In an appearance on 1070 WAPI’s “Matt Murphy Show” in Birmingham, AL on Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reacted to Wednesday night’s closed-door briefing the White House gave to members of the U.S. Senate about the deal that resulted in the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees that had been held at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sessions, a 17-year veteran of the Senate, told host Matt Murphy it was the most troubling briefing to which he had been privy and was devoid of credibility.
“Look, we had a briefing with a number of officials last night,” Sessions said. “It was one of the most troubling briefing I’ve ever been in. It 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.”
“He did it anyway,” Sessions continued. “He didn’t tell them 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 way 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.”
On the question of impeachment, which had been raised by Sessions’ colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sessions didn’t outright suggest impeachment as a measure. But he did admit he was troubled by the “lawlessness” of President Barack Obama.
“I’ll just say it this way – the commander-in-chief has to be responsible to law and people are getting very concerned about the lawlessness that we’re seeing here,” Sessions replied. “It goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen. It reflects an ignorance of a great American system where people pass laws. Even if they don’t like them, they abide with them. So if our top leaders are just ignoring laws, this has a corrosive effect on the entire integrity of the democratic republic that we’re so proud of. I mean the rule of law is at the bottom of our prosperity and our liberty. And I don’t think the president has a sufficient grasp of that.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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