Five Things You May Have Missed in the US and Americas This Week
(1) First detainee leaves Guantánamo Bay since Trump took office.
On Wednesday, Ahmed al-Darbi, a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, was transferred back to his home country of Saudi Arabia. Al-Darbi was sent to the controversial prison in 2002, although he was not charged until 2014, when he pleaded guilty to five charges relating to the 2002 bombing of the oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. He will serve the remainder of his 13-year sentence in Saudi Arabia. Al-Darbi’s transfer leaves 40 other people detained in Guantánamo.
This marks the first occasion during Trump’s presidency that a prisoner has been released from the US military prison in Cuba. The announcement came shortly after the Pentagon delivered new recommendations to the White House concerning updated policies for sending detainees to Guantánamo. During the president’s State of the Union address in January, he directed Secretary of Defence James Mattis to ‘re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay’. The updated guidance provided by Mattis on Wednesday has not been publicized, but it has been described as vague and lacking in any significant changes to policy. Trump has remained committed to keeping the facility open and has also suggested sending more detainees to Guantánamo Bay although, as of yet, no new detainees have arrived.
(2) Trump allegedly dictated glowing health letter about himself in 2015.
Dr Harold Bornstein, Trump’s former personal physician, accused the president of dictating to him the content of a letter, released shortly before the presidential primaries, which claimed Trump would unequivocally be ‘the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency’. Bornstein also claimed that members of the president’s staff raided his office in February 2017 and removed copies of Trump’s medical records after he told The New York Times that Trump took Propecia — a drug that stimulates hair growth.
Dr Bornstein’s admission revives a debate about the president’s health which has emerged periodically during his campaign and presidency. Trump is the oldest person to be elected to a first term as president, and during the campaign he repeatedly suggested that Hillary Clinton was physically unfit to be president. The extent to which the president’s health should be public knowledge has been a hotly-debated topic for decades, given the health problems experienced by presidents including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
(3) Trump’s approach to Iran nuclear deal still unclear as deadline approaches.
As the 12 May deadline for Trump’s decision on waiving sanctions on Iran closes in, his administration has remained ambiguous on what the president’s final decision will be. If Trump does not waive sanctions, as per the nuclear agreement, it would constitute US withdrawal from the deal. New Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, equivocated, saying ‘We will continue to work with our European allies to fix that deal. But if a deal cannot be reached, the president has said that he will leave that deal’. The other signatories have reaffirmed their support for the JCPOA and argue that the deal is not open for change.
President Emmanuel Macron of France appealed to legislators in the US to recommit to the deal in his recent state visit but received no assurances from Trump. He said, ‘I don’t know what the US president will decide on 12 May’. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also presented ‘new evidence’ this week that Iran lied about its nuclear capabilities, in an attempt to influence Trump’s decision ahead of the looming deadline, though the information presented was from long before the deal was agreed.
(4) New developments in Mueller investigation.
A list of 44 questions which Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, wants to ask President Trump was leaked to The New York Times this week. According to the Times, the questions came from ‘a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team’, and some legal experts have argued that Trump allies released the list to bolster his defence. The questions reveal the broad scope of Mueller’s investigation, with a focus on contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, along with Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. The president stated that it was ‘disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were “leaked” to the media’ and claimed mistakenly that there were ‘no questions on Collusion’.
Further changes this week to Trump’s legal team representing him on the Russia investigation may also indicate a shift in approach to Mueller’s enquiries. Ty Cobb, Trump’s lead lawyer, announced that he would retire at the end of May. While Cobb had counselled Trump to act cooperatively with the investigation, the president’s hiring of Emmet Flood this week — and Rudy Giuliani last month — is indicative of a more aggressive tone. Flood brings with him experience as a representative of Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings as well as work in George W. Bush’s White House Counsel’s office where he dealt with ‘executive privilege-related disputes’.
(5) Southern states file to end DACA.
On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Texas joins six other states with Republican-controlled state legislatures in suing the US government to end DACA. The states claim that DACA is an unlawful policy that illegally granted undocumented individuals the ability to work and reside in the US. President Obama created DACA in 2012 through an executive order to protect undocumented individuals from deportation who were brought to the US as children.
This lawsuit comes a week after another federal court case ruled to uphold DACA, becoming the third since January 2018 to do so. The cases have been brought by universities, DACA recipients and civil rights organizations, which are opposed to the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA in September 2017. The ultimate decider of these cases would be the US Supreme Court, although it refused to review previous court decisions on DACA in February 2018, leaving the ultimate fate of the programme unclear.
