On “The Mark Levin Show” on Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argued that the plea deals reached this week with three defendants accused of participating in the September 11 terrorist attacks (including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and then withdrawn on Friday by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were made because the White House wanted to close Guantanamo Bay at all costs, and were “tantamount to a political imperative to withdraw from Afghanistan by the anniversary of September 11th,” and that the deals were only withdrawn because of the political backlash.
Cruz said:[T]They did it because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the bureaucrats said, ‘We have to close Guantanamo.’ It was a political mandate. Same as the political mandate to get out of Afghanistan by the anniversary of 9/11. And that trumped everything else and led to the disaster in Afghanistan. They decided to get out because the election was coming up. But to be clear, Kamala wants to do this right after Election Day.”
Cruz also argued that the White House could have killed the deal sooner if it had wanted to.
Earlier this week, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said the White House still wanted to close Guantanamo Bay, but insisted the White House had nothing to do with the deal and was unaware of it until Wednesday.
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