The Obama's administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters in New York City has sparked a great number of heated expressions of offense from Republicans -- and may now have landed President Obama in legal hot water.
Obama defended his decision on Wednesday by telling MSNBC's Chuck Todd, "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." When Todd expressed surprise at the remark, Obama hastily corrected himself, insisting, "What I said was people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not pre-judging it."
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley chuckled over Obama's predicament on MSNBC's Countdown, telling substitute host Lawrence O'Donnell, "He certainly came across as the Queen of Hearts, calling for a sentence first and a verdict later."
"He knows that's a problem," Turley went on, more seriously. "The great irony is that in defending this noble decision of his to give a fair trial to these men, he then crossed the line and is likely to be cited by the feds that it's not quite so fair."
The Obama administration has been fairly cavalier so far in brushing off the possibility that any of the defendants might be found innocent. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, ""I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome -- in the outcome we would ultimately be successful."
