AGAINST ADVICE

New Trump Executive Order Draft: Bring ISIS to Gitmo

“It raises huge legal risks.”

The Trump White House is reportedly circulating a draft executive order that would direct the Department of Defense to put future Islamic State terror group suspects in the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The document, published by The New York Times, leaves out language from previous versions that would have directed the CIA to reopen “black site” prisons. According to the Times, the White House is nearly finished with the order, speeding past apparent warnings from legal scholars and national-security experts alike. Detractors argue the move would harm, rather than help, international efforts to fight the extremist group. “It raises huge legal risks,” said Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith. The scholar, who was also a senior Justice Department official in the Bush administration, added: “If a judge says the Sept. 11 authorization does not cover such a detention, it would not only make that detention unlawful, it would weaken the legal basis for the entire war against the Islamic State.”