The White House has distanced itself from a plea deal with the trio behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, saying neither President Joe Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris was involved in the agreement.
“We had no role in that process,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. “The president had no role. The vice president had no role. I had no role. The White House had no role.”
Republicans are trying to link the White House and Harris in particular to the plea, calling it a “sweetheart deal” made in order to avoid the death penalty.
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense reached a deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, three men accused of planning terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Though the exact details have not been made public, Republicans expressed outrage that the three were spared capital punishment.
“Kamala Harris cut a sweetheart plea deal with the 9/11 mastermind so he could avoid the death penalty,” the House Republicans X account said in a post.
Harris has long opposed the death penalty, dating back to her days as San Francisco’s district attorney 20 years ago.
The account also posted a video clip of Harris entertaining the idea of convicted terrorists voting from prison.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pinned blame on the “Biden-Harris administration,” calling the deal a slap in the face to families of the 9/11 victims.
But Sullivan, when asked if the deal showed weakness on the part of the administration, quickly worked to put distance between the Biden White House and the agreement.
“The White House received word that the convening authority had entered these pretrial agreements that have been negotiated by military prosecutors with KSM and some of the other 9/11 defendants,” Sullivan said. “We were informed yesterday, the same day that they went out publicly that this pretrial agreement had been accepted by the convening authority.”
Another reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about blowback to the news.
“The New York City firefighters union put out a statement saying, ‘we are disgusted and disappointed that these three terrorists were given a plea deal and allowed to escape the ultimate justice, while each month three more heroes from the FDNY are dying from World Trade Center illnesses,” Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said. “Does the administration have a message for them?”
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Jean-Pierre gave a similar response to Sullivan.
“We didn’t have a role in this,” she said. “This was not something that we were involved in. And so we are determined to make sure that they get justice, that these families get justice.”