Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appeared to rebuke a senior Pentagon official after she reportedly approved a plea-deal for 9/11 terrorist mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two accomplices that became a massive embarrassment for the Biden-Harris administration.
After the Pentagon announced the deal, which was approved by senior Biden administration official Susan Escallier, a retired Army brigadier general, Austin revoked the deal, issuing a public memorandum that said he was now taking charge of the case.
The Pentagon issued a statement Friday with the revocation, along with the memorandum. It said:
Today, Secretary Austin signed a memo reserving for himself the specific authority to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the 9/11 military commission cases. In addition, as the superior convening authority, the Secretary has also withdrawn from the pre-trial agreements that were signed in those cases. The memo can be found here.
The memorandum was issued directly to Escallier. It said:
I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself. Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.
Some news outlets characterized the move as a “firing.” While Escallier was not removed from her position, and it is unclear what Austin knew about the decision beforehand, it was an unusually public announcement from a typically quiet defense secretary.
The decision to negotiate a plea-deal with Mohammed and accomplices shocked and baffled Americans across the political spectrum.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said before the deal was revoked, according to the Daily Mail, “I am very concerned about this plea deal… . I think we ought to scrutinize it very carefully.”
He added, “When we fight terrorists and we have them in custody, we need to hold them accountable with the kinds of penalties that really do justice to the victims.”
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Republicans blasted the deal, which would allow the terrorists responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon to escape the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser crimes and life in prison.
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), vice presidential candidate and a Marine veteran, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview, that the plea deal was “disgraceful.”
“So it was disgraceful that they did a plea deal here. They’re negotiating with him, but not with a lot of other people who I think frankly, are much, much more deserving of the Justice Department’s mercy,” he said.
Vance said the subsequent revocation showed it was not clear who was really in charge of the U.S. government.
“I also think this shows that the right hand is not talking to the left, or to put another way, who’s actually in charge of the US government,” he said.
“This is something where you need a president who sits on top of all these departments, who’s actually coordinating some of those significant decisions of our government,” he said.
“And it sort of reinforces what we already know, which is that no one’s actually in charge of the United States government right now. President Biden clearly isn’t capable. So so who is doing this? I mean, I guess maybe Kamala Harris, and it’s telling that they were going to move forward with this until the political consequences became pretty obvious,” he said.
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