Disapproval of the Administration's Failure to Notify Congress Before Releasing Individuals from Guantanamo Bay
Floor Speech
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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 644, a resolution offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell), condemning the Obama administration's failure to comply with the requirement to notify Congress before transferring individual detainees from Guantanamo Bay.
I would like to thank Mr. Rigell for his leadership on this deeply troubling issue. He worked across the aisle to author a bipartisan resolution, sponsored by 94 Members of the House, including myself, focused on the Obama administration's clear violation of statute passed by the legislative branch and enacted into law by the President.
I would also like to thank Ranking Member Smith. Though he did not support this resolution in its entirety, I appreciate his candor and his commitment to fostering a thoughtful debate within our committee.
The administration violated the law, and House Resolution 644 articulates this simple message. It passed out of the Armed Services Committee with a bipartisan vote.
Section 1035 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 requires the Secretary of Defense to notify the appropriate committees of Congress at least 30 days before the transfer or release of any individual detained at GTMO. There are no waivers to this clause--no exceptions, period; yet, on May 31, at the request of the Taliban and in exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl, who was held by the Haqqani Network, the administration sent five senior Taliban leaders from GTMO to Qatar.
The administration took this action without notifying Congress. This is an obvious violation of the law. There can be no confusion on this point. In fact, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office recently determined that the administration violated the law by failing to notify Congress, but also by expending funds to carry out the transfers without an appropriation for that purpose.
The statutory provision of the NDAA was written and approved by a bipartisan majority in Congress because of genuine concerns that dangerous terrorists were leaving GTMO and returning to fight against the U.S. or its allies.
By requiring the Secretary of Defense to convey detailed information to Congress, the provision is intended to allow Members to have a complete understanding of the risks of sending GTMO detainees elsewhere and how those risks might be mitigated.
In transferring the Taliban Five without lawfully notifying Congress, the administration deprived Congress of the opportunity to consider the national security risks that such a transfer could pose or the repercussions of negotiating with terrorists.
If Congress does not speak strongly now to condemn such blatant disregard for the law, any future administration may come to believe that obedience to statute is not a requirement for the executive branch. This is intolerable, and for this reason, I support this resolution and will ask my colleagues in the House to adopt it.
Again, I thank Mr. Rigell, Mr. Barrow, Mr. Rahall, and Mr. Ribble for introducing this important bipartisan resolution, and I urge my colleagues to adopt it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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I must respond to just a couple of points made by my good friend from Washington.
We agree on more than we disagree on. This item we disagree on, but it seems to me that his main argument is that because other Presidents have done it, it is okay for this President to do it. In other words, two wrongs make a right. I don't think that is the point. I think at some point, you have to draw the line, and that is what we are doing right now.
Secondly, he said that the President said that he really believed he wasn't breaking the law. You know, prisons are full of people that say they don't think they broke the law, but some judge thinks they did, and in this instance, until you take the matter to the court, it is the law. Even though he is the President of the United States, he did break the law.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell), my friend and colleague who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, is the lead cosponsor, and is the one who has from day one provided the leadership on this issue.
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Mr. Speaker, just a little reality check here. I offered the points that went into the National Defense Authorization Act. One of the reasons I did it was because we specifically did not want any detainees to be taken from Guantanamo without alerting the Congress, because they had tried it before and it had pushback from the Congress and we felt like we should have a part in that protection of our people.
There are 80 people, detainees, in Guantanamo that have been vetted and that are approved for possible transfer to a suitable location. None of these five were on that list. All were considered too dangerous to be on that list. There were several months of negotiations. There was plenty of time to give us the 30 days' notice. They talked to 80 to 90 people in four different executive branches: the State Department, the Defense Department, the White House, and Homeland Security, but not one Member of Congress, in compliance with the law. They didn't talk to Senator Reid, they didn't talk to Senator Feinstein, and they didn't talk to the Speaker. Nobody. And that was not accidental. That was a firm decision to avoid the law and to avoid going to the Congress, which was required.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble), my friend and colleague, a member of the Budget Committee, and cosponsor of the resolution.
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Mr. Speaker, I respect my friend. We came to Congress together, and I appreciate his remarks on a lot of things. But we should get back to the subject at hand. This has nothing to do with Sergeant Bergdahl. This has to do with the action that the President took. We are all happy that Sergeant Bergdahl is home, and we are glad that he is here, and his case will be taken care of separately.
Mr. Speaker, there is a call to do something for the President. The President hasn't asked us to do anything yet. He is not even speaking until tomorrow. Then we will see what he has to say, and then we will see how we move forward.
I am not an attorney. My good friend from Washington is a great attorney. And I recall when we had Secretary Hagel, and Secretary Hagel made the comment that he thought what they did was within the law. And my good friend responded that here is the way it works: The President signed the bill and said that he disagreed with it, but that does not change it. It is still the law until it is challenged in the courts. That is our system.
Anyway, Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barrow), my good friend from the other side of the aisle.
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We have just one more speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the inference has been that this happened on the spur of the moment and they didn't have time to tell Congress. These negotiations on this transfer went on for months. They have admitted they told 80 to 90 people in four of the departments of the executive branch but not one Member of Congress, in compliance with the law.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am leaving Congress at the end of this year, but I am sure at home I will still be able to hear blame on President Bush for at least the next 2 years.
One thing we can't escape is the fact that this went on for months. Even though they had to make a critical last-minute decision, they still had time to notify 80 to 90 people in the executive branch and not one Member of the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, in accordance with the law.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) to give the concluding remarks on this debate. He is the vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.
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