Sessions Opens DHS Oversight Hearing With Jab at Holder for 9/11 Trials

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) just opened this morning’s  hearing that’s supposed to be about oversight of the Department of Homeland Security with a quick jab at Attorney General Eric Holder for his decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged terrorists to the United States for trial in federal court.

“Attorney General Holder testified here not long ago about his decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorsts to New York for civilian trials, which is an action that makes your mission more difficult,” Sessions said to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is slated to testify.

“Bringing foreign nationals into the United States allows them to take advantage of certain immigration laws and assert special rights,” he continued. “At the last oversight hearing the attorney general seemed unaware of the consequences,” including that it “has the potential of resulting in their being released into the United States.”

Sessions didn’t mention that Holder also testified at that hearing that even if KSM and his alleged co-conspirators are acquitted at trial, the U.S. government would continue to hold them indefinitely under the laws of war as “unprivileged enemy belligerents.”