It’s hard to know, of course, whether this latest news means that the Obama administration is backing away from reports earlier this week indicating that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial might take place in Guantanamo, or whether a report earlier this week by Anne Kornblut and Peter Finn was inaccurate to begin with. Either way, it’s good news that the White House is not as close to making a decision about venue as those earlier reports indicated.
The Obama administration said Friday that a decision on where to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks would not be made “for weeks,” following a flare-up in the debate about whether that trial should take place in civilian court or before a military commission.
The White House sought to dampen speculation that a decision on where to hold a trial might be imminent. That speculation was fanned by a report Friday that aides to President Obama might recommend that he pull the prosecution out of civilian court and send it back to a military commission, where the Bush administration had planned to hold it.
“No decision has been made,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Friday.
Perhaps the White House was floating a trial balloon. It would not be the first time Anne Kornblut played the role of stenographer instead of journalist, or was called out for biased, uncritical, or inaccurate reporting.
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