Biden Infuriates 9/11 Families with Plan to Spare Terrorists the Death Penalty: 'Sickening Betrayal'
President Joe Biden is under fire from the families of 9/11 victims who are disgusted by his move to offer plea deals to Guantanamo Bay inmates accused of engineering the terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 Americans.
Under the deals, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — named in the 9/11 Commission Report as the “principal architect” of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil — and four of his alleged co-conspirators would “accept criminal responsibility for their actions and plead guilty … in exchange for not receiving the death penalty,” CBS News reported Aug. 17.
Last week, 2,000 family members of 9/11 victims wrote to the Biden administration demanding it stop bargaining with men, saying it’s tantamount to negotiating with terrorists, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported Sunday.
Dennis McGinley, whose brother died at New York’s World Trade Center, said sparing the death penalty for terrorists is a slap in the face to all Americans.
“Here we are on the eve of the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, and we are getting kicked in the gut by our own government once again,” McGinley told the Daily Mail.
The families want a trial so they finally get answers to their questions about the deadly plot.
Many victims’ families believe Saudi Arabia was behind the attack and wrote to Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding the U.S. hold the Arab kingdom accountable.
Brett Eagleson, whose father perished in the World Trade Center, said offering plea deals to Guantanamo Bay suspects is a “sickening betrayal.”
“To the 9/11 victims, we’ve been fighting for 22 years for peace, closure and accountability,” he told the Mail. “We need to hear what KSM and these other detainees have to say.”
Troy Rosasco, an attorney representing the 9/11 victims’ families, said Biden is trivializing the tragedy by bargaining with Mohammed and the others.
“The Pentagon is embarrassed that it’s taken them 20 years to try to prosecute terrorists,” Rosasco told the Daily Mail. “They think this is going to be a one-day news cycle, and they’re going to be able to sweep it under the rug.”
He added, “U.S. policy should always be — and I thought it was — that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
In 2021, Biden issued an executive order directing the Department of Justice, the CIA and the FBI to declassify and publicly release information collected in the federal investigation of the 9/11 attacks.
However, the 9/11 families say the government has not complied with the executive order and has only released a few select, sanitized summaries.
Eagleson, the founder of 9/11 Justice, said the Biden administration is engaged in a cover-up.
“They are terrified of what KSM and these other detainees will say about not only the Saudi role in 9/11, but about what the United States intelligence agencies knew. And they don’t want information to see the light of day,” he told the Daily Mail.
“Long ago, the U.S. made a political decision not to embarrass the Saudis,” Eagleson said. “But we are asking that the 9/11 families be included in any deal: We want an apology. We want an admission of guilt. We want closure.”
McGinley agreed. “The same DOJ and FBI that has been blocking the 9/11 families from receiving all of the 9/11 evidence are now sending us letters telling us that there most likely won’t be a trial for [Mohammed], preventing that same evidence from ever being made public — all to cover up for Saudi Arabia and U.S. government’s embarrassment,” he said.
Biden is considering meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in early September at the Group of 20 summit in India, according to Axios’ Barak Ravid.
President Biden is considering meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of next month’s G20 summit in New Delhi to discuss U.S.-Saudi mega deal, four sources with knowledge of the issue told me. My story on @axioshttps://t.co/dozC5OxBG4
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) August 21, 2023
Eagleson said the Biden administration’s ploy to sweep the 9/11 attacks under the rug with plea deals speaks volumes about what it’s trying to cover up.
He said there’s a trove of documents U.S. intelligence agencies have not released spotlighting Saudi Arabia’s complicity in the terrorist attacks.
“By refusing to give us the documents is accomplishing two things,” Eagleson told the Daily Mail.
“They’re protecting the kingdom from embarrassment, but they’re also protecting our own intelligence failures,” he said.
“They buy billions of dollars of U.S.-manufactured weapons, they stabilize global oil markets. So there’s not a lot of people, or there’s not a lot of big willingness, to try to push them around much.”
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