“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used to transfer any individual detained at United States Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the custody or control of the individual’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity except in accordance with section 1035 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.” – Rule of law broken by the Obama Administration
Just as we all knew…the Obama White House did indeed violate federal law when they traded…’transferred’ they called it…five terrorist leaders for one American traitor without going through Congress first.
And NO matter National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s bloviations that, “This was an urgent and acute situation,” her claiming that Bowe Bergdahl’s health and possibly life was in jeopardy if this transfer was NOT immediately done (photos taken at the time of transfer proved this NOT true) was reason enough for this administration to ignore all the mandated legal requirements…basically admitting for all to hear that this administration knowingly, willingly, and deliberately chose to side-stepped the law.
But of course, as expected, Defense Department officials and specifically Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel himself…good little muslim supporter that he is…defended the transfer claiming it was done to reduce the risk to national security, and that the Justice Department…Eric ‘Fast and Furious’ Holder’s Justice Department… determined before the transfer was done that the move was legal…as if anything else was expected. And Defense Department officials also told the GAO that since they did NOT believe the failure to give 30-days notice would make it unlawful to approve the prisoner transfer, that this in effect would make the payment itself for the transfer legal.
Saying also that Hagel authorized the transfer based upon a section of the law that allows transfers of GITMO prisoners if said actions are being taken to reduce the risk that they…the five prisoners in question…will re-engage in hostile activity… please pray tell what the risk would there have been to anyone if these five stayed put where they were…as in the high security prison known as GITMO. And other Obama officials chimed in claiming that the law was NOT violated because U.S. diplomats went through a third party…as in Qatar…to arrange and finalize this prisoner exchange.
Semantics…NOTHING but semantics as Obama’s minions tried to play a game based upon their own interpretation of the words of law instead of basing their actions upon the law as written. But we all know that America’s rule of law means NOTHING to Obama and his ilk NO matter how the laws are written or what said laws legal interpretation might be.
And of course the GAO disagreed…and rightfully so…with the Obama administration’s and the Defense Department’s interpretation that the law did NOT apply to prisoner exchanges…for this is what the so-called ‘transfer’ really was. “The 30-day notice would interfere with the Executive’s performance of two related functions that the Constitution assigns to the President ,” the administration’s lawyers wrote in a statement outlining its legal opinion to the GAO’s findings. “[So] we believe it is fair to conclude that Congress did not intend that the Administration would be barred from taking the action it did in these circumstances.”
Claiming this comes down to a separation of powers issue as laid out in Article II of the US Constitution, which defines the president as “commander in chief” of the armed forces…thus giving Obama the right to direct the US military during wartime…the Defense Department tried to claim that the five-for-one prisoner exchange was a military operation done during wartime, and as such if Obama had to notify Congress about it then that action would have infringed upon his constitutional rights and authority.
But seriously, one cannot pick and chose to accept one part of the Constitution as law while at the same time ignoring other parts of the Constitution that pertain to the actions in question…that is unless one is Barack HUSSEIN Obama who has NO respect for the Constitution at all.
So while the GAO findings do NOT address the actual prisoner exchange itself or whether said exchange in any way affected national security as it only dealt with the use of Defense Department funds to execute the deal without the required 30-day notice…dangerous ramifications for America have now been put in place, and as we all know ramifications can and do have unintended consequences.
Ramifications indeed as this exchange has sent a message to America’s enemies that our long-standing policy of NOT negotiating with the enemy is now NO longer worth the paper it’s printed on so to speak…at least ‘selectively’ that is as word has it that a ransom demand was made by ISIS in exchange for James Foley’s release and the White House turned it down.
So let me get this straight…according to this White House negotiated with terrorists with the currency being five terrorist leaders who will most assuredly kill again for one American traitor is NOT considered negotiating with the enemy, but the mere thought of negotiating a monetary demand for an American life is. Now while I completely and totally agree with NO negotiating with terrorists ever, but how about if ‘phony’ negotiations had gone on to give us more time to try and rescue Foley and the others kidnapped…guess that possibility NEVER entered Obama’s mind now did it…and one has to wonder why.
But when all is said and done Obama’s throwing aside our rules of law to trade five terrorists for one American traitor sent a message to the enemy that this most traitorous of administrations will indeed negotiate with terrorists…as long as that trade is advantageous to those out to kill us all…and NO GAO investigation is needed to prove that very fact.
And oh yes, do NOT expect any action to be taken against either Obama or the Defense Department as Obama’s buddy…Eric ‘Fast and Furious’ Holder…still is head of the DOJ and RINO extraordinaire John Boehner is still Speaker of the House…so we know these findings will go nowhere.
Just saying…
* Read the GAO’s full report here: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665390.pdf
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