President Joe Biden and the White House are distancing themselves from the plea deals the government reached with three defendants accused of plotting or facilitating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that plea deals had been reached with three defendants detained at Guantanamo Bay, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The deals reportedly spare all three prisoners from the death penalty, according to the New York Post, which cited three unnamed family members of 9/11 victims who were told about the deal by the government.
Thousands of family members of 9/11 victims have previously lobbied the Biden administration against pursuing plea deals with 9/11 defendants, and numerous Republicans slammed the decision to enter into pretrial agreements as a “national disgrace” after the news broke on Wednesday. (RELATED: Biden Breaks With Decades Of Tradition By Spending 9/11 In … Alaska)
On the evening before the annual September 11 memorial services, people leave flowers and mementos in memory of the dead, September 10, 2023, at the Ground Zero World Trade Center memorial site. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
The White House, however, is distancing itself from the decision, saying that it only “learned” about the plea deals after the fact.
“The White House learned yesterday that the Convening Authority for Military Commissions entered into pretrial agreements, negotiated by military prosecutors, with KSM and other 9/11 defendants,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The President and the White House played no role in this process. The President has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter.”
The White House did not respond immediately to follow-up questions about whether President Joe Biden supports the plea deals or whether he has any plans to try to intervene.
The 9/11 attacks were the worst in American history, claiming the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people. The U.S. shortly thereafter initiated the war on terror, in which thousands of American service members perished.
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