Kansas AG Schmidt suing to obtain Gitmo planning records

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is pictured in this file photo from Oct. 10, 2014.

? Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said Friday that he is suing the Obama administration to obtain records about its plans for transferring detainees from a U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he suggested the administration is withholding those documents for political advantage.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in Kansas. It names the U.S. Department of Defense as the defendant.

In a news release, Schmidt said he first filed a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act in December and that the administration acknowledged it has some of the records. But he said the Department of Defense is now refusing to release the records until Nov. 15, a week after the general election.

“The Obama administration now claims it will not transfer detainees to the mainland, but we want to verify this claim because it appears the administration previously violated a federal ban on even preparing for such a transfer,” Schmidt said.

“Our concerns are heightened because the administration admits it has the records we requested and initially promised to produce them but now are inexplicably dragging their feet until after the November election,” he said. “We are seeking some court-ordered sunshine now to discourage mischief later in the final weeks before the president leaves office.”

The U.S. has been detaining suspects of being “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration. People detained there are technically not considered prisoners of war and so are not protected by international treaties.

And because the prison is not on U.S. soil, the Bush administration initially claimed the prisoners did not enjoy the same constitutional protections that prisoners here would have, including the right to a speedy trial, the right to counsel and the right to see evidence being used against them.

Federal courts later declared that the prisoners are entitled to U.S. constitutional protections.

Nevertheless, the continued practice of detaining suspected terrorists there has drawn international criticism. During his first campaign for president, Barack Obama vowed to close the prison, releasing those who were no longer deemed a threat and transferring the remaining detainees to U.S. prisons, possibly including the military prison at Fort Leavenworth.

But Congress has refused to allow that. In military budget bills passed in both 2014 and 2015, Congress specifically prohibited the use of federal funds either to transfer or assist in the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Those appropriation bills also prohibited the use of federal funds to construct or modify any facility for the purpose of housing Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Despite that, Schmidt alleges in the lawsuit, the Defense Department in 2015 sent survey teams to various alternative sites, including Fort Leavenworth, to determine whether they would be suitable to house the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

An estimated 780 people have been detained at the facility since 2002. Most of those have since been released without charges while about 76 remain, according to a list compiled by the New York Times.

Among those is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistan native believed to be the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11.