On Friday, President Obama signed yet another annual defense bill which explicitly forbids closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, leaving a pledge to close the site, made on his first day in office, unresolved.
Despite this, President Obama insisted that he will “do everything I can” to close the site, which apparently did not include not signing anything that bans closing the site.
Obama did accompany the signing with a statement insisting that anything he views as violation of his constitutional powers, which includes the Gitmo provision, would be ignored.
Yet the president has made statements to that effect with previous bills that also forbade closing the site, and has so far not actually made a serious effort to close the facility, and indeed has at times blamed Congress for not having done so.
