Will Obama break the law to close Gitmo?

Senator Steve Daines of Montana was a guest on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney yerterday and they began their conversation by talking about an incident most Americans haven’t heard about.

It seems in 2013, Iran engaged in a cyber-attack on a dam in New York State.  Daines suggests this is nothing new and says that hackers have infiltrated the IRS, the White House and many other government agencies. He also points to the very real threat of an attack on our power grid and recommends fixes from the private sector which always moves faster than government.

Gaffney then moved the conversation to Gitmo. Daines was part of a delegation which recently visited the facility at Guantanamo Bay and remarked on how impressed he was with members of our armed forces who oversee the prison. He also commented on the need to keep it open:

“We just had reports right after we came back from Gitmo, where U.S. special forces… captured a high value ISIS detainee and so we need a place to put them and guess what, Gitmo is the perfect place for that, to ensure that they never get back on the battlefield. As you know, we have numerous situations and cases where these Gitmo detainees have been released and are back on the battlefield killing American soldiers.”

Gaffney and Daines agree that the closure of Gitmo would also result in the loss of valuable intelligence in the fight against terror.

Finally, they spoke about legislation Daines is working on to improve healthcare for veterans. Daines again cited his background in the private sector and said that vets would benefit from having more choices and the ability to go outside the VA system if necessary. He also suggested an easier process to fire VA bureaucrats if they stand in the way of vets trying to receive care.

Later in the program, Gaffney spoke to congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas, another Republican who has led the fight to keep Gitmo open. Gaffney asked Pompeo for his take on Obama’s pledge to close the prison:

“What we know now is we’ve said it in the House we’ve said it’s illegal, we’ve had the president sign bills to make it so, now we have his attorney general, secretary of defense Ash Carter, and most recently in a letter to me, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff all said it would be illegal to do and yet I continue to remain concerned that this president is intent on doing what he has told his base he will do which is close this facility and bring these terrorists back to the United States. It is ludicrous and dangerous and I’m going to do everything we can to stop him.”

Pompeo also suggests that Obama’s upcoming trip to Cuba is partly a fact finding mission for the president to explore his options in shutting down Gitmo, a move he would see as a victory in his final months in office.

Gaffney concluded:

“Victory for him, defeat for the United States of America, I’m sorry to say.”