Rand Paul: Bringing Gitmo detainees to US is ‘not the answer’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Friday said he would oppose a move by President Obama to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, through executive action.

“We voted on it many times in Congress, and while I do think that we should charge the people in Guantanamo Bay and go ahead and give them adjudication and sentence them, I think that really shutting it down, you have to have an answer as to what you’re going to do with these people,” he said on CNN’s The Situation Room, “and I think bringing them to our country is not the answer.”

Host Wolf Blitzer pressed him, asking Paul outright if he was in favor of keeping the prison open. Paul supported a measure last year that would have loosened restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

“Yeah, but I would have prosecuted these people dozens of years ago. It’s a huge mistake not to have adjudicated the process and given them — if they deserved punishment — given [them] their punishment,” Paul  responded.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the president was considering using executive action to close the Guantanamo facility and fulfill one of the major promises of his first term.

Congress has banned the transfer of prisoners from the facility to the United States, but the administration has suggested the restrictions are a violation of the president’s constitutional powers.