RUSH: So a mockery was made of the first day of the military tribunal involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. An utter mockery. The first day was televised on closed-circuit so 9/11 families could watch the proceedings, and it was an utter disaster. The judge lost control. The defendants… I’ll tell you, the decision to not have this trial in New York City looks brilliant now, based on what happened with the military tribunal the first day ’cause it was an absolute circus. The four defendants were making a mockery of the whole process, a mockery of the United States.
They were sneering and laughing at the deaths of all the people they killed on 9/11 and they expressed desire to do it again. One of the lawyers for one of the terrorists, a woman by the name of Cheryl Bormann (she’s counsel for defendant Walid bin Attash), “attended the arraignment Saturday dressed in a hijab, apparently because her client insisted on it.” She wore a burqa! She showed up looking like a woman out in public in Saudi Arabia. But it wasn’t enough that she dress that way.
“She further requested that the court order other women to follow her example so that the defendants wouldn’t have to avert their eyes ‘for fear of committing a sin under their faith.'” It is a sin, apparently, for the murderers of 3,000 people to look at women’s faces and heads uncovered. And it’s such an outrage that the biased and unfair American military justice system would make these defendants look at women not wearing hijabs. So Cheryl Bormann requested of the court that every woman in the court…
There she is, Snerdley. You can see her right there on Fox. Fox has an artist’s rendering of what happened. At a press conference Sunday at Club Gitmo, Cheryl Bormann said that she dresses in “a hijab at ‘all times’ when she meets with her client” out of respect for his beliefs. Asked why she requested other women to do the same, Cheryl Bormann said, “When you’re on trial for your life, you need to be focused,” and she can’t have her clients not paying attention because there are women in the courtroom violating their religious beliefs.
So in a US military tribunal, we are to drop everything, and we are to respect Sharia law above all other law, even though these defendants are not being tried under Sharia law. We’re supposed to mandate that Sharia law rule the courtroom, when such a demand made by any other religion would be laughed at. Bormann is not Muslim. Cheryl Bormann is not Muslim. She claimed “the issue of female attire came up several years ago when a paralegal wore ‘very short skirts’ and became a distraction for the defendants. She also said that on Saturday ‘somebody’ was dressed ‘in a way that was not in keeping with my clientÂ’s religious beliefs.'”
Well, isn’t that tough toenails for your client?
Everybody in this country goes someplace someday where their religious beliefs are offended, or challenged. I mean, do you believe that if members of any other religion walked into anything like this and demanded everybody either dress or behave according…? Especially if you’re the defendant and you’re on trial for your part in the murder of nearly 3,000 people! Cheryl Bormann said, “If because of someoneÂ’s religious beliefs, they canÂ’t focus when somebody in the courtroom is dressed in a particular way, I feel it is incumbent upon myself as a [lawyer] to point that out and ask for some consideration from the prosecution. Suffice to say it was distracting to members of the accused.”
“The clothing request was just one of several unusual moments during Saturday’s lengthy and chaotic hearing.” Cheryl Bormann dressed in her own hijab. And I’ll tell you, the biggest outrage might be that the lawyers are now saying that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his buddies’ trial could go on for years. Military tribunals are known for being “get in, get it, and get out” type affairs. They don’t last very long. This hearing shoulda taken no more than two hours, if that.
This hearing should have been over and done with in two hours. Instead it lasted, do you know, almost 13 hours? This hearing lasted almost 13 hours! They had meal breaks. They had prayer breaks. The terrorists were making concerted efforts to stall the hearing. They knelt in prayer. They ignored the judge. They wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations over their headsets. One of them even insisted on having the more than 20 pages detailing the charges against them read aloud. So they’re making a mockery of the whole process, which is understandable.
It’s predictable, too, which is why everybody was outraged by the idea that this trial should take place in an American criminal court in New York City, as Holder and Obama originally wanted — and for this very reason, by the way. I’ve always been of the belief that Holder and Obama wanted America put on trial. And that’s why they originally wanted it in New York City. You people who are new to the program, you may not be aware of this number, but just the security costs, had this trial gone ahead in New York City, as originally conceived…
Just the security costs alone were said to be $200 million. Just the security! Just to get the defendants in and out of court every day, keeping ’em alive wherever they were gonna be held, keeping them alive inside the courtroom. And everybody else’s security to boot. Now, I’ll tell you my reaction when I saw this, when I read about this. These guys, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his pals, do not strike me as prisoners who have been tortured or abused. If you’ve been successfully tortured or abused, you sorta sit there and cower.
And you’re afraid to do anything that might cause a repeat of the treatment that you’ve been under. So these guys, I didn’t see one shred of evidence that they’d been abused or tortured because they obviously have no fear of United States authority. They have no fear of the judge. They have no fear of these proceedings. They have no qualms whatsoever. They’re behaving as though they know nothing is going to happen to them!
I’m just telling you: If they’ve been tortured like the American left and the media want you to believe, these people would be quiet, docile, sitting there trying to avoid doing anything that would cause a repeat of the torture or the abuse. And here they’re inviting it! In any other court in any other country these guys are familiar with, they would have been beaten inside the courtroom and taken back to jail and the trial canceled. But here, even at our military tribunal in Club Gitmo, one of the female lawyers is demanding all the women in the courtroom wear burqas!