Ayotte Releases Exclusive Consolidated, Unclassified Report on Guantanamo Detainees

After years of leadership pushing for a commonsense terrorist detention policy to protect our country, opposing plans to empty and close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and fighting for more transparency from the administration, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte today released an exclusive, unclassified report summarizing the terrorist activities and affiliations of the 107 Guantanamo detainees who were detained there as of November 25, 2015.

"The Obama administration promised transparency, but this new report shows why they've been so reluctant to uphold that promise when it comes to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The more Americans understand about the terrorist activities and affiliations of these detainees, the more they will oppose the administration's terribly misguided plans to release them," said Senator Ayotte. "The preeminent responsibility of the federal government is to keep the American people safe, yet the Obama administration's misguided commitment to releasing detainees in order to eventually close Guantanamo unacceptably gambles with our nation's safety."

She continued, "Most of the detainees who remain at Guantanamo are the worst of the worst, as demonstrated by the fact that 93% of the detainees who remained there as of late last year had been assessed as a high risk for a return to terrorism. This report demonstrates once again why we need a common sense law of war detention policy-focused on the security of Americans and nothing else-that keeps terrorists off the battlefield and gathers the intelligence necessary to prevent future attacks."

Before this report, when a detainee was transferred or released, the only specific information usually released by the Department of Defense (DoD) to the public was the detainee's name and the name of the country where they will be transferred. While some information was watered down and key details regarding some of the detainees were excluded, this report provides Americans with a consolidated, unclassified source of information regarding the dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo who the administration has recently released or plans to release soon.

Ayotte has long led the fight for transparency regarding the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. In 2015, she worked successfully to include an amendment to the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that required an unclassified report detailing the terrorist activities and affiliations of Guantanamo detainees. After the administration missed the legal deadline for submitting the unclassified report to Congress, Ayotte announced that she had placed a hold on the nomination of Jennifer O'Connor to be DOD General Counsel until the Pentagon submitted the report. The Department of Defense finally submitted the report required by law in April, but put the substantive information regarding the terrorist detainees in a classified section that could not be shared with the American people. Ayotte then notified DoD that the report was unacceptable and kept her hold in place. Once Ayotte received the report, she lifted her hold on O'Connor's nomination.

Ayotte has also introduced legislation that would permanently ban Guantanamo transfers to the United States, as well as prohibit permanently the closure of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo or its transfer to Cuba.

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