Attorney General Eric Holder on Sunday accused Democrats and Republicans in Congress of politicizing the trial of the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, saying it “disturbs me a great deal” that their bickering has disrupted the administration’s timetable for dealing with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators.

In unusually blunt language, the attorney general expressed deep frustration with the way Congress has kicked around his trial plans. Holder announced last year that he wanted to try Mohammed and four other defendants in civilian courts in New York City, but the idea generated so much bipartisan controversy that it’s all but been abandoned.