EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans are seeking to extend the ban on shuttering the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and on transferring the terrorists behind 9/11 to the United States amid President Joe Biden’s vows to close the facility.
As Biden has quietly worked to shutter Guantanamo Bay’s military prison, he has been pushing for plea deals with the al Qaeda terrorists, which could take the death penalty off the table. The campaign promise by Biden to shut down Guantanamo Bay has made little visible progress and has been stymied by strong opposition from Republicans.
INSIDE BIDEN’S COMPLICATED EFFORTS TO SHUT DOWN GITMO
The new legislation pushing back against Biden’s efforts to close Guantanamo Bay was introduced Friday by Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), a former U.S. Air Force officer, with co-sponsors including Reps. James Moylan (R-GU), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Carlos Antonio Gimenez (R-FL), and Cory Mills (R-FL).
The National Defense Authorization Act passed in late 2022 included prohibitions on using U.S. taxpayer and Pentagon funds to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to certain foreign countries, a ban on using such taxpayer funds to construct or modify facilities inside the U.S. to house Guantanamo Bay detainees — including the men responsible for 9/11 — and a section forbidding the relinquishing of U.S. control over Guantanamo Bay.
The NDAA passed last year put those bans in place through 2023 — and the new proposed legislation would extend those prohibitions through 2024, almost through the end of Biden’s first term.
“The individuals who are imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are the worst of the worst. Simply put, they are too dangerous to be released or transferred to another prison on U.S. soil,” Fallon told the Washington Examiner. “Calls to close the detention facility at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are shortsighted and have always been beat back in a bipartisan manner. This bill ensures that trend continues, and the United States remains safe from these terrorists.”
Biden signed the $768 billion NDAA into law in December 2022 but included a signing statement criticizing those provisions.
“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch that these provisions unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release,” Biden wrote. “In some circumstances, these provisions could make it difficult to comply with the final judgment of a court that has directed the release of a detainee on writ of habeas corpus, including by constraining the flexibility of the executive branch with respect to its engagement in delicate negotiations with foreign countries over the potential transfer of detainees.”
Biden added: “I urge the Congress to eliminate these restrictions as soon as possible.”
Pretrial hearings for the yet-to-start 9/11 trial have been repeatedly canceled as the Biden administration seeks to strike a deal with the al Qaeda members. Negotiations between the prosecutors and defense attorneys, which began in March 2022, could reportedly result in guilty plea deals in which capital punishment would not be a possible punishment for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was a close ally of Osama bin Laden and was involved in a host of terrorist attacks, as well as the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and his four co-defendants.
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After more than 21 years, justice has yet to be attained in the case against the plotters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and any possible trial has been pushed back even further.
Top Republicans have criticized any deal that would take the death penalty off the table.
Nevertheless, Biden has continued his efforts to shut Guantanamo Bay down. But even if plea deals were secured with KSM and his co-conspirators, Republicans would seek to block those men from ever leaving Guantanamo Bay.
