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Title: Trump: Americans could be tried in Guantánamo
Source:
Miami Herald
URL Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/pol ... ald-trump/article95144337.html
Published: Aug 12, 2016
Author: Patricia Mazzei
Post Date: 2016-08-12 18:04:14 by Hondo68
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Keywords: set aside money to, combat Zika virus, require an act of Congress
Views: 765
Comments: 2
A President Donald Trump might push for Americans accused of terrorism to be tried in a military tribunal at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Republican nominee told the Miami Herald on Thursday. “I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine,” Trump said in a brief interview ahead of his speech to home builders in Miami Beach. Under current federal law, it’s illegal to try U.S. citizens at military commissions. Changing the law would require an act of Congress. In the wide-ranging interview focused on key South Florida issues, Trump continued to question climate change caused by humans. He said he plans to soon sit down with Cuban Americans in Miami to hash out a Cuba policy. And for the first time, he said Congress should set aside money to combat the Zika virus. Asked about Guantánamo in the past, Trump has said he would like to “load it up with bad dudes.” He wouldn’t specify to the Herald whether as president he would again allow terrorism suspects captured abroad to be transferred to the detention center. “I want to make sure that if we have radical Islamic terrorists, we have a very safe place to keep them,” he said. President Barack Obama, he added, is “allowing people to get out that are terrible people.” “Would you try to get the military commissions — the trial court there — to try U.S. citizens?” a reporter asked. “Well, I know that they want to try them in our regular court systems, and I don’t like that at all. I don’t like that at all,” he said. “I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine.” The Obama administration for a while considered trying five alleged conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in a federal court in New York City, rather than in Guantanamo where they are being held. But the plan was met with such fierce political resistance that the White House chose to prosecute them by military tribunal. No trial date has yet been set for charges filed four years ago. Trump spoke to the Herald at the Fontainebleau Hotel, steps from the shoreline and not far from streets the city of Miami Beach has spent millions of dollars elevating to fend off rising seas. “I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change,” Trump said, despite vast scientific evidence to the contrary. “There could be some impact, but I don’t believe it’s a devastating impact.” In the past, Trump has called climate change a “hoax.” “I would say that it goes up, it goes down,” he said. “Certainly climate has changed. … The problem we have is our businesses are suffering. Our businesses are unable to compete in this country because other countries aren’t being forced to do what our businesses are being forced to do, and it makes us uncompetitive.” If cities like Miami Beach want to set local rules to fight the effects of rising seas, though, Trump said he wouldn’t get in their way. “If the local government feels that way, they should do it,” he said. “If they’re doing the roads, and if they want to make them higher, I think that’s probably not the worst thing I’ve ever heard, if you’re going to do them anyway.” On Miami’s Zika outbreak, Trump said he would “let some of the funds that they’re asking for come in” to fight the virus. He would ask Congress to do that? “Yeah, I would. Absolutely,” he said, in apparent agreement with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Florida politicians from both political parties who have urged lawmakers to help fund the Zika response. “They’re fighting for it, and hopefully that’s going to be approved very soon.” “It’s a tough thing to stop anyway,” he added about the mosquito-borne virus, praising Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Trump supporter. “But they’re spraying all over the place. I see it. And I think it’ll be fine.” In the next week or two, Trump said he intends to return to Miami to meet with Cuban Americans about U.S. policy toward the island. He has said it’s “fine” for the Obama administration to pursue renewed ties with Cuba but called for a “stronger” deal. Pressed with what that agreement would look like, Trump offered a single specific detail: The U.S. should bar Cuba from pushing for reparations for losses it claims stemmed from the American trade embargo. “Any deal you make, you’re going to put a very major paragraph in that deal that under no circumstances can Cuba come back two years later and bring a $3 trillion lawsuit against the United States for reparations,” he said. The problem with that stance: It would likely also foreclose U.S. efforts — led by the same Cuban Americans Trump will probably hear from — for reparations from Cuba for businesses confiscated by the Castro government. Trump declined to take a position on the wet-foot, dry-foot policy that allows Cubans who reach U.S. soil to stay in the country. Earlier this year, he questioned the fairness of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which lets Cubans obtain legal status and a path to citizenship. “I want to listen to what the people are saying,” he said. “And I want to listen specifically to what Cuban people who came to this country and who have lived in this country — Cuban Americans — I want to hear how they feel about it.” The Herald interview was Trump’s second with a South Florida news outlet in as many weeks. He spoke to Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4 late last month, and he taped another interview Thursday with WTVJ-NBC 6. Clinton, who campaigned in Miami and Davie on Tuesday, has not taken questions from local reporters. Trump got things started by mentioning a new national Rasmussen poll whose results he liked because they showed him virtually tied with Clinton. His least-focused response came on Venezuela. At a Sunrise rally Wednesday night, he’d warned the U.S., under poor leadership, could “end up being a large version of Venezuela.” What did he mean? “Venezuela’s got tremendous problems right now, even for getting food, and when I look at it, I’m so sad, because I know how great the people of Venezuela are. But I use that as an example,” he said. “Certain policies cause that to happen.” What should the U.S. do about it? “Their leaders are not very friendly to our leaders,” Trump said. “But, of course, our leaders don’t get along with too many people. But certainly, if we could help in some way, we should help. But, you know, they’ve got some very deep-seated problems.” Trump claimed ignorance of comparisons, including by international scholars, between his brash political style and that of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. As candidates, both cast themselves as the only ones able to fix their countries, and their underdog campaigns relied on appealing to voters ignored by political elites. “He had some feelings, some very strong feelings, and he did represent a lot of people, and he represented a lot of people that had been left behind,” Trump said. “We have people that, honestly, they’ve been left behind.” .mcclatchy-embed{position:relative;padding:40px 0 56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%}.mcclatchy-embed iframe{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%} Poster Comment: In Trump's world there is no Constitution, BOR, or Rule of Law, so any sort of tyranny is possible. He who pays the biggest bribe, wins. No payola, and you may be deemed to be a "terrorist" by some foreign kangaroo court, and beheaded. Law of the jungle. An "act of Congress" won't do it. Trump's illegal plan would require a constitutional amendment canceling the Bill Of Rights and the bulk of the document, and permitting lawlessness and tyranny.
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#1. To: Unconstitutional, scofflaw Trump, tyrant (#0)
Written by Military tribunals have been used for U.S. citizens, and their use upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The real problem with the Gitmo gang is that they are neither "unlawful enemy combatants" nor "unprivileged enemy belligerents." With the exception of the Taliban when they were an official government, they were never combatants. If they are recognized as belligerents, they are recognized as lawful combatants. Military commissions are invoked under Article I, not Article 3, and are a creature of the Executive Branch, not the Judicial Branch. Article 1, Se. 8, Cl. 10 provides that Congress has the power "to define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and offenses against the Law of Nations." The Law of Nations and the Laws of War are international in nature and not subject to revision by any nation. Unilateral revisions of the definition or meaning of combatant or belligerent are not somehow magically incorporated into international law or (same thing) the law of nations. The problem is not the citizenship of the detainee. Saying the Act did not apply to citizens was cosmetic to the problems in the Act itself. Attempted prosecutions under the statute have repeatedly failed against aliens. It would probably be held unconstitutional if the law were changed to allow military tribunals to try U.S. citizens nonspecifically. The Military Commissions Act of 2009 only applies to "alien unprivileged enemy belligerents." But what of U.S. citizen "unprivileged enemy belligerents" who join ISIS (or somesuch), take up arms, and are captured as "unprivileged belligerents" of a foreign force? U.S. citizens were tried by military tribunal, convicted, and executed during World War 2. The use of a commission was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. But they were actual unlawful combatants, in a time of actual war (not a Global War on Terror or a War on Poverty, or the like). Wearing German uniforms, they landed on Long Island to carry out a military mission. They shed their uniforms on the beach. Had they been captured as unlawful combatants overseas, the tribunal could be held overseas. The fact of citizenship does not rule out the use of a military tribunal, but it limits the jurisdiction to crimes on the high seas or against the Law of Nations (the now archaic term for International Law).
Trump: Americans May Be Tried In Military Tribunals Under His Administration
Jonathan Turley
I have long been a critic of military tribunals as constitutionally dubious and practically ineffectual institutions. The tribunals at Guantanamo Bay have resulted in few actual trials and undermined the standing of the United States as a nation committed to the rule of law. The principle rationale cited by former officials in defense of Gitmo has been that it would not be used to try citizens. Now in a deeply disturbing interview, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has stated that he might try citizens at Gitmo — maintaining a shadow court system for stripping citizens of basic rights of due process just a few miles off the United States shore.
As an attorney who has long practiced in the national security field (including terrorism cases), the tribunal system has never made a great deal of sense to me. Federal courts have long tried terrorists and the government has a high success rate in such cases. The creation of a faux court system only gives our enemies a rallying cry and fuels those who to call us hypocrites.
Those concerns are magnified by Trump’s dismissal of any distinction between citizens and non-citizens in the use of such tribunals. In an interview with the Miami Herald on Thursday, Trump was asked if he would use the tribunals against US citizens. Trump responded: “Well, I know that they want to try them in our regular court systems, and I don’t like that at all. I don’t like that at all. I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine.”
That may be fine in Trump’s view but it would also be unconstitutional. Presidents are not allowed to create alternative court systems for denying citizens of core rights at their discretion. Such a Caesar-like role runs against the very grain of the American constitutional system. The statement by Trump reflects a disconcerting lack of faith in our court system and a fundamental misunderstanding of the limits placed upon presidents in our constitutional system.
Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.
Castle(C), Stein(G), Johnson(L)
#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
Those concerns are magnified by Trump’s dismissal of any distinction between citizens and non-citizens in the use of such tribunals.
Under current federal law, it’s illegal to try U.S. citizens at military commissions. Changing the law would require an act of Congress.
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