President Obama has hinted that he may use an executive order to finally close the prison at Guantanamo Bay if Congress continues to obstruct him: White House hints at controversial move to close Gitmo:
The White House said Thursday that if Congress blocks new plans to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, President Barack Obama may resort to a controversial executive order to get the job done.
With time running out for the 44th president to fulfill an incomplete election campaign promise, he looks increasingly likely to bypass lawmakers who have blocked the facility's closure.
"I'm certainly not going to take anything off the table," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when asked about possible executive action.
He said Obama would do "everything that he can to make progress" towards Guantanamo's closure, which Earnest described as a "national security priority."
Obama is expected within days to put forward a plan to Congress that would allow Guantanamo to close.
So get ready for more fearmongering segments like this one from this weekend's Fox News Sunday. Be afraid everyone! Be very afraid!
WALLACE: Finally, Chairman, I want to switch subjects on you. President Obama is apparently launching a new push to close the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo. He’s apparently going to try to go first through Congress, but if Congress refuses, there's talk about more executive action.
Your response to that?
MCCAUL: Well, there’s a narrative launched (ph) in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we've seen how well that’s worked. He didn't leave a residual force in Iraq and now, we have ISIS in Iraq. And I think the last piece is to close down Guantanamo.
He tried this before unsuccessfully, but I do think you're going to see an executive action to close down Guantanamo. Where are these -- the worst of the worse terrorists from 9/11, where are they going to go? If they set foot on American soil, at a military prison, I predict the American people will stand up in outrage over this decision for many reasons.
I’ve been done there, I’ve seen Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the evil incarnate, and the fact that we're bring him into United States to provide a Mecca for the jihadists -- you know, we're already having radicalized individuals hitting military installations in the United States. If we bring these guys into the U.S., to these facilities, you're going to see a heightened terror alert threat in the United States. It would be highly reckless and irresponsible.
WALLACE: And very briefly, if the president were to go ahead as you predict with executive action, is there anything you and Congress can do about it?
MCCAUL: Well, he's done this before, and it's hard to stop this kind of action. I would hope the American people would rise up in numbers so strongly that as he tried to do this last time, that he'll decide to back down from that decision.
Republicans apparently have no faith whatsoever in either our maximum security prison system, or our courts.
