Hearing Of The House Judiciary Committee - Full Committee Markup

Statement

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Chairman Conyers. My opening comments are these: The resolution was introduced by our colleague, Frank Wolf of Virginia, referred to the committee; and under House rules, we are required to report this resolution within 14 legislative days of its introduction, or a privileged motion to discharge the committee could be filed on the House floor. There are several parts of the resolution requesting information on the alleged release into the United States of Guantanamo detainees. These requests are moot because the recent Defense supplemental appropriations legislation mandates that no such detainee may be released into the United States. The resolution demands the names of countries that have been contacted by government officials to request their acceptance of detainees currently held at Guantanamo. As a matter of principle, this would seriously undermine the constitutional responsibility of the executive branch to conduct foreign policy, including holding sensitive preliminary discussions on a confidential basis. In addition, this request would clearly interfere with efforts to close Guantanamo by prematurely disclosing the name of any country even considering accepting detainees. In fact, the Defense supplemental already requires information on the name of each detainee, risk assessment and terms of any agreement with any country to be provided to Congress 15 days before any transfer to another country occurs.

The resolution requests information on any Guantanamo detainee to be transferred to the U.S. for detention or trial, but the Defense supplemental appropriations legislation already requires that information on risk assessment, cost, legal rationale, associated court demands, plans for risk mitigation, and notification to State officials be provided to Congress 45 days before any such transfer occurs. Additional information is being provided through regular committee oversight and briefings and reports from the administration's Guantanamo-related task forces. The Defense supplemental also provides that before Guantanamo is closed, the President is to submit to Congress a report describing the disposition or legal status of each detainee. So, in sum, the demands for information in this resolution are either moot or they are already being satisfied or are harmful to our country. So, accordingly, I recommend that we adversely report this resolution to the House. And I would now turn to our distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Texas, Lamar Smith.

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