Last Summer’s prisoner swap that freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was met with outrage by a number of Republican lawmakers who claimed President Obama broke the law, and compromised national security in freeing five Taliban prisoners that had been detained at Guantanamo Bay.
But there was one powerful conservative who remained silent while his cohorts attacked, and newly released documents provide an explanation as to why.
According to documents made public through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by investigative journalist Jason Leopold, on June 1, 2014, the same day Bergdahl was released, the White House reached out to a number of Senators, notifying them of the events that took place.
One of those was Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who, according to a State Department memo, was “very positive” about the news.
“Corker said he understood the need to waive the 30-day notification,” according to State Department official James Dobbins in a memo recapping “congressional engagement” on the Bergdahl swap.
Dobbins, a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was referring to provisions passed by Congress that require the president to notify lawmakers 30-days in advance of any prisoner release from Guantanamo Bay. In the Bergdahl affair, President Obama chose not notify Members of Congress ahead of the time, citing the sensitive nature of the operation.
Corker is now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but at the time of the deal, he was the committee’s ranking member. A little over a week after Bergdahl’s release, Corker had an opportunity to raise the issue to the administration’s nominated ambassador to Qatar – a country that was instrumental in negotiations that led to the prisoner exchange.
Corker didn’t mention it. Nor has the Senator’s office released any sort of public statement on the Bergdahl swap. He’s been completely silent on the issue, which stands in stark contrast to the noise other Republican lawmakers have been making.
Shortly after news of the release, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) accused the president of “negotiating with terrorists,” and violating the law.
Sen. Ted Cruz called the deal “very disturbing.” Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) expressed similar sentiments.
Last June, eight Republican Senators including John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) penned a letter to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blaming him for the deal. They said the Senate Majority Leader at the time failed to put in place stronger restrictions against Guantanamo detainee releases that would have prevented the prisoner swap.
“Because of your actions, members were not able to get a straightforward, focused vote on barring the transfer of Guantanamo detainees. The end result was that the bill only contained a reporting provision (which the president broke) and not a strict prohibition on transfer of detainees as was previous law,” the Senators wrote.
Sen. McCain promised last November, after Republicans took control of the upper chamber, that as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he would hold hearings on the Bergdahl exchange. So far, none have been scheduled.
The Army is still considering pressing charges against Bergdahl, who has been accused by fellow soldiers of desertion—a move, they say, that led to his capture, and subsequent five-year detainment by the Taliban. A move to court martial Bergdahl could vault the issue back into the minds of lawmakers. So, too, could news that any of the Taliban prisoners released in exchange for Bergdahl have returned to the battlefield.
Should a fresh wave of outrage sweep across Capitol Hill, two foreign policy-minded Senators, McCain and Corker, may find themselves at odds over how to handle it.
