House GOP making legal preparations on Gitmo
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, on Thursday said that House Republicans are making legal preparations in case President Obama circumvents Congress and transfers detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison to U.S.-based facilities.
"As you know, the President is contemplating closing Guantanamo Bay by transferring detainees to American soil. This is against the law. The president's own attorney general agrees it is against the law," Ryan told reporters at his weekly press conference.
"We are pressing ahead with legal preparations," he added. "If the president takes illegal action we will be ready to respond. The law is the law, and it is just that clear."
Ryan's office confirmed a day earlier that it has retained law firm Jones Day to seek legal advice on the issue and possible litigation. According to Politico, the contract with the firm is worth up to $150,000.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Tuesday that the administration is still working on a plan that would permanently close the prison at Guantanamo Bay that it intends to present to Congress once it's completed.
The plan would likely entail transferring detainees to countries abroad as well as facilities based in the U.S. The White House has not ruled out using executive action if Congress rejects the proposal.
For years, however, Congress has barred the administration from transferring detainees to the U.S., and included that language in the defense policy bill that President Obama signed for the current fiscal year.
Just before Mr. Obama signed that measure, Earnest said that his signature wouldn't "reflect a change in our position or the intensity of our position about the need to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the need for Congress to cooperate with us doing so."
