Obama Rejects Plea From Sister of 9/11 Victim to End to CIA Probe
Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and forced into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, told Fox News on Thursday that she made the request during Obama's meeting with families of victims of the Al Qaeda attack.
When the president approached her table, Burlingame said she told him that as a former attorney she knows he can't tell the attorney general what to do – an assessment the president agreed with, she said.
"And I said, but that shouldn't stop you from offering your opinion. After all, we wouldn't be here celebrating today if they hadn't done their job," she said. "And they have the hammer of a possible indictment over their heads. Can't you at least give him your opinion?"
The president replied that he wouldn't, she said. She added, "And he turned around and walked away."
Holder launched the investigation in late 2009, appointing a special prosecutor to review cases of possible detainee abuse at the hands of CIA agents. Around the same time, the administration shifted responsibility for interrogations of top terror suspects away from the CIA. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama had ordered that interrogations stick to the guidelines in the Army Field Manual.
