Eric Holder’s Latest Blunder

Unless you are setting out to create a crisis, the decision announced by Attorney General Eric Holder to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City for a public trial in civilian court is one of the worst decisions to come from the Obama administration.

If you skip right past the fact that these are terrorists and enemy combatants first and foremost who should never be allowed to set foot on American soil; if you simply ignore the spectacle it will cause on a world stage to put on the show of a trial (I say a show because the current administration, Obama and Holder included, has stated that it is a foregone conclusion that the trial will result in a guilty verdict); if you do not care that the American intelligence community will, once again, have it’s capabilities and techniques exposed for all to see; there are still the minor details of what the rules will be and who is going to pay for the costs of this “show trial.”

I do not believe that the Justice Department has fully explained how Mohammed’s trial will differ from any other federal criminal proceeding with regards to the defendant’s rights. If, for instance, you take into consideration that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his friends have every right to choose to represent themselves in an American court and therefore have access to every piece of evidence and how it was obtained AND have the right to speak extensively during the trial, you might have a problem. If you take into consideration that regardless of representation, that the defendants did not have their Miranda rights explained to them prior to questioning to include the right to an attorney and the right not to answer questions, which could result in the case being thrown out of court, you might have a problem. If you consider that fact that the President of the United States and the Attorney General have both stated that torture was used to obtain confessions and other information from the defendants, again which could result in the case being thrown out of court, you might have a problem. These are just a few and I’m sure a legal expert could cite many, many other problems.

Now, as far as who will pay the costs of the trial. Of course, the U.S. taxpayer will pay for the legal fees of both the defendants and the prosecutors and the taxpayer will pick up the tab for all of the costs of the court. And don’t forget the security surrounding the defendants and the court will come at additional taxpayer expense. But what of the other expenses.

The Governor of New York has indicated that the state is in dire straights financially and will likely be broke by the end of the year. I’m sure it was with that in mind that Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is urging the administration to reimburse the city for what he says could be $75 million in extra security costs related to the terror trials. I suppose when the nation is already $12 trillion dollars in debt, an additional $75 million isn’t much, but I would be willing to bet $75 million is on the low side by an extreme amount especially since there is no way to predict the length of the trial itself.

I should like to point out that New York, in addition to it’s own population, has a large amount of people visiting on a daily basis. During a trial such as this, there will, potentially, be an even larger amount of people traveling to New York. If you look at terrorist incidents in other countries, you will find that they are seldom on the scale of the attacks of 9/11. A potential attack on the court or facilities where the prisoners will be held during the trial aside, an incident or multiple incidents in New York or Washington taking place as a show of support of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by al Qaeda or any other group in other public areas is a very real possibility. Thanks to everyone who has stonewalled securing our borders, it would be easy to have zealots come into the country from any of these groups. The OTMs, or other than Mexicans, crossing the southern border has been a known problem for years! Do the math. There are roughly 15 to 20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. and ten percent of those are OTMs. Any percentage of the OTMs that are from hostile countries constitutes hundreds of thousands.Throw that potential into a mix with our own, home-grown terrorist, such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and other “lone wolves” are also potential threats. How many of these are living and walking around in New York today?

On the plus side for the city of New York, there should be a huge number of additional members of the world press in town to cover the trial. I’m sure they will generate a large amount of income for the city’s hotels, bars and restaurants during the length of the trial. So everything should be okay. Right?