Sen. John Cornyn: 9/11 Trials Will Be 'Show Trials'

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said on MSNBC today that, like other Republicans and conservatives, he thinks the decision to hold civilian trials for suspected 9/11 conspirators in New York City is a poor one.

Cornyn told David Shuster that the trial of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad would be a "show trial" that would "attract the attention of like-minded individuals" once Mohammad was given a "platform to spew his hate-filled ideology."

Furthermore, Cornyn said, the trials carry the risk of increasing America's exposure to terrorism, and might very well burn intelligence sources.

Cornyn claimed that the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was an "embarassment" that had exposed critical intelligence sources. When pressed on the matter by Shuster, Cornyn claimed he couldn't give "chapter and verse" on the exact burned sources and intelligence methods, but did claim that the trial of the "blind sheik", Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of trying to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, had caused the names of "nearly 200 unindicted co-conspirators" to "show up in Osama bin Laden's hands."

Cornyn's proposed alternative? Military commissions and Guantanamo Bay, which he claimed could "protect[] the rights of terrorists."