The White House clashed with Republicans on Friday over the decision to prosecute Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in a civil court in New York rather than holding him at Guantánamo.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, accused Barack Obama of putting his desire to close Guantánamo ahead of the country's security needs. The decision denied the intelligence community the opportunity to interrogate Suleiman Abu Ghaith to obtain information about possible harm to the US, McConnell claimed.
But the White House spokesman Josh Earnest brushed aside McConnell's claim. "With all due respect, that's not the assessment of the intelligence community," Earnest said.
The row came as Abu Ghaith appeared in a US federal court on Friday to plead not guilty to a charge of conspiring to kill Americans. During a 15-minute arraignment hearing at the southern district court in lower Manhattan, close to where the September 11 attacks took place in 2001, Abu Ghaith spoke only to confirm that he understood his rights.
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