Dem upset 9/11 families excluded from trial, only Bush loyalist was invited

by Nick Juliano

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy is calling on the country's top law enforcement official to ensure access for 9/11 victims' family members to the military tribunal prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others charged as masterminds of those attacks.

For Mohammed's arraignment Thursday before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon secretly invited only one woman whose brother was a pilot killed in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks. The woman, Debra Burlingame, was un-invited after the New York Daily News revealed she was a "GOP loyalist," who praised President Bush during the 2004 Republican convention and has savaged the 9/11 widows who have questioned the administration's actions.

"I had hoped we had achieved a level of respect for victims' rights that would respect their dignity and interests," Leahy wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday. "I am writing to you to urge you to help remedy these matters without delay."

A Leahy press release distributing the letter noted reports that an "outspoken supporter of the Bush administration" was the only invitee to Mohammed's arraignment.

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