Feels like news outlets intentionally focused on “plea deal” phrase alone, which many will likely immediately process as “release” instead of saying a firm guilty verdict that secures life in prison over the death penalty (especially reactive, vocal, co-opted 9/11 victims rights groups with a parlance of trump flags on their trucks)
so timing feels either just like a dumb mistake when you could have pushed to after election with motions I imagine, fear that dems wouldn’t win the election and a new trump admin would execute or a very progressive prosecutor that is too idealistic defiantly trying to make this a front and center election issue, even if it could have toured into a perceived trump strength for swing voters.
Thanks for providing this update. You added some sources and data that I didn’t know, and your last point clearly articulates the set of likely causes of this misstep.
When I first became aware of this story my gut-reaction was “I fucking hate unforced errors like this!”; I’m now very curious why this happened the way it did. Mind you, in the grand scheme of things I suspect this is nothing more than a fleeting political blip.
It is mentioned in this article.
Sorry, was late, I missed that. Thanks
Okay, so a lot of layers here, but a few things stand out…
She was a retired Army lawyer that studied at Berkeley. Austin appointed her to replace trump appointee of year ago - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/us/politics/guantanamo-war-court-appointment.html
trump appointee had been instructed to seek pleas.
ACLU is on her side - https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-defense-secretary-austin-revoking-plea-deal-for-9-11-defendants
Feels like news outlets intentionally focused on “plea deal” phrase alone, which many will likely immediately process as “release” instead of saying a firm guilty verdict that secures life in prison over the death penalty (especially reactive, vocal, co-opted 9/11 victims rights groups with a parlance of trump flags on their trucks)
so timing feels either just like a dumb mistake when you could have pushed to after election with motions I imagine, fear that dems wouldn’t win the election and a new trump admin would execute or a very progressive prosecutor that is too idealistic defiantly trying to make this a front and center election issue, even if it could have toured into a perceived trump strength for swing voters.
Thanks for providing this update. You added some sources and data that I didn’t know, and your last point clearly articulates the set of likely causes of this misstep.
When I first became aware of this story my gut-reaction was “I fucking hate unforced errors like this!”; I’m now very curious why this happened the way it did. Mind you, in the grand scheme of things I suspect this is nothing more than a fleeting political blip.