Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has assigned the deputy defense secretary, Steve Feinberg, to oversee the U.S.S. Cole bombing case, giving him the authority to decide whether to negotiate a plea deal that would avert a death-penalty trial.
Mr. Hegseth’s decision to appoint Mr. Feinberg in Guantánamo Bay’s longest-running war crimes case was contained in a memo dated Nov. 10. The memo, which has been seen by The New York Times, has not been made public.
The appointment stripped all oversight responsibilities for the case from Susan Escallier, a lawyer and retired Army general who exasperated Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, Mr. Hegseth’s predecessor, by approving a plea agreement that prosecutors had reached with three of the defendants in the Sept. 11 case.
Mr. Austin rejected that settlement in August 2024. The defendants in that capital case are appealing to reinstate it, creating more uncertainty in the dysfunctional military commissions system that the Bush administration set up after the Sept. 11 attacks.
A Saudi man, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, is accused of orchestrating the suicide bombing of the Cole off Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000, that killed 17 American sailors. He has been in U.S. custody since 2002. The judge has scheduled the trial to start on June 1.
In December, Mr. Nashiri’s lawyer presented the chief prosecutor with an offer for the defendant to plead guilty to avoid a death-penalty trial.
But the prosecutor, Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, declined to present the offer to Mr. Austin, who first had the authority to decide the matter, nor has he presented it to Mr. Hegseth.
Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers have a pleading pending before the military judge that accuses the prosecutor of failing to fulfill his duties to forward the offer and asks him to dismiss case.
It will now be Mr. Feinberg’s decision whether to accept the proposed settlement, reject it or conduct negotiations.
The case has been in pretrial hearings since 2011. Earlier judges have set a half-dozen start dates, then abandoned them, including to hold hearings on Mr. Nashiri’s torture by the C.I.A., which led to the suppression of his disputed confession.
Family members and survivors of the bombing have been divided over the idea of resolving the case with a plea deal that could prevent years of appeal that could overturn a jury conviction. At least two victims of the bombing have supported the idea of a settlement, including a senior Navy chief who survived the bombing and the father of a young sailor who was killed that day.
Mr. Hegseth’s memo authorized two other Trump appointees to handle lesser oversight duties in the case, at Mr. Feinberg’s discretion, such as whether to fund Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers’ travel, investigations and overtime.
They are the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy, a job currently held by Elbridge A. Colby, and the assistant secretary for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, Mark Roosevelt Ditlevson. He is a Naval Academy graduate and was an explosives disposal officer from 2012 to 2018.
Carol Rosenberg reports on the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. She has been covering the topic since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. base in 2002.
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