How the Obama Justice Department is blowing it in the prosecution of the one terrorist who is being tried for the Benghazi massacre

Andrew McCarthy explains how to prosecute terrorists, and concludes that the Obama Justice Department is blowing it in its attempt to present a case against the Benghazi terrorists:

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, of course, is the only suspect apprehended in connection with the Benghazi massacre, a terrorist attack on a still-mysterious U.S. diplomatic installation. J. Christopher Stevens, the United States ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans — State Department official Sean Smith and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty — were killed. Until recently, such attacks have been known as acts of war carried out by the enemy. In the age of Obama, they are now known as “crimes” for which “defendants” like Khatallah are “brought to justice” — rather than brought to Gitmo. Meaning: They are whisked into our country when no one’s paying much attention. The red carpet is rolled out at a federal courthouse, where the “defendant” is given Miranda warnings, taxpayer-funded counsel, and all the rights of the American citizens they plot to kill, including lavish discovery-of-intelligence files relevant to their civilian trial.

Gold-plated due process for our enemies begins with the constitutional right to an indictment returned by a grand jury, providing the “defendant” with notice of the charges against him. In Khatallah’s case, the first thing you’ll notice is that the indictment is tiny: less than two pages long — 15 measly lines of text once you discount the caption, citations, and signature lines. This is a startling departure from Justice Department indictments in jihadist terror cases, a turn to brevity that cannot be explained solely by Obama’s banning of words like “jihadist” from the government lexicon.

Khatallah has been identified by the State Department as a “senior leader” of Ansar al-Sharia, one of the al-Qaeda-tied franchises in Libya. Yet there is no mention of Ansar al-Sharia in the indictment, much less of al-Qaeda or the Islamic-supremacist ideology that ties jihadist affiliates together. In fact, the indictment does not even accuse Khatallah of being a terrorist.

Radical Islam’s war against the United States has been underway for over 20 years. Eastern Libya has been an al-Qaeda hotbed for much of that time. That is why our government financially supported Muammar Qaddafi: His regime was providing intelligence on terror hubs like Benghazi and Derna, from which jihadists launched to fight American troops in Iraq. When President Obama turned on Qaddafi, terrorist organizations like Ansar al-Sharia were the beneficiaries. In the months before September 11, 2012, they repeatedly attacked Western targets in Eastern Libya — including one bombing attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation itself. Although this jihadist campaign induced other countries to pull their personnel out of the region, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only left ours in, they reduced security.

Nothing about a long-running, ongoing jihadist war against the United States.

Instead, the indictment is written to portray a sudden, spontaneous eruption of violence, without much planning or warning, in which Khatallah — who knows . . . perhaps inspired by a video — abruptly joined a disgruntled group of protesters that turned out to include some shady terrorists motivated by . . . well, who can really say? All we know is the violence started without warning and, before you could scramble a fighter-jet or fuel up Air Force One for a Vegas campaign junket, it was all over.

There are a lot of downsides to giving enemy-combatant terrorists all the majesty of American due process. But at least it used to mean that, by the end, you’d have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, it’s starting to look like what you get on the Sunday shows.

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