EXCLUSIVE — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday denouncing the possibility of a plea deal under consideration that could ensure the suspected architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and his fellow defendants never face the death penalty.
The correspondence from the lawmakers, obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner, comes after the Pentagon sent a letter earlier this month to the families of 9/11 victims informing them the Office of the Chief Prosecutor “has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements” in which the five men, including suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would “accept criminal responsibility for their actions and plead guilty … in exchange for not receiving the death penalty.”
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The negotiations, which have been ongoing for more than a year, are a result of concerns that the prisoners had been subjected to torture, including waterboarding, by the CIA and that that could hurt prosecutors’ cases against them, the New York Times report.
Cruz and Malliotakis are urging the Biden administration not to spare the defendants the death penalty, calling the deal “completely unacceptable.”
“Make no mistake, any outcome short of the death penalty for the September 11th plotters would be completely unacceptable, and constitute a total failure of leadership on the part of the Department of Defense,” Cruz and Malliotakis write in the letter.
Additionally, the duo called on the Pentagon to answer questions by no later than mid-September in an effort to understand the circumstances in which a plea deal originated.
The lawmakers point out President Joe Biden campaigned on abolishing the federal death penalty and highlight a different example of how the Department of Justice offered the suspected gunman in the 2019 shooting that killed 23 people and injured nearly two dozen more at a Walmart near the Texas-Mexico border a plea deal, bypassing El Paso prosecutors who promised to put the shooter on death row.
“The Biden Administration’s decision here appears not to be based on the strength of the evidence or the wishes of the victims’ families, but rather a purely political choice, designed to appease the fringe left of his party,” they said.
“Unfortunately, having already injected partisan political concerns into the administration of the death penalty in civilian courts, it now appears the Biden Administration is doing the same in military tribunals.”
Other lawmakers are also sounding the alarm. Freshman Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) led a bipartisan letter to Biden last week, urging him not to go through with a plea deal.
In recent weeks, more than 2,000 family members of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks sent a letter to the White House urging Biden to stop any deal that would allow five prisoners facing charges over the attacks to avoid the death penalty.
In the letter, the families said that “the pain is all worse” after they learned “practically on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary” from the administration about the proposed deal, specifically for Mohammed. They also warned in their letter a plea deal with the prisoners would suppress critical information about 9/11’s orchestration that would normally surface during a trial, something the lawmakers were also careful to emphasize in their letter.
“These families have already been robbed of their loved ones, they should not also be robbed of the full measure of justice in this case,” they wrote. “The September 11th plotters are mass murderers, deserving of the ultimate punishment. Indeed, if there are persons walking the face of the Earth who are deserving of the death penalty, it is these five men. After over two decades of patiently waiting, the victims’ families deserve closure.”
Mohammed, who has been identified as the “principal architect” of the attacks, is currently imprisoned along with four others at Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp in relation to the attacks.
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If a plea deal moves forward, it could complicate Biden’s promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay. If the 9/11 defendants ultimately receive life sentences, there’s a law in place that could prevent their transfer to U.S. soil and federal custody, which could result in the prison remaining open indefinitely.
Proposals have emerged over the years in an effort to move trials from military tribunals to civilian court, but the idea continues to face resistance on Capitol Hill amid concerns about security and the price of moving defendants from the remote location.
