The NY Daily News reports: Vice President Biden stunned New York officials on Sunday by accusing Mayor Bloomberg of inflating the cost of 9/11 terror trials in Manhattan.

“The mayor came along and said the cost for providing security to hold this trial is X hundreds of millions of dollars, which I think is much more than would be needed,” Biden told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Bloomberg angered the White House last month by reversing his earlier stance and opposing the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York.

He declined to respond to Biden’s rebuke Sunday, as did Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, but a city official said the Obama administration had never questioned the city’s security estimate of more than $200 million per year. President Obama even asked Congress for $200 million to secure the trial – but that was before objections from officials in New York and elsewhere grew to a roar.

Now Congress seems reluctant to approve those funds – or any to pay for civilian trials. “The elected officials, Democrat and Republican, said, ‘We don’t want this tried here in New York,'” Biden said. “That creates a political dimension to this.”

Some in Congress have signaled that they’ll only release funds if trials are held before military tribunals – an idea that Biden said was becoming a real possibility.

Although Biden said Attorney General Eric Holder initially made “the right decision” to try Mohammed in Manhattan Federal Court, he went further than any other Obama administration official in saying military trials are more likely.

Just last week, the President said trying Mohammed in New York is still possible.

“We have improved military commissions considerably,” the veep told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“A military tribunal is available. It is the less preferable way to go,” he said.

The fallout from the Justice Department’s attempts to hold the trial in lower Manhattan “is definitely having an impact on the White House,” said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.). “There’s virtually no city, county or state in the country that wants the trial. Their only escape is a military trial.”

City officials have bristled at suggestions that their cost estimates are too high.

“You don’t skimp on security in New York City, and we’re not going to,” Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler told a Citizens Budget Commission forum this month.

City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) said Biden’s out of his league when it comes to security. “Our police commissioner is perhaps one of the world’s foremost experts on public safety, and Joe Biden treads on dangerous waters when he believes he knows more about the safety of New York City,” Vallone said.

(Source:  http://www.nydailynews.com/)