Lawfare Daily: Gen. Baker on the 9/11 Guilty Pleas that Were… Then Weren’t
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
Last week, three defendants in the 9/11 case at Guantanamo agreed to plead guilty in the military commissions. Two days later, the Secretary of Defense pulled out of the agreements. What happened?
Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with General John Baker, who served as the Chief Defense Counsel of the Guantanamo Military Commissions until 2021. They talked about how the 9/11 case got to plea agreements after more than a decade of litigation, why Secretary Austin scuttled them, and what it all portends for the future of this case—and the military commissions more broadly.
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| 1:17.0 | I just don't understand why we are doing anything other than trying to bring these cases to as quick an end as possible, and in a way that would give the victims some ability to find out why and what happened. |
| 1:25.0 | It's the Law Fair Podcast. |
| 1:27.0 | I'm Natalie Orpet, executive editor of Law Fair, |
| 1:30.0 | with General John Baker, |
| 1:32.0 | former Chief Defense Counsel for the Guantanamo Military Commissions. |
| 1:36.0 | If we want to give the victims any sort of judicial finality, |
| 1:41.0 | the only way they're going to get that in our lifetime is through a plea reason. |
| 1:45.0 | Today we're talking about the three guilty pleas that were announced last week in the |
| 1:50.4 | so-called 9-11 case. Please were announced on Wednesday in court down at Guantanamo. |
| 1:55.0 | By Friday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin |
| 1:58.0 | had issued an order withdrawing from the deals. |
| 2:01.0 | We talked about how we got here, why this may have happened, and |
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