From the New York Daily News:

The White House ordered the Justice Department to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The White House took the action hours after Mayor Bloomberg called Attorney General Eric Holder to say he would “prefer that they did it elsewhere.”

“It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that’s too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood,” Bloomberg told reporters.

“There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City.”

State leaders have railed against a plan to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan federal court since Holder proposed it last month.

(more…)

It is a Friday and President Obama is abroad.  What better time for the President and the Department of Justice to announce that 9/11 coordinator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his fellow terrorists will be tried in a civilian court in New York City?

Yesterday, I wrote about the curious connection that major Obama and ACORN supporter Bruce Ratner has to the Department of Justice – the very department that refuses to initiate a criminal trial of ACORN. It just so happens that Bruce Ratner’s brother, Michael Ratner, shares the terrorist coddling sympathies of Attorney General Eric Holder.  As Michelle Malkin documents, Holder not only pushed for the pardoning of actual terrorists in his last stint at DOJ, but he was also a senior partner at a law firm representing detainees at Guantanamo. While Michael Ratner has not represented Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he did represent a handful of terrorists and won them the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts under habeas corpus. This is just one of many legal “victories” that have paved the way for folks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in civilian court on our soil.

This particular example highlights the underlying notion that terrorists should be privy to the same rights as United States citizens. In this instance, President Obama did in fact exercise his discretion (if you can call it that) by allowing the trial to take place in civilian court.  Attorney Brian Levi serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.  As Levi noted today, “As a legal matter President Obama could very well also have tried these five detainees before military tribunals, as five others are…”

(more…)