Issa: ‘Very Hard’ to Stop Obama From Closing Gitmo ‘If He Is Willing to Ignore the Law’ Susan Jones
The Obama administration is prohibited by law from moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States, but President Obama on Tuesday sent Congress his plan for doing just that.
Even before Obama spoke, members of Congress reacted negatively.
“The fact is, it is very hard to stop a president from doing something if he is willing to ignore the law and his oath,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told Fox News Tuesday morning.
Issa said Obama’s plan to close the military prison in Cuba is not a surprise — he talked about doing it even before he became president.
“But the fact that he’s willing to do it in violation of specific law…(shows that) he has very little to lose, in his opinion. He doesn’t believe that the American people will impeach him, and with the death of Justice Scalia, he probably views that the Supreme Court might back him with a 4-4 decision.”
Issa noted that Obama himself signed the bill that included the provision barring transfers of Gitmo detainees to the United States. “But this is a president that doesn’t respect the law and the Constitution.”
Issa said there isn’t much Congress can do “in a timely fashion” if Obama ignores the law and orders the military prison closed. Congress’s recourse would be to go to court, and the courts are not likely to rule quickly.
Issa said that voiding the Guantanamo lease, which the United States holds in perpetuity, would be more complicated for the president to do. He could order the military to leave Guantanamo, but that places the burden on military leaders.
“I have to be quite candid,” Issa said. “It is the decision that U.S. military leaders have to make. Are they going to obey an unlawful order…to move people from Guantanamo? An unlawful order to close the base?”
Issa said he believes the military may push back on the president. “I can see flag officers resigning rather than obeying unlawful orders.”
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of House Armed Services Committee, has said his panel will hold a hearing on Obama’s closure plan.
There are currently 91 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Of those, 35 are expected to be transferred out by this summer.
‘No room for confusion’
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said President Obama has had seven years to convince the American people that moving Guantanamo terrorists to the homeland is smart and safe, but he has failed to do so.
“Congress has left no room for confusion. It is against the law — and it will stay against the law — to transfer terrorist detainees to American soil. We will not jeopardize our national security over a campaign promise,” Ryan said in a statement.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary and Finance Committees, called Obama’s plan to bring “hardened terrorists” to U.S. soil “ill-conceived, reckless, naive, and bewildering.
“Bringing these detainees to the U.S. would not only violate current law, it would defy the will of Congress and the American people who do not want dangerous, radical terrorists in their backyards,” Cornyn said in a statement.
“Between negotiating a bad deal with Iran and the ongoing threat of a terrorist attack here in the U.S., it’s disappointing to see the President continue to prioritize his political agenda at the expense of the American people.”
The 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Obama, includes a provision barring the transfer of detainees to American soil.
Speaking at the White House on Monday, spokesman Josh Earnest said he’s not confident that Congress will find the closure plan palatable.
“That political opposition stands in stark contrast to the best advice that the commander in chief receives from our military. It stands in stark contrast to the view of both Democratic and Republican national security experts, including officials who…served in senior positions in the Bush administration,” Earnest said.
Obama argues that it’s too expensive to keep the prison open, and he says closing it is in our national security interests because terrorists will no longer be able to use it as a recruiting tool.
Earnest noted that no individuals have been transferred to Guantanamo during Obama’s two terms: “In fact, we have found more effective ways to bring a significant number of terrorists to justice, and in many cases, we have actually used Article III courts in the United States to bring individuals to justice, and there are convicted terrorists sitting in U.S. prisons right now, even as we speak.”
(Obama also has approved drone strikes to kill some terrorists.)
Putting terrorists in U.S. prisons “enhances our security,” Earnest argued, “because it demonstrates that the United States of America is serious about abiding by our values, but also taking the necessary steps to bring people to justice.”
Courtesy of CNSNews.com
Susan brings to CNSNews.com a strong background in broadcast writing and editing. She joined CNSNews.com in April 1999, after working for 18 years as a television producer and news-writer in the Washington, D.C., Denver, and Greensboro, N.C., television markets. Susan holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
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