Obama 'Rewarding' Terrorists With Civilian Trials - 'If You Hit Jihadist Jackpot, We'll Bring You Into Manhattan'

WND Radio

Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and former spokesman pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday to charges that he conspired to kill Americans.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was arraigned with little prior public notice after being apprehended days ago in Jordan.

However, the leader of the U.S. prosecution team against the 1993 World Trade Center bombers said the Obama administration wasted a golden opportunity to glean critical intelligence and damaged the credibility of U.S. military commissions.

Andrew C. McCarthy told WND Congress established that military commissions would be the destination for captured enemy combatants after setting up the system in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, but the Obama administration found a loophole.

“Public funds were not supposed to be used to bring enemy combatant terrorists into the United States for civilian trial, but the statute we’re talking about applied to the people who were in custody in Gitmo,” McCarthy explained. “When it fell into the Obama administration’s lap that there was someone who fit the definition of an enemy combatant but yet was not at Gitmo, that was a golden opportunity for the administration to end-around the congressional ban and usher an enemy combatant terrorist into the United States to give him a civilian trial.”

McCarthy admitted that he and fellow prosecutors have amassed a strong conviction record against terrorist suspects, but possible exoneration is not his biggest concern. He said trials in civilian court always trigger intelligence flows that make our nation more vulnerable.

“You have to turn over discovery, meaning all of our intelligence files under the due process rules. You’re also, in effect, rewarding the worst actors,” McCarthy said. “Basically, we’re taking the insane position that if you’re a foreign or even an American enemy combatant, and we happen to catch you in Yemen, we can take you out with a drone strike with no due process, no anything, even if you haven’t actually carried out a terrorist attack yet. But if you hit the jihadist jackpot and manage to get to the United States and kill 3,000 Americans, we’ll bring you into Manhattan and give you the bells-and-whistles civilian trial. That’s a pretty perverse set of incentives to give our enemy.”

Read more and view video at WND:

http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/obama-rewarding-terrorists-with-civilian-trials/#6wI2GTp72gmVj9XY.99