Pentagon broke law with Bergdahl prisoner swap, government watchdog says

A nonpartisan government watchdog agency said Thursday that the Pentagon broke the law when it swapped five Taliban leaders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl earlier this year.
The Government Accountability Office, in a legal opinion issued at the request of congressional lawmakers, said the Defense Department violated the law by failing to notify key Capitol Hill committees at least 30 days in advance.
Further, the report said the Pentagon broke another law by using funds that were not technically available.
Defense Department press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told Fox News Thursday night,  "the operation to retrieve Sgt. Bergdahl was lawfully conducted and that was also the judgment of the Justice Department. Nothing has changed about our view that this was a lawful recovery operation."
The GAO said the law in this case is "clear and unambiguous." The agency said that while the Defense Department defended the legality of the controversial swap, "in our view, DOD has dismissed the significance of the express language" in the law.
The report comes several months after the Obama administration released five senior Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Bergdahl, who had disappeared in 2009. Under the exchange terms, the five Taliban are to remain in Qatar for a year.
Lawmakers at the time complained about the security implications of releasing Taliban leaders from Guantanamo, but also about the late notification by the Pentagon that they were going forward with the swap.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, among the lawmakers who requested the report, said Thursday that the president “clearly defied” the law.
“We have all seen the President decide to override the concept of checks and balances in many questionable executive actions, but the GAO opinion confirms that by doing so in connection with the release of Bowe Bergdahl, he engaged in a clear violation of the law,” she said in a statement. “I hope this opinion by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office sends a clear signal to the President that his recent shift towards unilateral action is not consistent with this nation's principles and our carefully designed separation of powers."
Whether the finding will result in any formal legal complaint remains to be seen. The House Armed Services Committee has prepared a “resolution of disapproval” potentially to be considered later this year about the swap, but such a measure is nonbinding.
At issue were recent laws passed by Congress. The latest Defense spending bill states that no money can be used to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to another country "except in accordance" with a separate, related Defense law. That law requires the secretary of Defense to notify key congressional committees at least 30 days before such a transfer.
The swap occurred May 31 of this year. However, the GAO report said those committees were only notified between May 31 and June 2.
"When DOD failed to notify specified congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of its transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Qatar, DOD used appropriated funds in violation of section 8111," the report said.
It also said DOD violated the Antideficiency Act, which bars spending by agencies above the amount of money that Congress has obligated. In this case, the report said the Defense Department spent nearly $1 million more than it had.

Ryan says he'd love to see Romney run for president again

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan said Thursday he would love to see Mitt Romney run again for president and teased the GOP's former nominee at one point that the "third time's the charm."
Appearing with Ryan at a public event for the first time since their ticket lost two years ago, Romney offered his own good-humored praise by saying that Ryan "wouldn't be a bad president" himself.
Ryan, R-Wis., has said he will wait until after the midterm elections to decide whether to pursue his own presidential campaign in 2016. Romney has repeatedly denied any plans for another campaign for president. He failed to win the nomination in 2008 and then lost the election to President Barack Obama in 2012.
Romney interviewed Ryan about his new book, "The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea," on the brink of the fall election season. Republicans are driving for the six-seat gain required to grab the Senate majority. Success would put the GOP in control of Congress and dramatically shape the final two years of Obama's term.
They took turns criticizing Obama's record on domestic issues, including the economy, health care and immigration, with Ryan warning that Obama will "poison the well" on immigration compromise if he takes any unilateral action. Romney said Obama sent a message to Russia when he did not act in Syria and that there has been "an explosion of very bad things in the world" since then.
Romney said Obama's foreign policy is "based on his belief that everyone has the same interests" while he himself believes that some world leaders "want to dominate and some are fundamentally evil."
They also blamed Obama and the Democratic-led Senate for doing too little to reach out to Republicans and to act on important issues.
"If people want to actually see action in this country and dealing with problems from education to health care, immigration to our fiscal needs ... they're going to have to vote for Republican senators and ... a Republican president, as well," Romney said.
Ryan told reporters after the question-and-answer session with Romney that he would "love to see Mitt Romney run for president again."
Long before Romney and Ryan took the stage at the Union League Club of Chicago, Democrats said the pairing is a reminder of failure. In a statement, the Democratic National Committee listed what it called their memorable political gaffes, including Romney being caught on video telling donors that 47 percent of Americans would automatically vote for Obama because they don't pay income taxes and are "dependent upon government."
Romney has been campaigning for GOP candidates across the country, most recently for Rep. Tom Cotton this week in Arkansas, and Ryan has been promoting his book. Romney himself reviewed Ryan's manuscript and offered notes. And Ryan even sought advice from former Romney speechwriters and advisers during the writing.
The conversation Thursday centered on policy issues and didn't touch on the more personal parts of Ryan's book, including the fullest account yet of how Ryan, at 15, found his alcoholic father dead in bed from an apparent heart attack. Ryan told The Associated Press recently that the event shaped him as a politician and family man, and figures heavily into whether he'll seek the presidency in 2016.
Although writing a book often is seen as a prelude to a presidential campaign, Ryan has said he's not sure he's ready to spend more time away from Janesville, the small Wisconsin town where he grew up and where he and his wife, Janna, have raised their three children.

Hagel defends disclosure of secret, failed raid to free US hostages in Syria

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday defended the decision to formally acknowledge a failed mission to rescue American journalist James Foley and others held in Syria earlier this year, amid criticism from Republicans over the disclosure.
The White House and Defense Department, in a rare public confirmation of a covert mission, acknowledged late Wednesday that President Obama sent special operations troops to Syria this summer on a secret mission to rescue American hostages held by Islamic State extremists. The mission was not successful.
Hagel echoed White House and State Department claims, though, in saying the only reason they acknowledged the mission was because media outlets already knew about it.
“There were a number of news outlets that were aware of the action, of the raid,” he said Thursday. “It was a decision made by the administration, which we concurred with, to address the mission.”
The statement follows criticism from Republicans, regarding both the formal acknowledgement and the apparent leak beforehand to some members of the press.
Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, on Thursday called for an investigation into the leak.
“Successful or not, such operations are incredibly sensitive, even after they have concluded. Disclosure of these missions puts our troops at risk, reduces the likelihood that future missions will succeed, and risks the lives of hostages and informants alike,” he said in a statement. “While I believe it was unwise for the White House and Department of Defense to formally acknowledge this operation; it is outrageous that someone would be so selfish and short sighted to leak it to the media.”
He urged Hagel and other officials to investigate the matter “immediately and thoroughly.”
The disclosure prompted comparisons to past leaks from the administration, regarding details of the successful Usama bin Laden raid and other operations.
“This is sort of the same thing,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Fox News. “One can't help but assume that this is sort of [to try] to help the PR, that they tried to rescue the hostages.”
In some cases, the administration has launched investigations into security leaks -- and has come under criticism from free press and whistleblower groups for aggressively prosecuting the leakers. 
In this case, critics voiced concerns that the disclosure jeopardizes other hostages.
Hagel said Thursday “there’s always risks” in any decision they make.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Hard said the administration had no intention of making the mission public, but was forced to do so because reporters were preparing to publish stories about it.
Officials, in disclosing the raid, said earlier that the rescue mission was authorized after intelligence agencies believed they had identified the location inside Syria where the hostages were being held. But the several dozen special operations forces dropped by aircraft into Syria did not find them at that location and engaged in a firefight with Islamic State militants before departing, killing several militants. No Americans died but one sustained a minor injury when an aircraft was hit.
The administration revealed the rescue operation a day after the militants released a video showing the beheading of Foley and threatened to kill a second hostage, Steven Sotloff, if U.S. airstrikes against the militants in Iraq continued.
The disclosure of the rescue mission marks the first time the U.S. has revealed that American military personnel have been on the ground in Syria since a bloody civil war there broke out more than three years ago. Obama has resisted calls to insert the U.S. military in the middle of Syria's war, a cautious approach his critics say has allowed the Islamic State to strengthen there and make gains across the border in Iraq, where the U.S. is now conducting airstrikes.