The Obama Administration has a habit of focusing our attention on ‘the crisis of the moment’ while they do something significant behind the scenes, hoping we won’t notice. Well, they’ve done it again.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at the National Review today about the upcoming trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, in New York City. Sulaiman Abu Ghayth was captured in Turkey last month, and rather than being sent to Guantanamo to face a military tribunal, he was transported to New York to stand a civilian trial.

There are some interesting implications of doing this:

Because Abu Ghayth was not detained at Gitmo, he was not subject to the statutory prohibition against using government funds to transfer enemy combatants into the U.S. So, while no one was paying attention, the administration whisked him into lower Manhattan, where his indictment in civilian court was promptly announced. He thus promptly received legal representation — so much for interrogation — and is enjoying all the protections of the Bill of Rights.

…Moreover, as Attorney General Holder must know, by proceeding with this civilian prosecution in New York at the very moment when  KSM and the other 9/11 defendants are facing a military commission at Gitmo, he has given KSM & Co. an exquisite legal argument that proceeding with their military commission would be arbitrary and unjust in light of the grade-A due process Abu Ghayth is getting. That is, the government is virtually inviting the federal courts to invalidate military commissions — which was a top goal of many Obama administration lawyers back when they were in private practice, volunteering their services to terrorist detainees.

Snookered again by the snookerer-in-chief. Unfortunately, this move prevents the officials at Guantanamo from collecting intelligence from this man, and it creates massive legal problems for those attempting to carry out the military tribunals. This move makes Americans less safe.