(Above: Sen. Sessions discusses the Taliban prisoner swap with Matt Murphy)
As a guest this morning on Matt Murphy’s Birmingham-area talk radio program, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he believes the Obama Administration made a “colossal error” in negotiating a prisoner swap with the Taliban.
Key national security staffers from the White House hosted a closed-door briefing with members of the Senate Wednesday night in which they detailed the decision to release five Taliban detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in exchange for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
“We had a briefing with a number of officials last night,” Sessions said. “It was one of the most troubling briefings I’ve ever been in. It had no credibility with me. The arguments and the reasons they gave for what they did just did not ring true. They didn’t meet the common sense test. We’ve got people at war right now in Afghanistan. They’re on patrol. They’re working with the Afghan allies and some of the things they’ve said about this just seems oblivious to the reality of that.”
Sessions pointed out that the president ignored the law that congress must be notified 30 days before any such prisoner release.
“He did it anyway,” Sessions said. “He didn’t tell (congress) in advance and it’s a colossal error. In my opinion, it’s a colossal error. It hurts our country. It weakens the United States in a whole host of ways and I am very worried about it. I just think it doesn’t reflect an understanding of what it means to commit men and women to combat and what we owe them. Are we going to release five of the worst terrorists? And one of these terrorists in Afghanistan – his statement has been interpreted and he basically said it’s the equivalent of adding 10,000 jihadists to our cause, this release. This is a huge victory for the Taliban and al Qaeda and I am just baffled by it. I can’t comprehend it.”
(h/t Breitbart)
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