HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTS OBAMA'S PLAN TO CLOSE GITMO (PLEASE PRAY)

HILLARY SUPPORTS OBAMA'S PLAN TO CLOSE GITMO: (NWO)

BERNIE SANDERS DOESN'T WANT TERRORISTS RELEASED ONTO AMERICAN SOIL.

DEAR GOD, PLEASE PRAY FOR THE UNITED STATES IN JESUS NAME.

Sources:  The Hill, Washington Free Beacon, YouTube

**** Clinton Backs Obama's Gitmo Plan

Hillary Clinton is supporting President Obama's plan for closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, saying the move would "be a sign of strength and resolve."

"I support President Obama’s plan today to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and finally close the door on this chapter of our history," she said in a Tuesday statement.

"Over the years, Guantanamo has inspired more terrorists than it has imprisoned. It has not strengthened our national security; it has damaged it."

Closing Guantanamo was one of Obama's earliest campaign promises in 2008, but Congress has blocked his efforts.

The president submitted a final plan to Congress to close the facility on Tuesday. But it was meet by immediate opposition from Republicans, who called it dead on arrival.

The Obama administration's plan would move detainees eligible for transfer to other countries. Other detainees would face prosecution. But the plans also call for moving between 30 to 60 detainees not eligible for those options to the United States.

The administration said the plan could cost up to $425 million, but would save more than $65 million per year in the long run. 

Clinton's statement came hours after her presidential rivals reacted to the proposal.

Her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders also backed Obama's plan while also delivering a shot at Clinton.

"Sanders was one of only three senators to vote in 2007 against barring the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to America," his statement read. "Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the amendment that kept the prison open."

That 2007 measure was a "sense of the Senate" vote that specifically warned against releasing Guantanamo prisoners "into American society" or "facilities in American communities and neighborhoods."

Clinton's statement didn't respond to Sanders, but touted her own history of pushing to close the facility. It notes that she cosponsored legislation to do so and highlights her work as secretary of State to resettle Guantanamo prisoners.  

MARCO RUBIO v OBAMA: CLOSING GITMO (RUBIO SAYS NO)

MARCO RUBIO v OBAMA: CLOSING GITMO

RUBIO SAYS NO TO OBAMA CLOSING GITMO.

Sources: CNN, Youtube

Tuesday while speaking in NEVADA to a crowd of supporters, U.S. Senator MARCO RUBIO affirmed voters that a GOP Congress will not allow Pres Obama to close Gitmo and release Terrorists back into the world.

But how does Congress plan to stop Obama??

OBAMA VOWS TO CLOSE GITMO BEFORE HE LEAVES OFFICE; DARES CONGRESS

OBAMA VOWS TO CLOSE GITMO BEFORE HE LEAVES OFFICE:

IS THIS ABOUT ERASING GEORGE W. BUSH'S LEGACY?

WHERE WILL THE CAPTURED TERRORISTS BE RELEASED?

PLEASE GET OUT THE VOTE IN 2016.

Sources: ABC News, USA Today, Youtube

**** Obama Takes Last Chance To Close Guantanamo Bay

Keeping the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay open is "contrary to our values," President Obama said Tuesday, as he released a plan that examined 13 potential sites for transferring the suspected terrorists but did not propose any specific location.

His plan sets up a last-year confrontation with Congress about a campaign promise made eight years ago. Terrorists use Guantanamo as propaganda to recruit, and maintaining it harms U.S. national security, he said.

The plan has three elements beyond closing the prison, Obama said. 

More detainees will be safely transferred, reviewing the threat posed by detainees who are not eligible for transfer, and identifying those eligible for military trials.

“This plan has my full support," Obama said.

Obama said closing Guantanamo was something his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, supported, as did his 2008 Republican challenge, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Since then, however, the politics have got in the way, he said.

Obama said he was "very clear-eyed" about the challenges of closing Guantanamo. "If it were easy it would have happened years ago," he said.

McCain, who now chairs the Armed Services Committee, called the plan flimsy and said his committee would hold hearings on it soon.

“What we received today is a vague menu of options, not a credible plan for closing Guantanamo, let alone a coherent policy to deal with future terrorist detainees,” McCain said in a statement. “After years of rhetoric, the president has still yet to say how and where he will house both current and future detainees, including those his administration has deemed as too dangerous to release.”

McCain said Obama had missed “a major chance to convince the Congress and the American people that he has a responsible plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”

The plan does not indicate the prisons in the United States under consideration to transfer detainees, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.

“The administration seeks an active dialogue with Congress on this issue and looks forward to working with Congress to identify the most appropriate location as soon as possible,” Cook said.

The report looked at existing facilities in South Carolina, Kansas and Colorado, as well as new facilities at unnamed military bases across the country.

It would cost $290 million to $475 million for the Department of Defense to renovate an existing state or federal prison, which would be dedicated to holding only Defense detainees, the official said. But the Pentagon estimates it could save $65 million to $85 million a year, recouping the one-time costs in about five years, though the official said the numbers are "somewhat rough and notional” because Congress has not appropriated the money necessary to do a complete site assessment.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that the Pentagon report "will make a compelling case that closing the prison is clearly in our national security interest, but also will reflect the need for the United States government to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars."

There are 91 detainees remaining in the prison; each one costs about $4 million per year.

"There is far too much money that is spent to operate that prison when there are more cost-effective alternatives available. And we certainly would like to work with the Congress to make those alternatives a reality because we know that those alternatives don't weaken our national security. In fact, they strengthen it. They enhance it," Earnest said. "And it would take away — by closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay — a chief recruiting tool that we know is used by terrorist organizations about the world."

The plan, released Tuesday morning, anticipates that a "limited number" of detainees will not be eligible for transfer to other countries

"For these detainees, the administration intends to work with the Congress to relocate them from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to an appropriate site in the continental United States while continuing to identify other appropriate and lawful dispositions," the plan says.

Guantanamo Bay, located on the eastern edge of Cuba, has housed prisoners taken captive in war on terror since 2002. Since it exists on a base on Cuban soil but held by the United States under a 113-year-old lease, the prisoners are in what some human rights organizations call a "legal black hole."

But transferring them to U.S. soil would not necessarily change their legal status. A previous legal opinion from the Pentagon found that the 2001 legislation authorizing the global war on terror allows them to be held as combatants as long as hostilities remain.

There were 242 detainees still in the Guantanamo Bay prison when Obama took office in 2009, down from a high of almost 700. That number has dwindled over the years as the Pentagon has transferred lower-risk detainees to other countries — meaning that the prisoners who remain tend to be considered higher security risks.

Of the 91 detainees remaining, 35 are eligible to be transferred to other countries as long as those countries can demonstrate that they can hold the prisoners without risk. Another 10 await trial by a military court, and 46 are still being evaluated.

Current law prohibits the president from transferring the Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. soil, where there are only a handful of maximum-security prisons deemed appropriate to house them. Congress also added a provision to the defense policy bill signed by Obama last year requiring the administration to put forward a plan for transferring the remaining detainees to prisons in the United States.

House Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the plan, saying it did not make a convincing case that moving detainees to the United States was "smart or safe." The plan did not provide details required by law about the cost and location of the U.S. prison.

"Congress has left no room for confusion," Ryan said in a statement. "It is against the law — and it will stay against the law — to transfer terrorist detainees to American soil. We will not jeopardize our national security over a campaign promise.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the top Democrat in the House, called the administration's proposal a "strong, detailed plan" to close Guantanamo.

“The reality is Guantanamo hurts, rather than advances our efforts to keep America safe and combat terrorism abroad," Pelosi said in a statement. "Closing the detention facility at Guantanamo will strengthen our national security and affirm our values and laws. It is disappointing that Republicans have worked to prevent the long-overdue closure of the Guantanamo facility."

Obama's 9-11 Trial About Face Angers Liberals, Closes Gitmo

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Trying 9/11 Suspects In Military Court Could Pave Way To Closing Gitmo



Moving the trial of suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of criminal court and into a military tribunal could finally enable President Obama to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay.

Moving the trial of suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of criminal court and into a military tribunal could finally enable President Obama to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay.

But how it will sit with his supporters on the left remains an open question.

The administration is considering reversing its decision to try Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks in civilian court, moving them instead to a military court -- either at Guantanamo or a military facility within the U.S. Such a move could prove poisonous for the administration's relationship with its liberal base.

The president has already disappointed his supporters by maintaining military tribunals after temporarily suspending them, by continuing the option of indefinite detention and by faltering in his vow to close Guantanamo Bay one year after his inauguration.

"If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values," American Civil Liberties Union Director Anthony Romero said in a written statement.

"Hope and change will not rectify the damage today to the United States' international reputation," Amnesty International USA Director Larry Cox said.

But reversing course on the plan to try suspected terrorists in criminal courtrooms could be pitched as a concession made for the greater goal of closing the Guantanamo detention camp. A source familiar with the administration's policy review told Fox News that Obama is testing the waters to see how far he can push his base without sending it over the edge, for the sake of an elusive bipartisan bargain that would ultimately allow him to follow through on his pledge one day after his inauguration to close the Cuban military prison for good.

The venue for the Sept. 11 terror suspects has emerged as somewhat of a bargaining chip in that effort. Republicans, namely Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who are willing to support Obama's effort to close Guantanamo are fiercely opposed to civilian trials.

Asked on Friday whether the view exists that turning over the suspects to tribunals would help free up funding in Congress to close Guantanamo, Graham told Fox News, "Not that I'm aware of."

But he said sending the suspects to tribunals would demonstrate "good leadership," and he suggested it could grease the wheels toward closing the Cuba-based camp.

"I have advocated the closing of Guantanamo Bay if you can do it safely," Graham said. Trying the suspects in tribunals "would give us a chance to close Guantanamo safely."

Graham said more research will need to be done to determine what to do with those detainees the administration has determined are too dangerous to be released or tried.

The Washington Post reported Friday, citing unnamed administration officials, that top advisers are close to a decision recommending that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks be prosecuted in a military tribunal.

According to the report, the president's advisers have grown increasingly wary of bipartisan opposition to the planned civilian federal trial for Mohammed and his four alleged conspirators in New York City, mere blocks from where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.

White House officials told Fox News that no final decision has been made. The administration has been considering tribunals for the alleged Sept. 11 attack plotters for several weeks. At issue is both the location of the planned trial and the venue.

First the administration would have to decide whether to have the trials in New York City, and then whether to hold them in a tribunal elsewhere. A military tribunal would have to be held at a military base -- and Guantanamo Bay itself is one option. Other possibilities are Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

Sources: MSNBC, Fox News

GOP's 2010 Winning Strategy: Attacking Obama In State-Level Races

Republicans Make President Obama Foil In State Races


In governor’s races across the country, top GOP candidates are concentrating their attacks on the White House, the surest sign yet that Republicans see opportunity in nationalizing the 2010 election and a departure from the strategy that elected two Republicans to governorships in November.

While Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia both refrained from overt criticism of President Barack Obama in their successful 2009 races, the current crop of GOP gubernatorial contenders seems intent on making the 2010 election a referendum on Obama’s policies.

Obama isn’t all they’re talking about — GOP candidates continue to opine about bread-and-butter state-level issues in their campaigns. But many of them are also unmistakably targeting the president and the national Democratic agenda in an effort to underscore their conservative credentials and distinguish themselves in crowded primaries.

“For candidates who are running in Republican gubernatorial primaries, it would be a mistake not to contrast their ideology vis-à-vis the president,” said Brad Todd, a GOP ad man who is a veteran of governor’s races. “We are begging for a national election. It will benefit Republicans in every race where that nationalized dynamic is in place.”

The health care reform bill is proving to be an especially rich vein for mining. In Georgia, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine has turned Obama’s push for health care reform into a rallying point for his campaign by launching “YouCanStopObama.com,” a site that allows supporters to sign a petition protesting “a government takeover of our nation’s health care system.”

“With your help we can stand up to President Obama and the power grabbing, free market destroying Congress. From centralized control of banking, automaking, and now health care, Obama’s and Congress’ plan for America is a prescription for disaster,” reads the website, which features a picture of Obama that dominates the screen, accompanied by large, attention-grabbing block letters.

In South Carolina, Attorney General Henry McMaster has gained national notice for assault on the president’s health care overhaul effort, on Wednesday writing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to sue unless a Medicaid provision in the Senate health care bill that benefits Nebraska at the expense of other states is eliminated.

Signing on to McMaster’s letter was a handful of other Republican attorneys general who, like McMaster, are also running for governor in 2010: Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.

GOP strategist Bill Kenyon, a veteran of gubernatorial campaign battles, explained that the Republicans were tapping into anxieties at the state level about expanding Medicaid at a time when state budgets are swimming in red ink.

“It allows an opening for statewide candidates to bring Obama into the fray,” said Kenyon.

Tennessee state Senate speaker and gubernatorial contender Ron Ramsey, who is calling on his state’s Democratic attorney general to sign onto McMaster’s effort, said zeroing in on the health care issue was a logical move in a Republican primary where conservative voters are up for grabs.

“I think people are upset that the federal government is overreaching,” Ramsey told POLITICO. “I think it’s come to a head on the health care issue.”

Candidates have also found national security issues to be advantageous. In November, GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett, who is giving up his safe South Carolina seat to run for governor, sent a letter to Obama asking that he eliminate South Carolina as a potential location for housing Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

“The people of this state have already made it abundantly clear that any plan to move terrorists to our soil is unacceptable,” he wrote.

Barrett challenged his gubernatorial opponents to sign on to the letter, which concluded, “We strongly urge you, Mr. President, not to transfer any more of these known terrorists to American soil and we would support any legal or legislative remedy opposing more terrorist transfers to the State of South Carolina.”

It wasn’t the first time Barrett had taken aim at Obama. A month earlier, after the president won the Nobel Prize, Barrett released a scorching statement.

“I’m not sure what the international community loved best; his waffling on Afghanistan, pulling defense missiles out of Eastern Europe, turning his back on freedom fighters in Honduras, coddling Castro, siding with Palestinians against Israel, or almost getting tough on Iran.”

In the days following an attempted Christmas Eve terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound jetliner, no Republican was more aggressive in challenging the Obama administration than Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Michigan and giving up his slot as the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

Hoekstra took to "Fox News Sunday" just days after the incident to say it was fair to hold the White House at least partly responsible for the attack, and he has blasted Obama repeatedly over the last week on his Twitter feed, criticizing the White House for failing to answer questions about what it knew about the attack.

That much might come within the ambit of his position on the Intelligence Committee, but Hoekstra attracted fierce Democratic criticism for taking it one step further: He put out a fundraising appeal excoriating Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for saying after the attack that “the system worked.”

“They just don't get it,” Hoekstra wrote in the appeal. “The system didn't ‘work’ here. Far from it! It is insulting that The Obama administration would make such a claim, but then again, these are the same weak-kneed liberals who have recently tried to bring Guantanamo Bay terrorists right here to Michigan!”

“It’s kind of just call ‘em like you see ‘em,” Hoekstra told POLITICO in an interview. “I’ve got political differences with this president on national security, and I’m just calling him on it.”

On Wednesday, GOP Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons joined in the criticism and called on Napolitano to resign. The embattled Gibbons, who has also asked Democratic state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto for a ruling on the constitutionality of the Senate version of the health care bill, is facing tough primary and general election competition.

Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, said turning Obama into a target would be particularly helpful for Republicans running in crowded primaries, like Hoekstra and McMaster.

“For candidates in multicontestant primary fields, any opportunity to get noticed on national TV and bash Obama is golden. It provides free exposure when money is tight, helps them raise national money at the end of the quarter, and most importantly, forces their local press to cover them,” said Musser. “For McMaster and Hoekstra, who are both in tight primary races, the recent national news provides a boost of free visibility on issues the GOP base feels strongly about.”

“[T]his is a very smart strategy. It’s how to win,” said Fred Davis, a Southern California-based Republican strategist who advised Georgia Gov. Sonny Purdue’s 2002 campaign. “Just like the Democrats did in reverse, attaching themselves from top to bottom to George W. Bush’s unpopularity.”

Emily DeRose, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Governors Association, said the GOP targeting of Obama would backfire.

“Any time you see a gubernatorial candidate talking about federal issues instead of state issues, you know two things right away: 1) the candidate is listening to D.C. consultants instead of the voters and 2) the candidate has no shot of winning,” said DeRose. “Voters aren't dumb — they see right through it. They know the difference between federal issues and state issues, and they want their governor to focus on leading their state.”

Some Republicans, however, argue that Obama’s agenda is so expansive that it is blurring the line between federal and state issues — and is a problem for governors and prospective governors to speak out about.

Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry, involved in a contentious primary with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has said Obama is “hell bent” on turning the United States into a socialist country and suggested this year that Texas might secede from the union if Washington continued its high-spending ways.

In his campaign speech last year in Florida, McCollum also rolled out the s-word — saying Obama was pushing the country toward “socialism” and that he was “nationalizing” the private enterprise system.

GOP congressman and gubernatorial contender Zach Wamp of Tennessee evoked the image of presidential encroachment at an August campaign event.

“We will meet [Obama] at the state line” if the White House issued an executive order limiting gun rights, he said at an August town hall.

“I don’t expect it, but, frankly, we’ve got to watch him closely — this administration and its liberal agenda,” Wamp told the Maryville Daily Times.


Sources: Politico

Obama's Closing Gitmo Plan Hits A Financial Speed Bump

Plan To Move Guantánamo Detainees Faces New Delay


Rebuffed this month by skeptical lawmakers when it sought finances to buy a prison in rural Illinois, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with the money to replace the Guantánamo Bay prison.

As a result, officials now believe that they are unlikely to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer its population of terrorism suspects until 2011 at the earliest — a far slower timeline for achieving one of President Obama’s signature national security policies than they had previously hinted.

While Mr. Obama has acknowledged that he would miss the Jan. 22 deadline for closing the prison that he set shortly after taking office, the administration appeared to take a major step forward last week when he directed subordinates to move “as expeditiously as possible” to acquire the Thomson Correctional Center, a nearly vacant maximum-security Illinois prison, and to retrofit it to receive Guantánamo detainees.

But in interviews this week, officials estimated that it could take 8 to 10 months to install new fencing, towers, cameras and other security upgrades before any transfers take place. Such construction cannot begin until the federal government buys the prison from the State of Illinois.

The federal Bureau of Prisons does not have enough money to pay Illinois for the center, which would cost about $150 million. Several weeks ago, the White House approached the House Appropriations Committee and floated the idea of adding about $200 million for the project to the military spending bill for the 2010 fiscal year, according to administration and Congressional officials.

But Democratic leaders refused to include the politically charged measure in the legislation. When lawmakers approved the bill on Dec. 19, it contained no financing for Thomson.

The administration will probably not have another opportunity until Congress takes up a supplemental appropriations bill for the Afghanistan war. Lawmakers are not likely to finish that bill until late March or April.

Moreover, the administration now says that the current focus for Thomson financing is the appropriations legislation for the 2011 fiscal year. Congress will not take that measure up until late 2010.

Frustrated by the difficulties in obtaining financing from Congress, administration officials had discussed invoking a little-known statute that would allow the president to declare a national emergency and then use military funds allocated for other construction projects to buy and retrofit the Illinois prison.

That statute, however, has never been used for a project quite like this one. Fearing that lawmakers would be angered by such a move and could respond by erasing the statute, the administration decided not to invoke it.

Matthew Waxman, who was assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs in the Bush administration, said the Obama administration would need lawmakers’ support for its long-term post-Guantánamo plans. Invoking emergency powers to unilaterally buy Thomson, he said, would be “poking Congress in the eye in a way that would be very counterproductive.”

Still, it is not clear that Congress will be willing to approve money enabling the transfer of Guantánamo detainees to domestic soil — especially as the 2010 midterm election campaign heats up, with the likelihood that Republicans will pick up seats.

This year, Congress restricted the ability of the executive branch to transfer detainees into domestic prisons, a ban reiterated in the 2010 military appropriations bill.

The Thomson proposal enjoys strong support from Illinois Democrats, including Gov. Patrick J. Quinn and Senator Richard J. Durbin, who have hailed the idea as a means of creating jobs. More than 300 people turned out Tuesday in Sterling, Ill., for a hearing on the proposal, The Associated Press reported, and emotions ran high among people on each side of the proposal.

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The White House has argued that closing Guantánamo would enhance national security by removing a symbol used by terrorist recruiters. It also said the closing would save taxpayers money because the Defense Department pays $150 million a year to operate the Guantánamo prison on the naval base there, while running the Illinois prison would cost $75 million.

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Obama remained committed to closing the Guantánamo prison, adding, “We will continue to work with Congress to ensure that we secure the necessary funds to purchase and upgrade the Thomson prison, which will operate at a substantially lower cost to taxpayers, next year.”

But many Republicans oppose closing Guantánamo, arguing that housing the detainees on United States soil would create unnecessary security risks. Some crucial moderate Democrats are also skeptical.

Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is said to have privately expressed doubts to administration officials about the plan. Another member of that committee, Representative Loretta Sanchez, Democrat of California, also raised security and legal questions about the proposal.

“Particularly making something on U.S. soil an attraction for Al Qaeda and terrorists to go after — inciting them to attack something on U.S. soil — that’s a problem, and we need to think it through,” Ms. Sanchez said in an interview Tuesday.

In the Senate, Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, has argued that the problem with Guantánamo has been its lack of due process rights, not its physical location. He said recently that terrorism suspects “do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.”

Mr. LaBolt pointed out that the detainee population was now smaller than it had been at any time since 2002, and that on other fronts in the effort to close Guantánamo, “substantial progress has been made in recent weeks.”

For example, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. recently announced the first sets of civilian and military prosecutions for 10 detainees, and more such announcements are expected soon.

Last week, the United States transferred six detainees to Yemen in a trial program of repatriation to that country. About 91 of the roughly 200 detainees at Guantánamo are Yemeni; many are not considered “high value” suspects, but officials have been reluctant to repatriate them because of security conditions in Yemen.

Still, Congressional resistance to approving money for Thomson represents a steep hurdle toward dealing with the detainees who the administration has decided can neither be prosecuted nor safely transferred to the custody of other countries.

Indeed, Mr. Waxman said, the debate is certain to set off discussions on an issue that could drive away many civil-liberties-minded Democrats who have voiced initial support for Mr. Obama’s Thomson plan: the administration’s intention to imprison some detainees on United States soil without trials. “Some members of Congress may want to support rapid closure of Guantánamo but not to signal support for broad military detention powers,” Mr. Waxman said.



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Sources: NY Times, Politico, AP, MSNBC, Google Maps

Illinois Prison Being Considered To House Gitmo Detainees...3,000 Jobs Expected

Illinois prison eyed for Guantanamo inmates


The Obama administration may buy a near-empty prison in rural northwestern Illinois to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay along with federal inmates, a White House official said Saturday.

The maximum-security Thomson Correctional Facility, about 150 miles west of Chicago, was one of several evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and emerged as a leading option to house the detainees, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because a decision has not been made.

President Barack Obama wants detainees from the controversial military-run detention center in Cuba to be transferred to U.S. soil so they can be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

It is unclear how many Guantanamo detainees — alleged terrorism suspects, many held without charges since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan — might be transferred to Illinois or when. Obama initially planned to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has been hinting at a possible new use for Thomson, and he issued a statement saying he would hold a news conference Sunday to outline those plans.

Quinn's spokeswoman Marlena Jentz did not return a phone message from the AP Saturday.

Thomson was built by the state in 2001 with 1,600 cells, but budget problems prevented it from fully opening, and it now houses about 200 minimum-security inmates.

If the Federal Bureau of Prisons buys the facility, it would be run primarily as a federal prison, but a portion would be leased to the Defense Department to house a limited number of Guantanamo detainees, the White House official said. Perimeter security at the site would be increased to surpass that at the nation's only Supermax prison, in Florence, Colo., the official said.

3,000 jobs expected

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the House's second-highest-ranking Democrat, said in a statement Saturday he would support the plan. He said the prison would house fewer than 100 Guantanamo detainees and would have a "significant positive impact on the local economy" by generating more than 3,000 jobs.

Thomson Village President Jerry Hebeler said the move would generate desperately needed revenue for the town of about 500 residents near the Mississippi River.

"It's been sitting there for eight to nine years and our town is like a ghost town," Hebeler said of the prison, adding that a tavern recently closed and a planned housing development fell through. "Everybody moved or got different jobs."

Some lawmakers opposed the idea of terrorism suspects being brought to Illinois.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Northbrook Republican running for Obama's old Senate seat, circulated a letter among elected officials asking them to write to Obama opposing the plan, saying bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the state would make it a target for terrorist attacks.

Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat, said Kirk was "pandering to irrational fears" and that closing the Guantanamo Bay facility would strengthen national security because al-Qaida used it as a recruiting tool.

Thomson is not the only U.S. town that had hoped to lure Guantanamo detainees. Officials in Marion, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and Florence, Colo., also have said they would welcome the jobs that would be generated.



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Sources: MSNBC, Day Life, Google Maps

Bob Bauer To Replace Craig, Republicans Challenge His Credentials

Bob Bauer's credentials challenged


Incoming White House counsel Bob Bauer is widely respected as a skilled and pugnacious lawyer and has the unquestioned trust of President Barack Obama’s inner circle and a deep knowledge of the ways of Washington.

But the announcement Friday that he will take the place of Greg Craig, which had been rumored for weeks, nonetheless prompted questions about whether his experience as a campaign law expert and partisan warrior is appropriate for a job dealing with some of the most sensitive constitutional and national security issues in government.

Republicans moved quickly to cast Bauer, a veteran Democratic campaign attorney with limited government experience, as “hyperpartisan”, with a former White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan calling the pick “troubling.”

Government watchdogs, who for years battled Bauer over their efforts to reduce the role of money in politics, winced at the appointment, fearing it would steer Obama further away from as-yet-unfulfilled promises to bolster a campaign finance regime under attack from the right.

Even some Democrats privately questioned whether Bauer’s relatively specialized background and confrontational style are well-suited to a post that requires both a familiarity with a wide range of sensitive legal issues — from national security to habeas corpus to military law — and finesse in dealing with stakeholders outside the White House.

The White House dismissed all concerns about Bauer, pointing out that he is well-regarded by Republicans in the tight-knit election law community and that he has worked on issues outside of election law.

“He has represented large institutional clients on major issues like employment and contract, IP [intellectual property], tax and privacy issues,” said an administration official who did not want to be identified talking about Bauer’s qualifications for the post, which the White House said would he would assume by the end of the year.

The White House also highlighted Bauer’s work in 1999 as an outside lawyer to then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle during the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.

In a statement, Obama called Bauer “a trusted counselor for many years to many elected officials” who is “known as a tough and widely respected advocate … Bob is well-positioned to lead the counsel’s office as it addresses a wide variety of responsibilities, including managing the large amount of litigation the administration inherited, identifying judicial nominees for the federal courts and assuring that White House officials continue to be held to the highest legal and ethical standards.”

Bauer’s ability to take advantage of the expertise of other smart lawyers will serve him well in the counsel’s office, said Marc Elias, a Bauer protégé who will take over from his mentor as head of the political law group at their law firm, Perkins Coie, when Bauer leaves.

“The White House counsel’s job is about managing a law firm within the White House as much as anything else,” said Elias. “And Bob has been involved in law firm management for years. He has built the political law group here.”

Past holders of the White House counsel’s job have come from all manner of backgrounds. Craig’s résumé included defending high-profile clients in criminal cases as well as serving as a foreign policy adviser to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. President George W. Bush’s first counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, had been Texas’s secretary of state and a state supreme court justice.

But Bauer’s expertise is almost entirely in political law – including lobbying, campaign finance and ethics – and he is perhaps the leading attorney in that competitive and well-paying field.

A 1976 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, he built the political law practice at Perkins Coie, a Seattle-based law firm, into a powerhouse, hiring and grooming some of the top lawyers in town.

Today, the firm has a near-stranglehold on some of the biggest Democratic political accounts in town; it represents the party’s two congressional committees — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — as well as the individual campaigns and political action committees of many Senate Democrats.

And Bauer landed the mother of all accounts — Obama’s presidential campaign — even before the campaign officially began, which led to his being appointed this year to the coveted position of lead counsel for the Democratic National Committee, a position that also made him the lawyer for Obama’s political network, Organizing for America.

Plus, he represents Obama and his family in personal matters, such as the federal investigation of disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Bauer will have to sell his partnership in the firm to take the counsel’s job. But his replacement as the lead lawyer for the DNC, the Obama presidential campaign and the Obama family, will be another protégé, Perkins Coie partner Judy Corley, making it likely Bauer would be able to reclaim the accounts if he returned to private practice before Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

“Everyone has their own background and their own experiences, and Bob clearly comes from an election law background,” said Michael Toner, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who deliberated over many cases involving Bauer’s clients, before Toner left the commission to start his own election law practice representing mostly Republican candidates and causes.

“But if people are trying to say that Bob Bauer is not qualified to be White House counsel, I couldn’t disagree more. I don’t know a harder-working, brighter lawyer in Washington, D.C., than Bob Bauer. He is a lawyer’s lawyer.”

But Peter Wallison, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s counsel in the mid-1980s during the Iran-Contra scandal, asserted Bauer’s background is not a good fit for the White House counsel.

“I think it’s troubling,” Wallison said. “It is very important that the White House counsel have political instincts. One of the things you want to be able to tell the president is whether an idea is politically feasible to accomplish within current law. What will the informed legal community accept as a legal explanation for what you are doing? You have to have political skills of some kind, but you also have to be a lawyer who is interested and devoted the maintenance of the rule of law.”

Richard Cullen, a former U.S. Attorney and Virginia state Attorney General who was appointed to both positions by Republicans, compared Bauer’s qualifications to those of top GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who was counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign during the 2000 election and in the Florida recount, and also was the top lawyer for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“Can you imagine if Bush picked Ben Ginsburg [for White House counsel]?” he said (Ginsberg, incidentally, told POLITICO the White House is “lucky to have” Bauer as counsel). Though Cullen praised Bauer as “a fine guy and a very good lawyer,” he said “his practice is limited to representing only Democratic special interests. I would feel the same way about the office if a Republican president picked a Republican activist to run it. It’s the White House counsel’s office. It’s not the president's.”

A former high-ranking White House official from a previous Democratic administration who worked closely with the counsel’s office asserted that being counsel “is the wrong job for the kind of lawyer that he is.” The former official, who has known Bauer for 20 years and has worked with him on occasion, said Bauer isn’t good at predicting how decisions will play with the public and the press — a skill highly valued in Obama’s inner circle.

“The best White House counsels are people who come out of politics who understand the importance of dealing with the media. He’s got to be able to articulate the decisions of the White House counsel’s office to the press,” said the former official, who think Craig’s inability to adequately do so caused him problems in the White House. “Bob Bauer is politically tone deaf. It’s just a train wreck waiting to happen. If they were trying to avoid what happened with poor Greg Craig, they went the exact opposite direction.”

Bauer, who declined to answer questions for this story, is known among reporters for aggressively pushing back when he disagrees with their premise but has become increasingly leery about talking to the press as he’s ascended in Obama world.

His tactics did raise eyebrows during the 2008 campaign, when he transcended the traditional lawyer role, becoming a strategist of sorts who played a visible role in some key campaign story lines.

He explained Obama’s broken promise to participate in a public finance system by asserting that the lead lawyer for Republican John McCain was unwilling to negotiate the terms of such an arrangement (an account McCain’s lawyer flatly rejected), and Bauer famously ambushed a press conference call held by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign to challenge her campaign’s accusations that Obama supporters violated caucus rules.

But unlike Craig, Bauer is a bona fide member of Obama’s inner circle. He has represented Obama on political matters since 2005. And his wife is outgoing White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. The power couple met through Democratic politics, married in 1993 and live with their 13-year-old son Stephen and two cats — Kinsey, an orange tabby, and Sticky, a white part-Siamese — in Chevy Chase.

Bauer’s policy influence within the Obama orbit further worries advocates of stricter campaign finance rules, who had considered Obama a kindred spirit but have become dissatisfied with his inaction on some of their key issues.

“Bob Bauer has a long track record of opposing campaign finance reform, so that is a concern,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the nonprofit group Public Citizen who has urged Obama to fulfill a campaign promise to support an overhaul of the presidential public financing system.

In a 2005 post on his well-read blog, Bauer suggested efforts to fix the system face tough prospects because public “support is needed and not forthcoming.”

And until a few years ago, Bauer had been a vocal critic of certain efforts to restrict political spending. In fact, a case he brought in 2005 on behalf of EMILY’s List recently resulted in a sweeping federal court ruling that experts predict could pave the way for a flood of new 527 spending that could target Obama in his 2012 reelection campaign.

“I admire his character and his aggressiveness,” said Holman. “It’s just that throughout most of my relationship with him, that aggressiveness has been focused on undermining real reforms of money in politics. However, since he’s become Obama’s lawyer, he’s moderated his viewpoints on ethics and campaign finance reform, so we’ll have to see how it plays out in the end.”


Sources: Politico

Eric Holder Defends Greg Craig..."Don't Blame Craig For Gitmo Failures"

Holder: Unfair To Blame Greg Craig For Gitmo Failures


Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that he was surprised by the resignation of White House Counsel Greg Craig and believes Craig has been unfairly blamed for the administration's difficulties in closing the prison base at Guantanamo Bay.

Briefing reporters at the Department of Justice, Holder called Craig a "great lawyer" who had "contributed in a significant way to the success of this administration." On the issue of shutting down Gitmo -- a project that Craig spearheaded within the administration, but which has stalled in Congress -- the AG insisted that it was wrong to scapegoat one person.

"Greg is a friend of mine," he said, "and those who have tried to place on him, I think, an unfair proportion of the blame as to why things have not proceeded, perhaps as we've wanted, with respect to Guantanamo, that is simply unfair."

Craig's departure from the White House on Friday was long anticipated. Inside the administration, there was a growing frustration over what aides considered a botched political process, which was Craig's responsibility. Those who know Craig personally, meanwhile, say he felt increasingly frustrated with his role within the administration. He had, initially, wanted to be part of the White House's foreign policy apparatus.

The push to close Guantanamo has met various pitfalls since it became a stated administrative objective, with Congress balking at the prospect of bringing detainees to domestic prison facilities. And now, it is widely assumed that the one-year deadline for shutting the detention center will be missed.

"I think it is going to be difficult to close that facility by January the 22nd," Holder told reporters on Friday. "There are a number of things that I think are most problematic."





Greg Craig: "I still think we were right"


Greg Craig said Friday that he was not asked to step down as White House counsel and that his decision was unrelated to the difficulties in closing Guantanamo Bay prison or other policy issues.

While defending the administration’s handling of Guantanamo, including the setting of an “ambitious” deadline, he suggested that he was surprised by the opposition that erupted over closing the facility and relocating the detainees.

In an interview with POLITICO, Craig said, “I was under the impression — based on President Bush’s statements, Sen. [John] McCain’s statements and the statements of many others, Republicans as well as Democrats — that there was a strong bipartisan consensus in support of closing down Guantanamo.

“There obviously has been more opposition in the Congress than those statements would have suggested. At least some of that opposition has been motivated by partisan politics, as Republicans believe that they have an issue on which to attack the president,” he said.

The interview is available in full on POLITICO’s Arena forum.

Craig said he still thought the original January deadline for closing Guantanamo was the right call.

“During his campaign for the presidency, President Obama promised that he would close Guantanamo. He made that promise because he believed then — and still believes today — that Guantanamo has damaged and continues to do damage to our national security,” he said. “We all knew that it would be difficult and challenging. We all knew that the one-year deadline was ambitious. We all believed such a deadline was necessary to force action and to make progress. I still think we were right.”

“I am not resigning because of anything to do with Guantanamo. I promised him a year…. And I have given him that year and more.

“I also promised to help him launch his presidency. Starting with the executive orders that he issued the first week of his term, I — and the legal team that we put together — have done that. We have performed a series of important tasks for the president that brought his administration together so that we could make progress on a number of really tough issues. And I think we have helped make this very difficult year a much better one, both for him and for the country. We are very proud of our record, and I am confident that this amazing legal team will continue to serve the president and the new White House counsel with distinction.”

Obama on Friday named Robert Bauer to replace Craig. Bauer is a longtime Democratic election lawyer who also has served as Obama’s personal lawyer.

In the interview, Craig said he could “think of many ways in hindsight that I could have better served the president” but declined to be more specific. “It is probably something that can be said about any human endeavor. One should always try to learn lessons from experience. All I can say for myself and my team is that we tried to do our best all the time,” he said.

Craig said he had no idea how word got out weeks ago that he would be resigning. “In September, I began discussing with a very small group of people — three in number — whether I would stay on beyond January 2010. That group included the president. I do not believe those with whom I had these discussions were responsible for the leaks.”

Asked what he would do now, Craig said, “I plan to take a break and then return to private practice.”






White House counsel Craig resigns


As expected, the Obama administration announced White House Counsel Greg Craig's resignation this morning.

"I want to tell you how proud I am of all that your legal team has accomplished on your behalf and in support of your agenda since your Inauguration," Craig writes in a resignation letter to Obama the White House released. Craig said that he plans to return to private practice January 3rd.

“Greg Craig is a close friend and trusted advisor who tackled many tough challenges as White House Counsel,” Obama said in a statement. “Because of Greg’s leadership, we have confirmed the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court, set the toughest ethics standards for any administration in history, and ensured that we are keeping the nation secure in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our values. I’m indebted to Greg not only for leading the Counsel’s office but for his many decades of service to this country as well. He has been a huge asset in the White House, and he will be missed. I will continue to call on him for advice in the years ahead.”

Some in the human rights community consider Craig something of an Obama administration fall guy for the legal mess the Obama administration inherited from the Bush administration on terrorism and Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration failed to head off Congressional opposition to the prospect of moving terrorism suspects to U.S. soil, when it announced its decision shortly after taking office to try to close Guantanamo Bay in one year.

“The president campaigned on closing Guantanamo and bringing national security strategy back in line with our values, and Greg helped operationalize that from day one, in the executive orders on torture and Guanatanamo," said Human Rights First's Elisa Massimino. "Without his pushing the president’s agenda forward, bureaucratic inertia would have taken hold, just as it did in the last administration, and we would be no closer to the finish line than we were 10 months ago.”


Sources: Politico, Huffington Post

Obama's Czars Are Constitutional, Bush Had 47...Gitmo Blame Game

(The DNC's ad titled: "Dancing with the Czars" pokes fun at Political Entertainers like kooky Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Watch)




(The Obama Admin "Blame Game". Should Greg Craig be the only White House staffer taking the fall for Gitmo?)





Constitutional Experts: Obama's "Czars" Are Perfectly Legal

In Senate testimony, constitutional experts say the president has the right to appoint independent advisors as long as the distinction between practical and legal authority is rigorously maintained.

Reporting from Washington - Five constitutional experts testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday that President Obama's extensive use of policy "czars" is legal -- as long as the officials do not overstep their authority.

In a city where power is carefully hoarded and monitored, Obama has drawn complaints from Congress about his use of the so-called czars, officials he has appointed to coordinate environmental, health and other policy areas among various departments.

Lawmakers in both parties have sent letters to the White House saying the czar appointments skirt Congress' authority to confirm top executive branch officials and subject them to oversight hearings.

But the panel of constitutional experts testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution did not support the complaints.

Called together by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), who had written to Obama asking for more information about the czars, the panel concluded that Obama had the right to appoint independent advisors. The experts said the principle had been established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"The president's personal staff are independently responsible only to the president -- and in the end he is the only czar that is," said Bradley H. Patterson, a presidential scholar. "And he is accountable to the American electorate."

John Harrison, a University of Virginia law professor, compared the czars to the position of White House chief of staff, saying both hold great influence and can speak for the president, but their legal powers are limited.

Their "practical authority . . . is not legal authority, and as long as the distinction is rigorously maintained there will be no legal problem," Harrison said in his written testimony.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had also written Obama questioning the czars, said in a statement the issue was not dead. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where she is the ranking member, will hold a similar hearing next week.

"The appointments of so many czars have muddied the waters, causing confusion and risking miscommunication going forward," Collins said.

Obama's czars include Nancy-Ann DeParle, who coordinates healthcare issues within the White House; Carol Browner, who coordinates energy and environmental issues; Adolfo Carrion Jr., who works on urban affairs; and Lynn Rosenthal, who works on domestic violence and sexual assault issues.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Constitution subcommittee, said at the hearing that he was worried in particular about the actions of Obama's "pay czar," Kenneth Feinberg, who has been criticized by lawmakers for taking the lead on crafting executive pay limits without enough oversight. The expert panel, however, said it found no constitutional violation.

White House Counsel Gregory Craig defended the Obama administration's appointments in a letter to Feingold.

"Neither the purpose nor the effect of these new positions is to supplant or replace existing federal agencies or departments," Craig wrote.

The experts also agreed that Congress had limited options if it chooses to rein in these positions.

T.J. Halstead of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service testified that the most effective answer for Congress is persistent oversight.



Obama's Gitmo blame game


Greg Craig, the top in-house lawyer for President Barack Obama, is getting the blame for botching the strategy to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison by January — so much so that he’s expected to leave the White House in short order.

But sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him.

Instead, it was a widespread breakdown on the political, legislative, policy and planning fronts that contributed to what is shaping up as one of Obama’s most high-profile setbacks, these people say.

The White House misread the congressional mood – as it found out abruptly in May, when the Senate voted 90-6 against funds for closing the base after Republicans stoked fears about bringing prisoners to the U.S. The House also went on record last week opposing bringing Gitmo detainees here.

The White House misread the public mood – as roughly half of Americans surveyed say they disagree with Obama’s approach. A strong element of NIMBY-ism permeates those results, as Americans say they don’t want the prisoners in their backyards.

But most of all Obama’s aides mistook that political consensus from the campaign trail for a deep commitment in Washington to do whatever it takes to close the prison.

“The administration came in reading there to be wide support for closing Guantanamo at home and abroad, and I think it misread that attitude,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia law professor who held Defense and State Department positions on detainee policy. “In general, they were right….but there was very little willingness to accept the costs and risks of getting it done.”

The White House declined to make Craig available for an interview, or discuss the Gitmo deliberations in detail, but several allies and even some critics scoffed at suggestions that Craig bears the main responsibility for the missteps.

“This clearly was a decision that had the full support of the entire national security team,” said Ken Gude, who tracks Guantanamo issues for the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. “It’s typical Washington that someone has their head on the chopping block, but it’s ridiculous that it’s Craig.”

“The implication that this was the brainchild of the White House counsel is not really credible,” said Elisa Massimino of Human Rights First.

When Obama signed a series of executive orders on Guantanamo during his second full day in office, what grabbed attention was not his promise to close the prison but his pledge to do it within one year.

During the presidential campaign, Obama talked almost daily about closing Guantanamo, but he rarely offered a timeline. His Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), spoke in a far greater specificity, proposing to move the Gitmo prisoners to Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas.

However, back in July 2007, Obama co-sponsored an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that called for Guantanamo to close within a year. Obama’s primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) was also a co-sponsor.

Some Bush administration officials contend that the one-year timeline was driven by a naïveté on the part of Obama’s aides.

“To a certain extent, they had drunk a lot of the far-left Kool-aid: that everybody, or most people, at Guantanamo were innocent and shouldn’t be there, and the Bush administration was not working very hard to resolve these issues, and that the issues were fairly easy to resolve once adults who were really committed to doing something about it in charge,” said one Bush official who met with Obama’s aides during the transition on Gitmo. “It became clear to me they had not really done their homework on the details.”

But even back on Jan. 22, 2009, the same day Obama signed the orders, Craig acknowledged some of the difficulties involved – including that some of the detainees can never be tried, a problem Craig called “difficult” and “most controversial.”

Now Obama’s decision to set a one-year deadline is being widely second-guessed. Craig supported the idea – and Craig’s allies say that a deadline was needed to persuade foreign governments that Obama was serious. They note that President George W. Bush talked on at least eight occasions about his desire to close Guantanamo – and left office with 250 prisoners there.

“Simply reasserting the intention to close Guantanamo would not have been sufficient in the international community,” Gude said. “They had to have a firm date and they had to have a timeline.”

Gude had advocated an 18-month timeline to “build in a cushion” but he said the only real mistakes the White House made involved failing to anticipate the resistance in Congress – particularly surrounding the Senate’s sharp rejection of Obama’s $80 million request to close Gitmo.

“They made that request without much supporting information and opened the door for Republicans in Congress to make it a Congressional issue and they did it very successfully,” Gude said. “The White House didn’t have a plan to support Democrats who were willing to back up their proposal and it all fell apart.”

Craig’s backers contend that, if that was the White House’s key misjudgment, other top officials share responsibility for the breakdown.

“It seems very unlikely to me that Greg Craig, by himself, engineered a DOD appropriations request,” one lawyer close to Craig said.

In retrospect, there were early signs of possible trouble ahead. Within hours of Obama signing the orders, McCain warned of a backlash and said the time frame the president set out would be “very difficult” to achieve.

A McCain adviser said the Obama team should have known. “I don’t think they realized how much heat McCain took from conservatives” during the GOP primary, said the aide, who asked not to be named. “Had they been aware of that I don’t think they would have handled it this way…..It shouldn’t have surprised anybody.”

Today, the National Security Council and Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse are effectively in charge of closing Gitmo, though Press Secretary Robert Gibbs denied Craig had been stripped of his responsibilities on the prison. “There are number of people that are working on it, Greg being one of them,” Gibbs said.

A review of Guantanamo prisoners is also nearly complete, with about 80 detainees up for release and State Department envoy Dan Fried lining up places to receive them.

“Our friends and allies have accepted or agreed to accept more than 30 of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be sent home due to humane treatment concerns, and are seriously considering taking others,” said a White House official who asked not to be named.

But it’s been slow. Obama’s administration has transferred 17 Guantanamo prisoners to other countries so far – compared to 19 by the Bush administration in the first nine months of 2008.

Obama aides have blamed the delays on disarray in government files about the detainees, but several former officials said that is not directly linked to the thorniest questions such as where to locate detainees in the U.S. “Those issues that have been kicked down the road are by far the hardest,” Waxman said.


Sources: Politico, Huffington Post, LA Times, DNC, Youtube