AS WE APPROACH THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11, it’s become clear that the President will not be at the ceremony in New York, on the site of the Twin Towers destruction and the loss there of nearly three thousand lives. He prefers to be at the other targeted building, the Pentagon in DC.

His liking for the trappings of a military setting are of course well known – but also well-known (made ever clearer by some reporting over the past two weeks) is his strong dislike for being barred from making a speech, which is the ground-rule at Ground Zero commemorations – no speeches – essentially a simple, somber reading of the names of those killed. He knew that perfectly well, by the way, ahead of time – having participated, silently, (and out of office incidentally) in both 2024 and further back in 2016.

The recent reporting I refer to, about Trump’s desire to speechify at this year’s solemn observance was led by the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, who you might remember me highlighting as a correspondent who’s able to achieve much up-close reporting and highly revealing coverage of the President, and yet still stay on sort-of cordial terms with him. Not any longer, it seems. Trump exploded in fury on his social media site, calling her among other things a “fake reporter,” because of her revelation that he wanted to make a speech at Ground Zero. He used some even-more-than-usually vituperative language, which I don’t need to quote verbatim. Neither did CNN’s Jake Tapper,who simply used the word “filth” to describe the President’s posting.

Haberman for her part has merely said that she and her Times employers stand by their reporting. They had offered the White House the chance to comment on the story before publication, and didn’t believe its answer addressed the substance of their report. I don’t think it did so, either – and I suspect you, too, might not.

What Trump’s Deputy Press Secretary Ann Kelly did say (stepping up for the very familiar but now-departed Karoline Leavitt) was that their boss is “a patriotic New Yorker.” Actual history, though, might somewhat question that proclaimed New Yorker identity, since (as President) Trump has attended 9/11 commemorations purely at the Pentagon, 3 times -- or twice at the Pennsylvania site where United Flight 93 was crashed. He made speeches at all those occasions.

Haberman has acknowledged, as we all can, that other considerations besides Manhattan’s prohibition against speech-making may well have played a part in Trump’s choice of venue this year. It could be true, as his people have been claiming, that his personal security will be better protected at the Pentagon. Sources in the Secret Service do say that concern is running high about assassination threats, not least from Iran.

A menacing video message, played on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service, and aimed specifically against his youngest son Barron have certainly served to heighten the bodyguards’ concern.

Just by the way, the latest pictures released of a now young-adult Barron have displayed an uncanny likeness to his older half-brothers, Eric and Donald Jr – for instance, the same slicked-back, glossy hairstyle - though without as yet the middle-aged guys’ full-beard, And in Barron’s photos there is, in a gesture evoking their father, a defiant upward thrust of the Trumpian fist … as demonstrated by the eldest Trump just after the assassination attempt of two years ago.

FOR MANY PEOPLE, AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OF US who were present on that cataclysmic day in 2001, it can seem amazing that a quarter-century has passed since then. Perhaps just as surprising – or more remarkable – is the recent announcement that we will still have to wait another two years for a trial to take place for the men accused of carrying out the attacks. It will now be on June 5th, 2028, to be precise, when a trial is set to begin for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed plus three other defendants. Mohammed (or I can use his customary initials, KSM) is the so-called "principal architect" of the entire assault, according to the Congressionally-mandated Commission of inquiry.

The case will be heard before a Military Tribunal – and it was in fact a US Air Force Judge, Lt Colonel Michael Schrama who finally scheduled it. The umbrella jurisdiction for all these proceedings being military and not civilian dates back to the original categorizing of Al-Qaeda members captured in the field (in this case captured in Pakistan) as being “unlawful enemy combatants.” The jury in the 2028 trial will be made up solely of serving members of the armed services.

There has been so much legal to-ing and fro-ing (and also, inevitably, lots of contrary political swings as well) over these many years. We end up now with the inescapable question – how can the proposed proceedings ever be considered a genuinely fair trial, in the vaunted American tradition of fair and impartial justice?

The multiple back-and forth developments — sometimes fully reported to the public, while some were not – have to be seen against the stark background of that inordinate length of time the accused will have spent incarcerated at the specially-created prison within the US Naval Base of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

The long imprisonment in itself flies in the face of our generally-cherished presumption of innocence for the accused in a trial; it has led, in fact, to the frequently complete abandonment of that basic principle. Newsweek magazine – which was once so fastidious in its legal reporting – has been foremost among the often sloppy journalistic approaches to the case. Its headline this week did include the token word “alleged,” but overall it simply presumed or even baldly declared guilt. “How Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Plotted the Attacks,” said the headline, and the following article similarly affirmed that KSM unquestionably carried out all the actions he’s accused of.

The other huge question hanging over the future trial concerns the admissibility of evidence. Most seriously, the prosecution is largely based on a “confession” or “confessions.” But we also know that the government used torture (including waterboarding) during interrogations conducted in secret C.I.A. prisons, those infamous, so-called “black sites” of the time. The same judge who scheduled the trial, Colonel Schrama, ruled that as well as the black sites interrogations, KSM’s subsequent questioning at Guantánamo could not be entered in evidence. He described that later evidence as being gained by “severe coercion,” and he concluded:

“The prosecution has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Mohammed’s statements … were voluntarily given”

WE SHOULDN’T FORGET that there have been efforts to shift the 9/11 prosecutions onto a more conventional legal footing (we might say a more reliable legal footing). President Barack Obama, early in his term of office, pushed for just that change, beginning in late 2009. His Administration argued that civilian, federal courts had for years proved perfectly capable of trying and convicting hundreds of international terrorists – and that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York could be a highly appropriate venue, instead of Gitmo, as it’s nicknamed in the military. Obama’s move failed, and it was abandoned a year and half later, not least because the US Congress, using its purse-string powers, blocked the transfer of any Guantánamo prisoners onto American soil.

Along the switchback course that the case has taken, there was even one point, in 2024, when a plea-deal was negotiated, under which KSM and two other defendants would plead guilty, and as part of that deal they’d be spared the threatened sentence of death.

But the Biden Administration’s Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin revoked that deal, asserting his authority over the military judicial officers involved. His decision also placed the prospect of the death penalty back on the table. There followed yet more legal to-ing and fro-ing, appealing and further appealing, but that remains the position as the case proceeds toward its 2028 trial date.

FAMILIES OF THE DEAD HAVE THEIR OWN individual and often differing reactions to all these developments, including the reinstatement of the death penalty as a possible outcome. They are understandably, though, united in the desire to have more information about just how and why their loved ones had to die.

Journalists have turned to leading spokespeople like Brett Eagleson of the group 9/11 Justice, who at age 15 lost his father, who worked as a property manager in the World Trade Center. Eagleson strongly opposed any plea-deal and he wants all the airing of detail that a trial could bring. “We need to avoid plea deals,” he has said, “because plea deals would avoid a trial, and a trial presents evidence.”

Others fear that the pathway to a trial is too beset with likely appeals and counter-appeals, which would even further extend the process in time - the infamous “law’s delay” to quote Shakespeare’s complaint in Hamlet. Elizabeth Miller of another group, called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, was six years old when her father, a New York firefighter, was killed. He was one of the many who rushed to the rescue, and the towers fell. "I've had enough waiting," Miller has pointed out. "I want the same information and evidence that Brett Eagleson does, but I'm very, very sick of waiting for it."

Jim Smith a retired policeman, whose wife was the only female New York police officer to die in attacks, has declared himself impatient, too, decidedly so - and very decided about wanting execution for the culprits if and when they’re found guilty. “They committed the worst crime in the history of our country,” he says. “They should receive the highest penalty.”

While names for all of those lost are being solemnly recited at Ground Zero next week – and no speeches made – there will inevitably be a silent subtext, reminding us, these 25 years on, just how compromised America’s attempts have been to bring justice fully to bear.

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