McCain threatens Obama with court battle over Guantanamo

US Senator John McCain is threatening a court battle if President Barack Obama uses his executive authority to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without congressional approval.

“Rumors are that he will act again in an unconstitutional manner,” McCain, Republican of Arizona and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO.

“I think it’s unconstitutional. I think we’d have to go to court,” he added.

The $607 billion “defense policy bill” known as the National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress overwhelmingly passed this week, contains a provision prohibiting the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to detention facilities in the United States.

The Senate voted 91-3 in favor of the 2016 NDAA on Tuesday following last week's 370-58 vote in the House of Representatives. Congress sent the measure to Obama.

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly prevented Obama from fulfilling a 2008 campaign pledge to shutter the Guantanamo military prison, which has become a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge.

The administration is pressing lawmakers to go along with a plan to transfer the remaining 112 detainees at Guantanamo, and has threatened that all options are on the table.

The Pentagon is preparing to release a report outlining options for closing Guantanamo.

Obama might use his authority as commander in chief to close the prison, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week.

Faced with the prospect of being bypassed, Republicans in Congress might be willing to work with Obama on a legislative compromise to shut down the prison.

“If it has all these different options, it’s not a plan,” McCain said in the interview. “It’s passing the buck over to the Congress of the United States, knowing full well without a specific plan that it doesn’t have any chance — maybe laying the groundwork for what the president did on immigration, which is the executive order.”

The United Nations and human rights organizations have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to close the detention facility at Guantánamo.

As many as 775 detainees had been brought to the prison, which was set up by the administration of George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The United States says the prisoners are terror suspects, but has not pressed charges against most of them in any court. Many detainees have been on hunger strike for months to draw attention to their conditions at the US military prison.

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