Senate Republicans tie Hillary Clinton to Gitmo fight
Senate Republicans on Monday linked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a looming fight on Guantanamo Bay amid increased speculation that President Obama could use executive action to try to close the detention facility.
“It’s clear that President Obama will continue to place political promises ahead of national security with the approval of Secretary Clinton,” Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) told reporters, during a conference call with Republican Sens. Tim Scott (S.C.) and Pat Roberts (Kansas).
{mosads}Gardner added that the president is “ignoring the plain letter of the law” on the push to close the controversial facility and that Clinton is “complicit.”
The comments come as the president is expected to hand over a long-anticipated plan to lawmakers as soon as this week on how to close the facility. That is expected to include moving dozens of the 112 detainees that are considered “too dangerous to release” into facilities in the United States.
Any proposal from the Obama administration would likely face an uphill, if not impossible, battle in Congress. Republicans, including leadership in both chambers, are opposed to any plan that involves moving detainees into the United States.
Roberts is already blocking Obama’s Army secretary nominee, Eric Fanning, over Guantanamo. Scott added Monday that lawmakers need to use “every weapon in our arsenal” to keep Guantanamo open and that he has put together a “pretty good list” of additional steps that Republicans could take.
“I have gone through the process of identifying areas where we can place additional holds as well, including promotions,” he told reporters.
The comments come after the Republican National Committee (RNC) rolled out digital ads late last week linking Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, to the fight over the prison.
The ads are expected to initially go up in Colorado, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri and Georgia.
Clinton has long supported closing Guantanamo. She co-sponsored legislation as a senator that required the facility to be closed and would have allowed for detainees to be brought into the United States.
Questioned about why they believe Clinton would support using executive action to close the facility, Michael Short, a spokesman for the RNC, pointed to a 2013 Newsweek story in which Clinton reportedly “urged the president to shut down the prison unilaterally using ‘national security waivers.’ “
According to the article, Clinton sent Obama a memo with suggestions on how to close Guantanamo Bay, including noting that he could use the waivers to “circumvent” a congressional requirement that the Defense Department secretary certify that “detainees sent to other countries would not engage in acts of terrorism.”
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