President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is deep in negotiations with Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham over where and how to try confessed 9/11 ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. At stake are not just civilian court trials for the man known as KSM and his co-conspirators, but also the legal fate of all terrorism suspects, the future of the GuantÁnamo Bay detention facility and the credibility of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. But as talks continue, Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the Administration are wondering just what Graham can deliver.

Last November, Holder announced that KSM would be tried in a lower Manhattan federal court. Obama publicly endorsed the plan, but after the failed Christmas bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner, Republicans on Capitol Hill launched a punishing attack against it. At the White House, Emanuel came to believe that congressional Democrats might rebel and block a civilian trial for KSM. Worse, he feared that Democrats might go even further and turn on the President's goal of closing the GuantÁnamo facility.

The outreach to Graham in search of a compromise gained steam on the eve of the blizzard that gripped Washington in early February. Obama convened a meeting on the KSM trial with his small group of advisers on national security, including Emanuel, top political advisers David Axelrod and Pete Rouse, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Vice President Joe Biden. Also present was Holder.

At the meeting, Obama approved Emanuel's negotiations with Graham but stopped short of signing off on an actual deal that would change the trial plans. The President also expressed continued support for the principle of civilian trials for terrorism suspects, sources familiar with the meeting tell TIME.