Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, soon went to war with Eric Holder over his plans to prosecute CIA officers and to hold civilian trials for detainees, like KSM, in New York. Holder still wanted to prosecute CIA officials who had interrogated Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high- value detainees, while Emanuel feared the political ramifications of antagonizing the CIA. “Didn’t he get the memo that we are not re litigating the past?” While playing hardball with the CIA interrogators, whose work had saved hundreds of lives, Holder sought to extend every legal courtesy to KSM and other high-value detainees, who had repeatedly confessed to joyfully mass-murdering thousands of civilians. Holder was still pushing ahead on civilian trials for Guantánamo detainees, the foremost of which was KSM.