Disapproval of the Administration's Failure to Notify Congress Before Releasing Individuals from Guantanamo Bay

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it seems to me you have two issues here: one, Congress, which we have an enumerated power to make rules for detainees captured on land and water; then you also have, as the GAO report pointed out, a funding prohibition that withheld funds contingent on the President providing that notification.

As Madison said in the Federalist Papers, the power of the purse is the most effectual weapon that we have in terms of vindicating the interests of our constituents. So whatever the President's article II power is, clearly, if we remove the funding, then he is not able to do that through the executive branch.

So the question is: Knowing that, why go ahead and do it? Why not comply with both the statute and the funding restriction? I think the reason is because they knew this would not be popular with the American people. One of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, ``Well, this statute really shouldn't apply in this situation because hard-liners in the enemy camp can nix the deal.''

I have got news for you, Mr. Speaker, the hard-liners were the subject of the deal. I served in Guantanamo for a time. The Bush administration released detainees who they thought may not have been a danger anymore. Nobody would have even suggested that this Taliban Five did not represent a danger to our national security.

So here we have an instance where Congress clearly exercised its authority in order to check the President on an issue with, in terms of the terrorist detainees, that his views are, quite frankly, not representative of the American people as a whole. We did that legitimately, and this President decided to flagrantly violate the lawful actions that we took.

I urge support for this resolution.

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