WASHINGTON - A new congressional report details what Republicans call a deception surrounding a controversial 2014 prisoner swap, suggesting the release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for American captive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had an ulterior motive: helping President Obama get closer to his goal of shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After a year-and-a-half-long investigation, the House Armed Services Committee's Republican majority also renewed assertions that the decision to send the senior Taliban figures to Qatar, a move that took place just hours after Bergdahl was freed from Taliban captivity, without notifying Congress violated several laws. It also misled lawmakers in a way that "severely harmed" the administration's ties with Congress, the report found.
The prisoner exchange, which was pulled off under tight secrecy, ignited a storm of criticism whose effects are visible today, as the White House struggles to build congressional support for resettling some Guantanamo prisoners overseas and bringing others to the United States. While administration officials hope to help Obama deliver on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office, lawmakers appear unlikely to drop their long-standing opposition.
The controversy over the transfer was compounded by revelations that Bergdahl walked off his small Army outpost in southeast Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl, who was held under difficult conditions in Pakistan for five years, is now facing desertion charges in a military court.
Cmdr. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Obama administration only approves detainee transfers when officials conclude that security risks could be managed. "We determined that this standard has been satisfied here," he said.
During the investigation, committee staff members reviewed over 4,000 pages of documents, including numerous emails between administration officials; conducted interviews; and visited Qatar, where government officials made arrangements to monitor the Afghans after their release. The Washington Post and several other news organizations obtained a copy of the report before its release.
The report details internal communications regarding the transfer, focusing in part on what it depicts as administration efforts to conceal their plans from Congress and the news media.
By February 2014, the report said, the administration had solicited a proof-of-life video of Bergdahl as a step toward a potential swap, and officials were advancing their discussions with their Qatari counterparts. News reports had surfaced suggesting that a renewed push to secure Bergdahl's release had begun.
"Yet, the Department did not convey any of the details to the Committee," the report stated. "Indeed, [a Taliban statement to the Associated Press] contained more specifics about a prospective exchange than what was conveyed through official channels to the Committee and others in Congress at the time."
Around the same time, then-Pentagon General Counsel Stephen Preston was helping prepare then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for budget testimony. According to the report, Preston proposed the following response if Hagel was asked about the subject: "As for recent reports, let me just say this: 'We have not been involved in active negotiations with the Taliban recently, but SGT Bergdahl's return is an issue we would like to discuss with the Taliban if and when such talks are restarted.' "
It was not immediately clear whether the Pentagon would have considered steps taken up to that point "active negotiations with the Taliban" or something else.
Perhaps most problematic for the White House, committee Republicans contend that the transfer was at least partly motivated by a desire to clear out hardened detainees who could stand in the way of closing Guantanamo.
"This took . . . five very difficult and otherwise intractable cases off the table at a time when the administration is seeking to maximize the number of those that they transferred," said one committee aide who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe publicly.
There are 107 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, 48 of whom have been approved to be released overseas. Although the administration is seeking to resettle detainees who are not seen as security risks, others may eventually be tried or simply detained indefinitely without trial.
Committee officials acknowledged they did not uncover communication stating such an objective specifically.
"While we do not have an email saying, 'Do this because this is going to help with the president's campaign promise,' something as explicit as that, we draw the conclusion on the basis of the totality of what we have in front of us," another aide said.
A written dissent from the committee's Democratic leaders called the report "an expression of shrill demagoguery, contrary to the interests of national security, and beneath the dignity of the House Armed Services Committee."
Rep. Adam Smith (Washington), the committee's top Democrat, and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, another senior committee member, said that investigators appeared to have "cherry-picked" information used in the report.
The prisoner exchange was originally envisioned as a confidence-building measure in hoped-for peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan. But when the possibility of peace talks receded, officials decided to proceed with the swap on its own.
The sole point in the report that secured bipartisan support was what the Democratic dissent called the "unfortunate" fact that the administration failed to comply with rules requiring a 30-day notification to Congress before a detainee transfer.
The report does not put to rest the debate about the legality of the transfer. After the transfer, the Government Accountability Office determined the administration violated the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act by failing to give 30-day notice and also the Anti-Deficiency Act because it used money for that purpose.
Since the Taliban swap took place, lawmakers have tightened rules governing those transfers, making it harder for the administration to empty out the prison.
The Washington Post's Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.