No less an authority on terrorism trials than Judge Michael Mukasey has spoken out strongly against trying the 9\/11 plotters in federal court. Judge Mukasey, who was Mr. Holder’s predecessor as attorney general, presided over the 1995 trial of Sheik Omar. He has written that terrorism trials become targets for terrorists and are thus big drains on judicial resources. Courts and jails need extra protection, as do jurors, lawyers and judges. On the other hand, Judge Mukasey wrote, the government has already spent millions on a safe venue for military commission trials with full rights for defendants. But it is at Guantanamo, which the Obama administration shuns.<\/p>\n
Judge Mukasey also has pointed out that expedience led prosecutors to charge Saleh Hahlah al-Marri, who confessed to plotting a second wave of al-Qaida attacks on the U.S., with a lesser crime. He could become free to rejoin the war against us in six years.<\/p>\n
Sen. James Webb, D-Va., who leads a Senate review of the nation’s criminal justice system, supported Sen. [Lindsey] Graham’s Nov. 5 motion to block civilian trials for the Guantanamo detainees. It failed in the Senate by a 54-45 vote…<\/p>\n