The Biden administration recently reached a plea deal with terrorists associated with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and several lawmakers have slammed them for the decision. One of those lawmakers is GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, who appeared on Newsmax on Thursday, August 1, and said he was stunned by the decision.
Zinke appeared on “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE” to discuss the recent plea deal and invited “any American to tour New York” and to visit “the two holes” where the Twin Towers once stood (commonly called Ground Zero) to “read the names” of all the first responders who died on 9/11. He called the 9/11 attacks a “heinous absolute evil” and condemned the Biden administration for making a plea deal with three terrorists connected to the attacks.
The congressman from Montana said in his mind, the US goes after the terrorists, not “negotiate” with them. He said such a policy has been “long-standing” and “effective,” and that releasing terrorists, shutting down prisons like Guantanamo Bay, or “bargaining with the worst” was “stunning” to him.
On Wednesday, July 31, one of the accused masterminds behind 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took a plea deal for lighter sentences. He was charged alongside two accomplices, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash, who are expected to also enter guilty pleas for lighter sentences at the Guantanamo Bay military commission.
Their defense attorneys requested life sentences in exchange for the guilty pleas, of which members of the almost 3,000 9/11 victims’ families were informed by a letter sent out by the federal government.
House Speaker Mike Johnson responded to the news by calling the decision by the Biden-Harris administration “a slap in the face” of the victims’ families who “deserved better.” Zinke commented on Johnson’s remarks and said he “100% supports” the House Speaker’s position.
Zinke said the three terrorists were “the most evil men” on the planet and were behind “the most horrific event” in US history. He then reiterated that every American should go visit the 9/11 monument in Manhattan. He said he “spent a lot of time there” while US Secretary of the Interior and would read the names of the first responders who died trying to save others.
