President-elect Trump doesn’t want any more prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay, calling the people held there “extremely dangerous.”
There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
“There should be no further releases from Gitmo,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.”
Asked about Trump’s tweet, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said, “As we have discussed previously here, we are going to carry out the appropriate policies as set forth by the commander in chief with regard to Guantánamo Bay, and the secretary of defense will carry out his unique responsibilities with regard to the review of people who have been previously determined to be eligible to release.
“There is one commander in chief at a time, and the secretary will continue to carry out his responsibilities as he see appropriate,” Cook said. President Obama ran on a promise of closing down the prison in Cuba, calling it a rallying cry for terrorists abroad, but he has failed to fulfill that mission. Instead, he has spent much of the last few years either releasing or transferring inmates to other facilities and countries. The facility houses 59 men and several more detainees are cleared to be transferred before Obama leaves office this month.
This has caused uproar among congressional Republicans who think Obama is skirting their oversight by either not consulting the legislative branch about the transfers or delaying notification.
During the campaign, Trump promised to keep Guantanamo Bay open and even discussed returning to the torture techniques in interrogation that were alleged to have occurred at the base. He also said he would add to the population, vowing to fill Gitmo up with “some bad dudes,” though experts say that could require a new war authorization specifically for the Islamic State.
Some in the administration had hoped to appeal to Trump’s business sense by lowering the number of detainees and, as a result, increasing the cost per detainee to more than $10 million per year, compared to just $35,000 at a federal maximum security prison in the United States.
But even if Trump does buy the cost argument, it’s unlikely he would have the support needed in Congress to abolish a law prohibiting the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the U.S.
