Skelton: Holder Didn’t Really Convince Me

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has taken another shot at the administration’s war on terror policies with a letter yesterday to AG Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the decision to put the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal criminal courts rather than military tribunals:

Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions. “As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military tribunals for these detainees should continue,” Skelton said in a letter to the two officials.

You have to think that Gates isn’t particularly pleased about getting caught up in Holder’s ill-conceived plan to make American great again by giving terrorists a microphone and a platform in New York City. Skelton has already broken ranks with his party to support McChrystal’s call for more troops in Afghanistan, giving Gates (and Obama) much-needed cover in in the fight to fund any additional forces. Now Holder is mucking things up and putting Gates in the position of defending a policy that, by all accounts, he has no interest in defending.

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