Holder: Terror Trials Shouldn't Become A "Partisan Issue"

Even as his plans to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 plotters in a Lower Manhattan courthouse seem to be unraveling, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder insists that "[h]istory will show that the decisions we've made are the right ones." In a New Yorker profile, Holder claims that some of the politicians who have blasted the Obama administration for its policies on terror have "a desire to ignore the facts to try to score political points."

Holder didn't talk much about opponents like Mayor Bloomberg or Police Commissioner Ray Kelly who want to move the trials out of New York City over concerns about cost and security. But he blasted former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have argued that the suspects should face military tribunals, not criminal trials. Acknowledging Giuliani's past support for trying terror suspects in New York, Holder said: "If Giuliani was still the U.S. Attorney in New York, my guess is that, by now, I would already have gotten 10 phone calls from him telling me why these cases needed to be tried not only in civilian court but at Foley Square." Of Cheney, Holder stated: "On some level, and I'm not sure why, he lacks confidence in the American system of justice."

He also dismissed allegations that he isn't "tough" enough on terror:

"The quest for justice, despite what your contemporaries might think, that's toughness. The ability to subject yourself to the kind of criticism I’m getting now, for something I think is right? That's tough...This is something that can get a rise out of me, the notion that somehow Eric Holder and Barack Obama, this Administration, is not tough. We have the welfare of the American people in our minds all the time. We'll fight our enemies, and we'll do that which is necessary, and we won't turn our backs on the values and traditions that have made this country great. That is what is tough."