“I’ve been there a number of times as a senator, and it’s just a very fine place for holding these kind of dangerous criminals,” Sessions says. | AP Photo Sessions: I'd advise Trump to use Guantanamo Bay

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he sees “no legal problem whatsoever” with bringing new enemy combatants to the detention center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, a facility that former President Barack Obama sought, and ultimately failed, to empty and close.

“There’s plenty of space. We’re well-equipped for it. It’s a perfect place for it. Eventually this will be decided by the military rather than the Justice Department, but I see no legal problem whatsoever with doing that,” Sessions responded when asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt what his response would be should President Donald Trump seek guidance on sending new detainees to the controversial prison facility.


Closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay was a campaign promise of Obama’s in 2008, one he sought to keep by ordering its shutdown on his first day in office. But closing the facility proved more difficult than a stroke of a pen for Obama, who fought Republican lawmakers throughout his presidency on the issue.

Ultimately, Obama managed to dramatically reduce the prisoner population at Guantanamo but was unable to empty out and close the detention center entirely.

Trump, on the other hand, promised during his presidential campaign to “load [Guantanamo] up with some bad dudes.” He has also been critical of Obama’s policy of shrinking the number of prisoners housed there, blaming him for the number of released detainees who have returned to terrorism activities even though the vast majority of the recidivists were released not by Obama but by former President George W. Bush.

Sessions, too, said he did not support Obama’s goal of closing the facility and instead said he would encourage Trump to keep it open and in use. He called for the military justice system to speed up the process of holding hearings on the detainees and told Hewitt that “by now, we should have worked through all the legal complications that the Obama administration seemed to allow to linger.”

“I’ve been there a number of times as a senator, and it’s just a very fine place for holding these kind of dangerous criminals,” Sessions said. “We’ve spent a lot of money fixing it up, and I’m inclined to the view that it remains a perfectly acceptable place. And I think a lot of the criticisms have just been totally exaggerated.”