On Friday’s episode of CNN’s “The Source,” CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Oren Lieberman said the White House and the Pentagon should have known there was a process to try to reach a plea deal with three defendants allegedly involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The plea deal was struck this week and then rescinded by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday. “If Austin or the White House wanted to stop this process and say there couldn’t be a plea deal, they could have done so at any point in the last two and a half years,” he said. “So I have to believe that part of the reason the plea deal was rescinded was the intense bipartisan backlash and the intense backlash from the victims’ families when this was announced and then made public.”
host Kaitlan Collins asked.[T]The White House said yesterday that it did not know about this plea deal until it was reached. Do we know if Attorney Austin knew about this?”
Lieberman responded, “There’s a lot of uncertainty at this point about the plea deal itself. But what we’ve been reporting, and what others have been reporting for over two and a half years, is that plea deal discussions were underway. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to the Department of Defense or anyone else that a process was underway to reach a plea deal. If Mr. Austin or the White House wanted to stop that process and say there couldn’t be a plea deal, they could have done so at any point in the last two and a half years. That’s one of the reasons it was such a surprise that Mr. Austin quietly posted a memo that he was firing the woman in charge of the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay and rescinding the plea deal that had come to this point. I have to believe that part of the reason was the intense bipartisan backlash and the intense backlash from the victims’ families when this was announced and then made public.”
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