Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week overrode the plea agreement for three 9/11 defendants to avoid pushback on Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub tells Newsmax.
Gaub, appearing on "Wake Up America Weekend," said that he's known Austin for more than 20 years, and he believes that his decision "all came down to politics" and how the agreement would reflect on Harris and President Joe Biden.
"He pulled this back to have it not be a cost in the election," said Gaub. "It's unfortunate right now that the decision was made purely based on the chance of it being a political football used by anybody else… knowing him as well as I do, the reasons were not because of anything but the political cost."
Austin Friday overrode a plea agreement that would have allowed accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, to be sentenced to life in prison rather than to death.
The three defendants have been in prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for decades, with the accused mastermind's case being stuck in pretrial since 2008.
Retired CIA analyst Fred Fleitz, also on Sunday's show, said he believes the decision on the plea agreement was likely postponed until after the November election, and that Biden will try to reinstate the deal in December.
"My concern here is that this is part of an overall plan by Joe Biden to close Guantanamo, something [former President Barack] Obama wanted to do and wasn't able to pull off," said Fleitz. "They don't want any blowback that will affect the chances of Kamala Harris winning the election."
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