. The Bush-era policies have been vindicated by none other than Obama, who proved the alternatives to be unworkable, foolish, and politically untenable. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney must be smiling broadly.
I think the kicker here is the dueling headlines today, regarding 9/11. Barack Obama is more than willing to spend whatever amount of money, in the millions, to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on American soil, back on American soil for a trial that by all rights should be conducted by the military and yet the same man, Barack Obama, is opposed to funding the 9/11 healthcare bill that would help pay for the ongoing health problems for the men and women that were at ground zero, risking their lives to deal with the fallout, find survivors and remove the dead from the rubble.
Now is the perfect time for the Republicans and/or Democrats to bring bills up in the House and Senate to refuse any and all funding to be used to bring that monster back on to American soil.
Anyone that votes against a bill like that would be in even more trouble come November than they already are.
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