Consider This from NPR - The 9/11 terrorism case is in limbo. So are the victim families.

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

The 9/11 terrorism case has been in legal limbo for more than a decade and many doubt the case will ever make it to take to trial. That’s partly because the defendants were tortured in secret CIA prisons, so there are ongoing legal fights over what evidence is admissible. Meanwhile, the accused men are at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and thousands of 9/11 family members wait for a resolution.NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with two young people whose fathers died in the World Trade Center attacks, as they debate whether the 9/11 defendants should get plea deals.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Monika Evstatieva and Michael Levitt, with audio engineering by Becky Brown. It was edited by Barrie Hardymon and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Twenty-four years ago this month, terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the Twin Towers in New York City. Elizabeth Miller's father rushed in to help. He was part of an elite firefighting company, from Staten Island called Rescue 5. He'd previously been an electrician and had joined Rescue 5 just a few years before.

To have reached that, like, prestige, in a sense, only six years on the job, I think just speaks to his dedication and how much he really loved it. Doug Miller died when the towers collapsed that day. He was 34 years old. His daughter Liz was six, and she can still picture him. Sometimes I can't tell what's my own

memory and what's relived through other people or through home videos because my mom used to like follow us around with a camera when we were kids. So there's actually a lot of footage of my dad, which is really great. Miller clearly remembers one funny thing her firefighter dad used to do with her and her two siblings. Him tying this like white, like thick rope around me and my sisters' waists separately and hanging us over the banister and out the bedroom window of my parents' bedroom out of the house. And it was like these practice fire drills. And the neighbors would be like, Doug, what are you doing? He's like, oh, we're just practicing, having fun. So he made everything fun, even if it was something as serious as like practicing for a fire drill.

Us girls had no idea what it was. We were just having a good time. Brett Eagleson's father also lost his life in the Twin Towers attacks. Bruce Eagelson was a vice president at a company that owned hundreds of malls worldwide, and on 9-11, he was working temporarily out of the World Trade Center. Bruce Eglson was 53 years old when he died. Brett was 15 and still recalls his dad's quirky sense of humor. I remember oftentimes when my mom and dad would get into altercations, right, about rolls in the house and workloads and things like that. my dad would go to extremes to make a point. When Brett's mom said she wished someone else would help her cook,

his dad took it to the next level. I remember one specific argument where my dad actually made menus. It's so around three in the afternoon, we all had menus, and we got to pick from the menu, and it was this elaborate menu and this attention to detail. It was sort of a funny way to just sort of deal with it. Be like, yeah, I'll make dinner, and I'm going to make dinner in, like, a gourmet,

style, and he created an experience out of everything that he did. Since losing their fathers, Miller and Eagelson have become advocates for other 9-11 family members. They're trying to hold the government accountable for the September 11th terrorism case against five men who allegedly helped plan the attacks, because after all this time, that case has still not gone to trial. Consider this, almost a quarter century later, what would justice look like? for the family members of 9-11 victims. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

Maybe you're wondering, how do I escape quicksand, or how do I break up with my dentist? Well, season two of NPR's How to Do Everything podcast is launching this fall, and we will attempt to answer your questions. Sometimes we'll actually succeed. Send us your questions at how-to at npr.org. That's how-to at npr.org.

It's Consider this from NPR. The 9-11 terrorism case has been in legal limbo for more than a decade, and even government prosecutors have said it will be difficult to take to trial. That's partly because the defendants, including the alleged ringleader of the attacks called Sheikh Mohammed, were tortured in secret CIA prisons. So there are ongoing legal fights over what evidence is admissible. Meanwhile, the accused men are at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And thousands of 9-11 family members wait for a resolution.

NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer takes it from here. Elizabeth Miller and Brett Eagelson have known each other for a long time. But they hadn't had an in-depth one-on-one conversation until we asked them to come on NPR's air. I think the two of you have had some communication before, Maybe text, maybe email. Have you ever actually met on a Zoom call before? No, I think this is the first time that we're meeting on a Zoom, but I've had plenty of emails with Liz, and it's always been wonderful to connect with her and hear her opinions and her side of the story. And I feel the same. I think, you know, it's great to be able to tap into one another for more knowledge. But they differ on how to resolve the case. Last summer, plea agreements were reached with the defendants that would have let them plead guilty and spend life in

prison rather than continue toward a death penalty trial. Miller supported that. Eagelson opposed it. But those deals have been canceled. I asked Miller and Eagelson for their reactions. Yeah, I'll start. My first reaction was excitement that there was finally going to be this potential end in sight. Like, wow, this could finally be over. We could finally have some information. So I was really excited. How did you feel when you heard they were canceled? Of course, disappointed. You know, I have been to Guantanamo four times, which amounts basically to about a month of my life because you go down there for a week to 10 days. And I was just frustrated that a decision wasn't made. I wish that those in power could make a decision in this case

and stick to it because this wound is still open. So I think that word like whiplash is very common, but it's what I felt. And Brett, can you talk about how you felt when you heard plea deals were inked and then canceled? Not a single person I've talked to was involved in any way with these plea deal agreements. So when folks ask me, how do you feel about plea agreements? Well, I can't give you an honest answer because nobody in our government is willing to share what the details of them are.

And it's just another example of how our government has treated us year after year. the reason these plea deals exist is because Liz's father and my father were brutally murdered on live TV. You would think that we would be involved in the process. We should have answers to our questions and no one's been able to provide those answers. So we were incredibly disheartened to hear that these plea deals were back on the table. And Brett, when you heard they were canceled, your thoughts? A sense of relief. I think it's temporary relief. I understand that there is going to be appeals involved and there is a chance that the plea deals could, can be reinstated. But my position sort of remains is that we need to avoid plea deals because

plea deals avoid a trial and a trial avoids evidence. So I think that temporarily there is this sense of relief that at least the worst case scenario cannot pan out, which is these terrorists except the plea deal. 9-11 gets wrapped up in a cute box with a bow on it and gets put on a shelf and sort of forgotten about without having discovery, without having interviews, without full getting our teeth into what these individuals know. And Brett, and I'll come to you, Liz, next. Can you lay out, Brett, why you think plea deals are not the way this should end? Well, I'll point to the success that we've had in our lawsuit and our civil litigation in the

Southern District in Manhattan. This is the federal lawsuit filed by September 11th families, alleging that Saudi Arabia was more involved in the attacks than is currently known. Right. And were it not for discovery, we're it not for our ability for our lawyers to get in, have depositions, subpoena information from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, subpoena information from our own FBI, we wouldn't have known what we now know about who supported these hijackers, about the Saudi government's role. There are troves of documents which our government still continues to hide under the guise of state secrets, under the guise of ongoing investigations,

and we were able to wrestle a lot of that free, at least in our civil litigation. My point is the justice system works. It may be slow. It may be slow. It may be. feel painful, but at the end of the day, the justice system, I believe, truly does what it's intended to do. Liz, would you make your case for why you think plea deals are a good way to resolve the 9-11 case? So I think Brett made a lot of good points, but I think the information with Saudi, that happened in a federal court in New York. And so we're using almost this different legal judicial system by means of a military commission. And the rules it's different than federal court.

And so with a pretrial agreement, what I think would be beneficial is that it eliminates the option to appeal because I've had enough waiting. I want the same information and evidence that Brett does and I'm very, very sick of waiting for it. And if the pretrial agreements actually moved forward, they had to sign this stipulation of fact,

which details every little information of how, how they got involved in the 9-11 attacks, what they did to support the attacks, and what they did after. And so we would know, again, they're who, what, when, where, and why. And I'll just jump in and say that I'll be the first to agree with Liz that we both want closure.

But it doesn't seem sincere when you're being told, don't worry, they're going to sign a statement that says everything that they did. Well, who's going to write the statement? And how are we going to vet that? And how can we count? This is so important because, this is the history. This is the historical context. I believe that a trial is going to give us a

more accurate sense of what really happened versus what a pre-written statement is going to say. So I'm willing to take that risk. I definitely understand the desire for that information, but I don't know if we're going to get that whether we have a pretrial agreement or whether we even have a trial at Guantanamo. I don't think we're going to get that information either path with the current military commission system as is. We've been in this same situation with these pre-trial hearings that have gone on for 13 years, and we are no closer to a trial date. And that isn't fair to anyone. It's not fair to family members. It's not fair to the American people, the people around the world who want to see this case resolved. I just wish that from the start, they brought

these men to U.S. soil and dealt with it. And I think at this point, it would have been over. If they were brought to U.S. soil, they either would have been dead or in prison for life, and this would have been ended. Agreed. Agreed with that. And at least we wouldn't have to sit here and stress out about it or talk about what's next, because I think both Brett and I dedicate so much of our time to all of this. And, you know, I'm grateful for him for doing that, and I'm sure he's grateful for me. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's mentally taxing. It keeps us away from our families, from our daily lives. It keeps revisiting. old wounds, and it makes it impossible to heal when here we are 24 years later, and we're still

fighting for truth. We're still fighting for justice. Thanks to both of you for doing this, and I want to remind people listening to this, that both of you lost your father on 9-11. You both no longer have a dad because of this, and in some ways, I think that ends up, that's not at the forefront of this 9-11 case conversation as much as it could be, that families were dearly, dearly harmed on that day, and both of you share that experience. Thank you, Sasha. Thanks, Sasha. Elizabeth Miller and Brett Eagleson talking with NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer.

This episode was produced by Monica Astateva and Michael Levitt with audio engineering by Becky Brown. It was edited by Barry Hardiman and Courtney Dorney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.