A Democratic lawmaker urged the Obama administration to end "the kabuki dance" over where it plans to locate criminal trials for terror suspects.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) sharply criticized Attorney General Eric Holder and the administration for not having decided either for or against trying high-profile terror suspects in New York City, as they had originally planned.
"I, frankly, think that sooner or later you should stop the kabuki dance and tell us where that trial is going to be held," Weiner told Holder during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.
Weiner supports trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al Qaeda leader, and other terror suspects in Manhattan.
Holder had announced southern Manhattan as his choice for the trial location, a decision President Barack Obama said he supported.
But both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, as well as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), have questioned whether adequate security and funding could be guaranteed for the trial, leading to a sense that the administration will decide to locate the trials elsewhere.
Weiner advised Holder, though, that if he can "make a good case and if you sell it and you get the facts out there, it'll be supported."
The New York Democrat, who flirted with a mayoral bid last year, had other complaints for the administration, though, in the wake of the attempted attack on Times Square earlier this month.
Weiner criticized cuts to security funding for New York, a drum on which lawmakers in both parties have banged loudly this week. The White House on Thursday pushed back against such criticism.
